No matter we talk about drinks, foods, cigarettes, coffee, health care and hygiene products, food for pets, construction materials, paints, tools and car/professional accessories, a distribution business that relies on field agents’ workhas a few specific needs that can be addressed fast and consistent using a Sales Force Automation (SFA) system such as Hermes Evolution – leader on the Romanian market.
Nowadays, nobody could imagine a professional distribution business without the informatics support of a SFA system. This is basically an efficient system based on mobile applications which are designed to support the field activities of the Sales Force: sales agents, sales/merchandising representatives, sales supervisors, business developers, ASM, RSM, etc.
Regardless it runs on tablets, Android smartphones or on earlier generation of Windows Mobile PDAs, HERMES Evolution system helps you to seize control over a distribution business, offering a number of concrete ways and the informatics support to achieve this objective:
(1) The improvement of the planning and execution processes for the Sales department activities by modeling the marketing mix directly into the application, on each of its four (4P) components:
- Purchasing locations/shops – the target market – locations from where the final customer can purchase the products (the locations are classified both by the geographical criteria – routes, by the turnover and needed supply frequency;
- Products – which can be classified according to their availability (existing stock) and other different criteria (brand, provider, etc.) or by their current importance (focus products).
- Prices – implementing a compact discounts policy or usage of price lists (negotiated individually with every client)
- Promotions: modeling a wide spectrum of promotion types and their automated implementation during the Sales process.
(2) Controlling the Sales representatives activities in the field: visited customers, effective time spent at customers’ locations, time spent to get to customers’ sites, visit details, reasons for lacking orders, GPS coordinates, pictures taken at the point of sales.
(3) Improvement of some indicators with direct impact on the sales growth like the medium sale per client and number of customers for each agent by increasing the quality of the Sales process and by using more efficient the time spent at clients’ locations (time that – without the existence of a SFA – is usually spent with manual writing of orders, discounts calculation, promotions offerings, checking and editing the errors etc.
(4) Shortening the delivery time of goods to the customer – by on-line data synchronization between the mobile terminal and the server at the time of closing the visit to a customer site; this way the merchandise can be prepared and delivered in the same day, just a few hours after the agent has registered the order in the system.
(5) Faster money recovery (debt collection) from the market by engaging locking mechanisms for the registration of new orders (by different criteria) for the customers who have made a habit from delaying payments (credit control).
“Nowadays performance cannot be achieved without management and control systems. Hermes is an application dedicated to the Sales Force, aligned with the needs of Strauss Romania, application which became the most important tool used by our field representatives both for traditional trade and modern trade. Conforming to Strauss Romania’s vision, a top priority is to equip the Sales force with efficient, simple and really useful systems, as well as a way to motivate, control and performance increase.” declared Mr. Marius Melesteu, General Manager, Strauss Romania.
(6) A transparent system for motivation and reward performance of sales agents based on the setting of clear targets (e.g. value targets, quantity, number of clients per product) and also based on permanent visualization of each individual achievements (% of target). For example, for launching a new product, the sales manager can establish as a target/agent, a minimal number of clients to whom the product should be sold.
(7) Elimination of errors and inefficiency (e.g. removal of returns/cancellations due to operating errors) by automating registration of basic operations: order preparation, stock checking, client’s name, product’s name, applying of discounts/promotions, targets/objectives visualization etc.
(8) Fast collection of important information from the market (presence and price on the shelf for own products and competitors’ products) information picked up by field agents who use trade-marketing questionnaires .
(9) Extensive support for implementation of concentrate sales and marketing actions – liquidation of stocks that are approaching expiry time, special offers, info collection of the existent stock on the market.
(10) Greater impact of trade–marketing campaigns by a more efficient management of promotional materials ( POSM) used in the points of sales.
“Hermes implementation allows us to render more efficiently the activity of sales force by removing downtimes of the sale process, reducing most of the administrative tasks of the agents and also through an increased support in setting up and managing all sales related issues. Briefly, we become more efficient. The continuous flow of information from the field to the management is, however, the greatest benefit of this application. Planning, execution and control quality, all increase. But even more important is the ability to support improvement and growth provided by this application” statedMr. Horatiu Dumitrescu, Program Manager, Mediplus Exim SRL, part of A&D Pharma Holdings.
For free consultancy or personalized presentation, where you can see how your business can benefit of these instruments, please ask for a meeting with one of our representatives by filling on-line the following questionnaire.