Can a Staffing Partner Really Ace Both Retail Execution As Well As Technology?

The foundation of any beauty brand lies in how consumers experience the products.  Other than great packaging and heavy advertising, there are other details that consumers need to make a purchase decision. A fair amount of product knowledge, application of the product and its long-term benefits are some of the things that also need to be communicated to favourably tip the consumer’s buying decision.  Having a smart team of beauty advisors who live, breathe and experience the brand can very well define the success or failure of any beauty or wellness brand in Offline Channel.

Let’s take an example of Quasi Cosmetics, an upcoming beauty brand that recently ramped up its presence in supermarkets and multi-brand beauty stores. To get better visibility and faster market share, they deployed in-store promoters for their chemical-free, paraben-free range of lipsticks, eye pencils and eyeshadows.

Animesh Sahu, their North RSM was glad that a staffing agency had approached them to provide contractual beauty advisors/promoters. Since it was a common practice to get a manpower agency that also had a technology solution, he went ahead and took their mobile solution that helped him track the BA performance status etc. But one month down the line, his ASMs started noticing some issues and complained.

“Sir,  the promoter at Sephorina was missing from the store for more than 3 hours last Wednesday. I only found out today when the store manager told me. When I called up the coordinator at the staffing agency, he said that it’s not possible, and now I don’t know who to trust.  Another ASM quipped, “Sir, can’t we get real-time access to data on Promotor Discipline? That way we can take corrective action on the spot rather than waiting for the evening report from our agency or for the store manager to tell us what to do.”

Raising the lid on Technology & Data Security

Today there are scores of companies in India that offer staffing services of smart, trained BAs and merchandisers to CPG companies, each claiming to have a better performance monitoring mechanism than the other. Almost all offer selfie-based attendance. They also collate the apparently ‘error-free and secure’ data together and present it on an app.   

But if you were to get this data as an FMCG sales leader, how confident would you be on whether it has passed through all security and data compliances that you would expect from your SFA or DMS Partner?

Animesh Sahu from Quasi Cosmetics certainly wasn’t so sure anymore. He thought to himself, “Am I doing the right thing by letting a manpower agency become my solution provider too? Do they have the right quality of technological expertise that my business needs? Because if I use their data and if that data is tampered with in any way, my entire modern trade strategy can become unhinged! I’ll have to find a better way of solving this problem!”

Can anyone really ace both Retail Execution as well as Technology?

Since both retail execution, as well as technology, individually require deep industry knowledge, they both cannot be the core competency of a manpower company. A good staffing company that specializes in retail execution identifies high-potential promoters and BAs and trains them in how to communicate with customers, how to take stock inwards, punch in orders, ensure correct product display etc. That’s their core competency.  But the same company acing a technology solution for retail-execution? We’re not so sure.

To get a fair view on this point, we spoke to many of our customers as well as industry experts. This is what Mohit Jain, Co-founder, mCaffeine had to say:

“Having a separate manpower company and a separate technology company has helped me get the best of both worlds! Expertise in Retail Execution from my manpower partner has aided in driving growth at the grass-root level, while industry experience + strong product building skills in my technology partner has created an exponential impact by making the right metrics available across different stakeholders in real-time.” 

Read how mCaffeine dazzles in Mom and Pop Retail with the power of sales automation

So why not work with a Technology Partner that has deep industry expertise as well as specialist solutions for the BA channel?

Animesh Sahu is not alone in facing these challenges while building his retail expansion plan.  The one important thing for all sales leaders is not just actionable insights, but actionable insights that they can trust. Because this data helps them to get ongoing visibility on stock movement, how the shelves are being stocked, which products are moving too slow, which schemes are getting the best response etc. 

With a specialist solution like FieldAssist ModMart, CPG companies can get:

Encryption and Data Security

A big feature that stands against all other similar solutions is our deep data security and encryption. We have all the required security certificates that ensure that your data is absolutely safe and tamper-proof.

Read: FieldAssist capitalizes on organized retail growth with launch of deep analytics platform

Image-Recognition-based Share of Shelf capture

Don’t be dependent on the error-prone method of having your promoters manually count your products on the shelf. Our image-recognition feature helps you immediately calculate your share of shelf, compare it against the competition’s and enforce your planogram compliance to drive a higher merchandising ROI.

Digitized Stock management

With ModMart you get authenticated stock values every day. You can define checkers and stock values that restrict your BA from entering incorrect values or doing false reporting so that your real data stays sacrosanct.  

Smart Analytics in real-time

ModMart Analytics app gives you real-time insights into what’s happening in the stores every day, so you can make timely decisions or interventions.

Seamless Integration with SFA solution

FieldAssist ModMart integrates seamlessly with our GT App so all your sales flow come together on the same platform, giving you the ease of monitoring and reporting.

Geo-fencing-based Attendance Capture

With ModMart, you can make your store promoters more accountable by authenticating every Modern Trade store visit with Geo-Fencing. The App marks a selfie-based attendance of promoters to ensure that they are properly groomed. 

As one of our customers puts it, “stockouts are a thing of the past with ModMart!!”  Their managers get an automatic alert every time a product’s quantity decreases by 5% or more than the defined quantity.  Similarly for another customer, ModMart has helped drive better in-store execution by providing a ‘foresight’ view of the market. 

How about we make your Beauty Advisors the best in the industry too? Reach us.