Auto proactive Alerts: A sales person’s field Assistant

Sales force Automation and Fmcg software for salesis considered a key feature of the business process of a company as the benefits, direct and indirect help the business to grow in longer run. In broader terms the benefits are Cost Reduction, Improved Operational Efficiency and create competitive advantage. Any Sales force application will have numerous forms and reports to work on. There are multiple data collection points covering various KPI spreaded across sales and marketing process. And company provides the best service like BusinessIntelligence and Sugarcrm developer for your business 

Now, lets take an example of a mobile phone. As it has a number of features to offer but we end up using some of the important features like Calling, Texting and Internet surfing only while countless other features are hardly used on daily basis. And Best software for you Mobile field forcereporting software

Like that a SFA is also build by providing various features that help in achieving multiple benefits, but are we really use those benefits? To overcome this limitation, one of the important feature is “Automated Alerts” Its use can help the salespeople at the right time and right place.

An automated alert is a notification on the working aspects of the sales person that will do two important tasks for him combining both his Future and Past Activities. Firstly, It will give information about any predefined event planned for/by him(Future Activity). Secondly, It will auto-assist him by pointing his pending tasks for the day/month/quarter(Past Activity). The other type will be the usual information that is important to him in some or the other way. In this way, the most crucial of the business information is forwarded to him in the quickest way possible without anyone’s manual intervention.

Just Imagine, the sales person having the power of up-to-date data/figures/planning about his working even before he has stepped out in the field. His confidence will be on another level when he will talk to his customers. Even Better will be to make this feature available to him on his own mobile handset

These alerts are customized on Industry specific needs, making the most important information Available to the field person at right time. Defining Industry specific Key Performance Indicators to define alerts makes the Alerts of real use.

An industry specific example of FMCG sector will have certain KPI’s like Territory coverage, Productive / passive retailers, Inventory Management, Primary Sales, Secondary Sales, Reporting, Targets/Incentive, and Revenue. and you can get best service by this software like MR Reporting software  and  Sugarcrm custom apps

There can be endless customization on these alerts depending upon the company needs. These alerts can be Time Specific, Working Geography Specific and Hierarchy Specific. As we can assume this will not only improve his productivity but also will keep him motivated to work. Such features when combined in a state of art Sales force automation and CustomizedERP can take the organization on a different level.

About The author:

Atul Daga is an expert in conventional Retail and Engineering industries CRM. He has done his MBA from Cardiff University, United kingdom. (U.K.). As Business Development Manager at Advanz101 Systems, he actively engages himself with some high valued clients in knowledge process outsourcing domain. Atul likes DJ’ing as a hobby. He can be reached at atul@advanz101.com.

Unlocking Steps for Effective sales in any FMCG Company

“You don’t get paid for the Hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the Hour”. (Jim

Rohn)

We all know that sales and marketing in today’s world are not merely constrained to making cold calls and selling products. It’s a constantly revolving field that needs 360 degree approach towards achieving the goals. On Macro Level: Passion for Sales, Creativity and Systematic approach can lead to Effective Sales.

In this article, I would like to throw light on Micro Parameters related to “Systematic steps of essential sales”. For the sake of simplicity, the actions are classified into Long Term activities, Monthly, Weekly and Daily Activities (Refer Fig 1.1). Any Sales admin tool which helps to record such activities, Customized ERP and its analysis will bring operational efficiency, create competitive advantage and reduce cost of operations as well. The steps are divided in Activities and Analysis.

Long Term Activities

☛ Territory Planning: One of the most important aspect is Territory Planning. We need to

divide geography in Beats, Head Quarter, Area, Region and Zones. Names may differ but essence remains the same. Persons should be identified for each territory and made owner of their territory. Benchmarks in terms of Number of Dealers, Retailers, Institutional customers should be defined.

☛ SKU wise Stockist wise targets:

This action will lead to plot “What to sell & Where to sell”. It is an important parameter as Certain focus products or New SKU’s need to be given more weight age in sales. This may differ from one geography to another. Indirectly this will help in setting a standard of right product sales at right place.

☛ Retailer Count wise targets for Field Staff: Number of Retailers / Institutional clients / New clients to be met shall be defined. This will enable us to spread our reach and sales will not be dependent on any particular retailer.

☛ Productive Retailers: Only retailer visits will add no value if they are not giving orders. There should be some marketing efforts to be improve the percentage of productive retailers.

☛Productive SKU:

Defining how many different SKU’s we plan to book on daily basis will also help us to spread our offerings. More number of active SKU will result in more chances of growth.

Monthly Activities:

☛Tour Program (TP) submission:

Pre planning of the coming month in the form of TP will drive sales person to plan visits to all of his territories and be prepared for it before time. At times it appears to be very basic or old terminology, but we can always ask to ourselves that have we effectively used this old tool ever?

☛Review of Retailer List:

A monthly review of retailer list will give a time to time count of active/Inactive and sleeping retailers. The sales person can take measures to leverage the same.

☛Circulation of Target Sheet for upcoming Month:

A simple but missed most of the time activity. We may have Targets defined somewhere, but are we circulating the same to Field Executive before start of month? Are we taking their view on what's their plan on How to achieve it.

Daily Activities :

☛Timely alerts:

System should be designed to assist Field executive (FE) and not to monitor

him. Useful Alerts should be planned covering different KPI’s and delivered to Field person to help him meet his next goals/targets. It is an important factor to keep him motivated.

☛Station to be visited:

Information related to his day working like station to be visited, Retailers pending to Visit, Non productive Retailers, Any new Retailers etc will not only keep him up to date but will also help him in making the day productive.

