“Proper Planning and preparation prevents poor performance”
(Stephen Keague)
The outcome of any activity depends on two important factors i.e.
Planning and Execution. Off Course the companies are
emphasizing on these factors in their sales processes but here we are
talking about a tool that will act as an assistant to the field force
in Planning, Implementing, Studying Variance and
Bringing out Analysis of their activities.
Tour Program Feature in any conventional Sales Force
Automation will assist the field force in the above listed activities
in certain ways. It will help the Sales officers in planning their
month (day-wise) and their territory in advance so as the sales
people can give the best output possible.
The Tour Program is usually made on monthly basis in planning the
working of next/coming month that lets the SO’s decide the type
of activity, working geography and Retailers/Stockist
to meet on a particular day for the whole month. The plan of
action is sent to his manager for review, The manager can amend the
plan as per the need. Now, there are Important Retailers or Customers
for every organization, With the help of this tool, they will not be
missed as the Managers and Senior Level people can select
Joint-Working with the Field Staff in the tour Program Itself.
The Joint-Working feature will also help the Managers analyse their
upcoming month and can help in planning it in the best way possible.
The Tour program can also be filled as per Journey Cycle(JC)
which can be an important factor in FMCG sector. Unlike the monthly
plan, the Journey Cycle is planned keeping some specific needs in
mind. As an example the JC can be in day format like a 15 day or 28
day JC. It can also be a bi-weekly cycle. The JC should be made such
that it can be copied for next months as well. This is called
Permanent Journey Plan(PJP). Though it should account for
holidays/Sundays and shift the working to the next working day. This
will ease the process of the field force as well.
With the Tour Program tool available in mobile and web application,
the Execution of the plan becomes possible as it gives ease to
enter information on the go. The automated tour program alert
will also tell the Field Force about their planning on the mobile app
itself making information about the plan of action available to them
at the start of the day. This will also help in preparation of the
upcoming station.
As we know, the there is variation in planned and actual activities
and there can be deviation of the same. In this case, the reason can
be personal or professional like Retailers meet, Joint Working,
Leave etc.This should be checked and accounted for in the system. The
variance from the plan can be communicated to the field force
in the form of automated alerts on daily basis. I will depict an
example on the same situation. Now in the Tour Program planning, the
sales person planned to visit X station on 12/07/15 but actually he
visits Y station on that date. Then the system will send him an alert
on his mobile application itself showing his variance. He can record
the reason for same that will help in analysis in the later stage of
sales process.
The analysis to the sales planning is equally important as it can
help amend future course of actions. This can be done by showing a
variance report from his planned vs actual working on day to
day basis. The same can be discussed with each SO to know the cause
of the deviation.
Any SFA should have a tour program feature as there is certain need
for the Sales officers to follow the decided course of action.
Usually the executive tend to visit few stations/retailers more than
the others due to certain factors best known to them. Though this
should not affect company’s sales and should be checked for with
the help of Tour Program. As the manager can edit/approve the Tour
Program decided by the SO, he can validate an even distribution of
all the territories under him and at the end of the month a variance
on the plan can be checked for This process will also give emphasis
on HQ-Ex HQ-Out Station working to ensure 360 degree productivity
from all the customers under any Sales Officer.
The system in place will act as an assistant to the field force to
plan their month in advance and improve sales effectiveness. Tour
Program is just one of the many unique features available in a
state-of-art Sales Force Automation. A good SFA combined with a
passionate sales team will improve the operational efficiency of the
Organisation.
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
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