Losing Rs 1.2 cr, Just Because Your Retailers Ran Out Of Chewing Gum!

We can’t tell you how common it is in FMCG companies to have their outlet master data peppered with fake, duplicate or dead outlets. Basing your retail sales strategy on an overestimated outlet universe can put undue pressure on your team due to unreasonably high targets.

With FieldAssist’s 3-step outlet verification process, all outlets are sanitized using an OTP-based authentication system. Once you have a squeaky clean master list, that’s when you start to make your outlet universe work for you. 

The traditional approach of lumping all outlets in a particular area into one category doesn’t work anymore, because the customers frequenting those 40-50 outlets aren’t the same.  If you want to build on your market share, you need to understand your retailers at a granular level. 

FieldAssist’s Beat-o-meter can help identify and segregate Kirana outlets into different categories so you can offer more personalised attention to them all.  Based on the last 3 months’ history on placing orders, you can easily tag outlets under Active, Dormant, to-be dormant, never visited etc. Once you know which outlets have become dormant or to-be-dormant, you can create special schemes to reactivate these outlets or increase your visit frequency. 

Introducing FieldAssist Beat-O-Meter

Another cutting-edge feature is the Near Peer module which can help extract greater value from your existing outlet universe. This functionality is specially designed for large FMCG companies with multiple sales teams where each handles a different product line. It quite often happens that with tall sales structures, every sales team has their own set of outlets, which may or may not overlap with other product lines. 

Via the FieldAssist GT app,  your sales teams can get access to ‘opportunity stores’ or ‘Near Peer’ stores that are not mapped against their particular business but exist within the company’s system. This creates an opportunity for your SOs to sell their own products in stores that are selling other categories but not theirs.

Strong relationships at all touchpoints within the retail sales supply chain are the first requirement for the long term success of any sales strategy. Weak relationships? Leads to poor execution. Poor Execution? Leads to sub-optimal sales. And it will only go south from here. An essential element of doing well in the retail environment is having a set of bankable salespeople. But is every salesperson equally competent or aggressive? Nope.  So CPG companies need to train their frontline salespeople well and give them regular on-the-job training to ensure consistent performance. 

With the FieldAssist Manager Joint Working feature, mid-managers can do Joint Working calls in the field and discover their team’s inherent strengths and learning needs on which they can take commensurate action. This will also help forge stronger relationships with your retailers as they get serviced better. Another way of ensuring uninterrupted service to the retailers is using Retail connect. In the event that an SO is missing from the field, retailers can place orders directly with your company by calling a dedicated number. Even new retailer orders can be captured via Teleconnect, thus capturing demand that would have otherwise not been tapped in the existing outlet universe. 

Another critical touchpoint in the retail sales supply chain is Modern Trade. Therefore the Beauty Advisors or Promoters or Merchandisers who represent your brand in the store become an important factor in customer conversions. With the FieldAssist ModMart app, you can validate their presence in the store,  and make sure they are properly groomed when they arrive at the store. A properly trained promoter can manage stock and punch in-store sales. S/he can share product information with customers, conduct product sampling, show them brochures etc and give them a great experience with your products to prompt a purchase.