☛Stockist Interaction:

Stockist / dealer is a vital link in FMCG sales. Effective communication should be done with each Stockist where field working is taking place for today and yesterday should be done from HO or Regional office. Secondary sales for orders booked yesterday should be confirmed and scope of Primary sales to be identified for short stocks. It can be increased through FMCG software for sales

☛AM-SO mid day interaction:

Managers know the importance of Mid day interaction with their team, but the problem is that they do not have information at right time so that they can have meaningful discussions on daily basis. System should support Managers with this vital missing link, 

Analysis:

A timely Analysis of the above mentioned activities is vital for the whole process to become productive. This will help in identifying the gaps in the business process and bringing required improvement for the benefit of everyone in the organization.

☛Monthly review based on KPI’s:

A monthly review with each Field executive in presence of his Manager is of huge importance in sales. Various KPI’s should be discussed, achievements should be appreciated and shortcomings should be discussed for ways of overcoming them. Target compliance, Products sold / missed, Productive call averages, Tour program compliance etc can be managed by MR Reporting software as well as should be discussed and training need should be identified. Required training should be provided on the spot so that doubts can be clarified on immediate basis. Important feedback about market intelligence should be gathered and passed to product management team and other relevant persons.

☛Weekly review:

A weekly review on lines similar to monthly review but to be conducted by First line Manager in field itself will also be of great benefit. In this review current month can be discussed and steps required to improve current month can be taken well in time.

Daily review for some specific KPI’s:

There are certain KPI’s which are too important to be ignored till Monthly review. We should discuss certain KPI in a way which encourages self analysis by field executive. Executives who booked orders for good value, spread ed product range and spread ed productive retailers should be appreciated and others should be encouraged for a better tomorrow. At the same time, the message should be loud and clear that inefficiencies will lead to a win win situation and inefficiencies are neither welcome nor ignored.

Conclusion:

As we know that only taking the gym memberships does not improve your health but what

improves it is the constant efforts towards making days productive. What I mean to say is that a system in place to identify sales activities will be the first step in the positive direction. The operational efficiency will improve with the participation of the people in the system.

Atul Daga is an expert in conventional Retail and Engineering industries CRM. He has done his MBA from Cardiff University, United kingdom. (U.K.). As Business Development & Business Intelligence Manager at Advanz101 Systems, he actively engages himself with some high valued clients in knowledge process outsourcing domain. Atul likes DJ’ing as a hobby. He can be reached at atul@advanz101.com

Sales Call Categorization, FMCG software for sales and Customized ERP

They say that “Understanding a woman is impossible”. I can not disagree on that but at the same time, “Understanding and improvising performance of Field sales executive is equally complex”.

Friends, the conventional sales process of any FMCG and Customized ERP company mostly  account for the basic KPI’s like number of Retailers visited or Retailer Call average and Stockist call average. Same is true with sales monitoring and MR Reporting software

of many of engineering industries as well. Any vanilla sales monitoring will have features like DSR entry, Filling Tour Program and Capturing Order Value etc. With such a system in place, the sales efforts of any sales person is partially measured and usually only the direct product sales or the retailer visits is calculated and talked about. For effective sales in long run, many other dimensions need to be covered. Can we ignore importance of activities like Product Demo, Sampling, Identifying new Stockists / Beats / Retailers, Merchandising activity, Retailer Gathering, Working on passive accounts etc. All these and some other features contribute to the long-term sales of the company. Then why these parameters are neglected in the sales process analysis. I believe that there should be some way to measure such parameters and reward the contributors.   These parameters can be sector specific like for engineering  companies or B2B sales, Sampling is important whereas for a FMCG software for sales providing

company, Competitor Product / Activity analysis is important.

Now, if we agree on these lateral activities then the second bigger question is how to measure them. An ideal Sales Force Automation application or Mobile field force reporting software shall offer Sales Call Categorization feature that will help customer companies derive more value out of their sales process. This aspect helps the organization to take accountability of even the minute sales activities that drive the sales and in turn the profitability. Here we can identify various parameters in the sales process and assign a grading number to each one of them depending upon its importance and efforts required. Lets understand it with an example (refer fig 1.1).  

So if a salesperson has to achieve 50 grades in a week, Sales person A can achieve this by doing 1 Retailers Gathering, 15 personal Retailer Visits, 1 Product Demo and 2 Stockist Visits. Where as, Sales Person B can do 2 Product Demo’s, 25 Retailer Visits, adding a New Beat, and 2 Stockist visits to achieve the same. This way, sales person will be motivated to do direct sales activities as well as later sales activities.

How about making this information available on the mobile application itself. If we are able to do so, It will be an easy & smart way to know the productivity of each sales employee and his team on daily / weekly / monthly basis. It's interesting to think that here every task is considered productive on some level with a unique grading, The sales person will never be off beat about doing a product demo or merchandising activity again. Sales call categorization feature will result in many benefits with few main listed below:

• Accountability of all the activities of a salesperson on day-to-day basis. Analysis on the same can be done on monthly/weekly meetings. Encouraging them to do lateral activities as well.
• Improved all-round productivity as every sales activity is measured and accounted for.
• Certain sales activity can be the need of the hour like a new product launch should be driven by an interactive product demo every week for the coming month. Compliance can be now monitored.
• This Modern system will bring out the innovation of the sales team.
• A system to measure every Sales parameters will set up a 360-degree sales effort.

“The mission should be to help companies recognize their

About The author:

Atul Daga is an expert in conventional Retail and Engineering industries CRM as well as Sugar crm custom apps, Sugar crm developer and Business Intelligence

. He has done his MBA from Cardiff University, United kingdom. (U.K.). As  Business Development Manager at Advanz101 Systems, he actively engages himself with some high valued clients in knowledge process outsourcing domain. Atul likes DJ’ing as a hobby. He can be reached at atul@advanz101.com.