A trade counter
that never closes

Already built and running

Over the past weeks I designed and built Lays OS on my own time: a complete sales portal, deployed and working, ready to roll out to the rep team. What is in it today:

• Quote & order builderLook up a customer, add lines at their tier, and build a quote or order on the spot. One tap prints a branded A4 quote with our GST number and 30-day validity, or saves it as a PDF to text the builder before we leave the site. Ready to push into SAP the day Service Layer access lands.
• Client book per repEach rep sees only their own customers: spend this month, all time, last order, who has gone quiet, and every invoice with tap-to-open line detail.
• Product lookupThe full stocked range with tier pricing and per-branch stock. Search understands how the trade talks: “m12 galv bolt” or “3 x 6 ss button” finds the right code.
• Trends & targetsCharts from the real invoice lines: each rep sees their own monthly sales, top products and item groups; management gets the branch split and target attainment per rep.
• Team chatFive channels: Team, Orders, Stock Transfer, Wanaka, Queenstown. Mentions buzz the rep's phone even with the app closed, and client-tagged messages show on that client's page.
• Residential build playbookThe sales playbook as a working tool: 15 build stages, 6 wrap systems and 6 job types, every one linked to the products we sell for it.
• Admin & securityLogin management, rep-to-client assignments, pricing, targets, and a one-command SAP data refresh. Reps never see another rep's book. Installs on any phone like an app.

It already runs on our real SAP data, refreshed with a one-command import; rolling it out to the reps is a switch we flick, not a project.

The platform was built outside my job and today sits outside the business. On appointment to this role, Lays receives a perpetual, royalty-free licence to the platform: full use, full source access, no annual fees, and the licence survives any change in my role, so the business is never dependent on me to keep running it. I retain ownership of the underlying platform I built. On appointment, the deployment and all business data move onto Lays-owned accounts, so the company holds its own systems and customer information from day one.

The roadmap

The end goal is the whole business on one platform: reps, customers, drivers and management. Each phase is independently valuable and de-risks the next, and Phase 1 needs nothing from SAP's side, so it proves customer demand before we spend anything on integration. The SAP side has no cold start either: I know our SAP partner's team and have already lodged the Service Layer access request with them, read-only first, with write access and the licensing question flagged for when we get there. And the phases are a starting line, not a ceiling: the platform already knows our products, prices, stock and clients, so almost anything can be built on top of it (driver run sheets, barcode scanning, stocktakes, automated quote follow-ups, margin reporting), in days rather than a vendor's financial year.

Why now

PlaceMakers, Mitre 10 Trade and Bunnings all give their account customers an app and online ordering. Every year we make customers ring or drive in, the convenience gap pulls them toward the big boxes one order at a time. An ordering platform at their tier pricing, on account, is how an independent keeps its best customers locked in.

What this costs everyone else

Market rates for the same capability, for context; these are typical NZ ranges. Every route needs the SAP partner to switch on system access for phases 2 and 3, but the difference is how much of them you buy: an agency or platform buys the whole integration in partner hours, while under this proposal I build the integration in house and the partner is only needed for the one-off access setup, a request I have already lodged with their team.

The proposal

Formalise a hybrid Digital & Commercial role: I keep operational involvement in the business and own the digital platform end to end, from the rep portal to customer ordering to the SAP link.

What Lays gets

• A 24/7 order channel that locks trade customers in against the big-box competitors, at their tier pricing, on account.
• The platform secured for good: a perpetual, royalty-free licence with full source access that survives any change in my role. No annual fees, no agency dependency.
• One person who knows both sides: the trade counter, the reps and the customers, and the code and SAP data underneath.
• Continuous improvement instead of quoted change requests: fixes and features ship in days, not procurement cycles.
• Continuity, guaranteed: the platform runs on Lays' own accounts, is fully documented, and if I ever move on I provide a paid handover at agreed rates so the business is never left stranded.

The first 90 days

What I need from you

• A yes on the role, so the reps can be live on it next week.
• Five pilot customers we pick together for the first ordering invites.
• Your go-ahead on the Service Layer access request already sitting with our SAP partner, when we choose to do phases 2 and 3.

I built this on my own evenings because I can see what this business is capable of, and I want to be the one who builds it here. This proposal is me asking to do that properly.