FieldAssist

  An effective territory beat plan is one of the most important aspects of FMCG sales and distribution management since it prevents wastage of time and effort. At FieldAssist, one of our key features is to assist organizations to redesign their territory plan on the Sales force automation solution such that field executives can optimize their visits and cover a larger territory in the same business time. Once the territory planning is complete, managers can allocate time to each of their field visits and develop an effective route map for the week that covers the entire list of outlets to be covered. With an even distribution of outlets in each territory, field executives are happier to follow the route plan. A well-thought-out territory management plan, therefore, ensure that the organization provides clarity, helps build focus within teams, and achieves maximum efficiency levels from their field forces while optimizing travel and time costs.

Sales automation often makes sales teams anxious with mandatory location tracking associated with it.  It automates sales processes and accelerates on-field productivity with real-time secondary sales data. At the onset, one of the sales managers told us that there is a rumor going around among the sales reps that the management will be tracking them all the time and it is making them nervous while going on their beats. And some are just using the sales tracker app with the direct intention of tracking their sales team. Hence it is difficult to believe that adoption of sales automation might lead to attrition and cause low motivation amongst the sales reps even though it is an enabler. We need to answer these questions and communicate them to the sales reps before rolling out the sales automation program. Real-time field data is crucial for consumer goods companies, and to collect field data they need to deploy sales force automation. We need to educate field reps about sales auto...

When we introduced our SFA products to the FMCG Industry, its initial perception of automation and taking everything digital was different. In the first version of its evolution, salesforce automation got lapped up by retail-oriented companies who were keen to just shift from the ‘pen and paper mode of manually capturing and compiling data, because of 2 major challenges: Poor data visibility & Inaccuracy Businesses that had a large sales force were struggling with serious data visibility issues around outlet coverage and SKU penetration across outlets. This concern was compounded by the manual DSRs each sales rep had to maintain for the colossal number of outlets they covered, making the overall data extremely error-prone. We have seen this happen with one of the largest spice manufacturers in India, who found it difficult to manage and optimize the manual secondary schemes across the distribution network because of their sheer size. Fuzzy View on Sales Channel efficiency Especial...

  "A Distribution Management System streamlines all distribution workflows and activities, improves supply chain efficiency, eliminates stock-outs/overstocking, and allows companies to access real-time data from distributors." Opportunities for Distribution Management System The Distribution management system tracks the orders, claims, invoices, stock details, etc. To avoid the rising cost of capital and hassle-free working of the distribution, a DMS is required, which can acquire automated data, which, in turn, reduces the cost and time consumption at various stages. The Distribution management system provides access to well-formulated data. Challenges to adopting a Distribution Management system As the Distribution channel is spread across remote places, it is highly challenging to employ people equipped with mastering and running the system software. They are opinionated that their long-established maintenance method is better, unaware of the distribution & management ...

  In 2021, the challenges are steeper. With the new virus mutant being much more infectious and fatal, companies are asking their on-field staff to refrain from making market visits. And I think that's the right thing to do. They are humans too, not robots. People's safety and health should always come first.  I felt so happy reading that many FMCG experts are well prepared this time with better digital capabilities already in place, stocks being held closer to retailers for faster fulfillment, automation bridging demand-supply gaps in real-time, and field force more comfortable with using SFA .  Taking Direct Orders From Retailers The telecalling team can directly give a call to the retailers who got missed by your sales team due to their unavailability or mobility challenges like physically going to a remote area location. Retailers can place their orders directly with you by calling a dedicated number that connects them to the tele-calling team. After taking the order ...

SFA is a software or tool used by the field sales team to automate the field sales processes, such as order processing, stock monitoring, route optimization and sales forecast etc. Sales force automation plays a crucial role in motivating your sales team, keeping them informed in terms of the entire supply chain data and enables them to make smarter decisions. Benifits: Sales force automation changes the way you perceive market coverage and transforms you from being a number chaser to a customer expert. 1. Embrace the «less is more» idea 2. Intelligent investment in Sales Conversations that leads to long-lasting ROIs 3. Traditional sales efforts thrive on transactional sales conversations with retailers and distributors. Such conversations focus on offering discounts and collecting orders and payments. 4. Introduces Opportunities for Cross-Selling and Upselling Learn how Lotus Herbals Glows Up its Retail Business With An Integrated Tech Platform Cross-selling is one of the best wa...

  At present ,  the Indian FMCG industry is embracing technology like never before with betting big on the power of emerging technology like mobile analytics ,  cloud ,  social engagement platforms ,  and the Internet of Things to emerge as a digitally savvy industry .  It seems like the industry is on the right track .  However ,  with the opportunity to symetricise such a vast quantum of data ,  the fundamental ideologies governing automation should be well explained and understood .  Mere deployment of sales automation and BI tools would not always deliver the desired results due to minor technical errors of application or even psychological apprehensions . Let's look at the factors that are hindering your current SFA implementation . Unclear ideology and vision We meet a lot of Industry stalwarts in our nature of business .   ,  your teams might be working well with manual processes ,  and you are meeting your numbers...