The missing ingredient in Univer’s products marketing

The missing ingredient in Univer’s products marketing:

HERMES Merchandising & Marketing from Transart


Provider:  Transart SRL
Client:       Univer Product SRL
Industry: FMCG, food distribution 
Solutie:       ERP + Merchandising & Sales/Field Force Automation

The existing situation

UNIVER PRODUCT has its registered office in Baia Mare and covers Romania territory through a network of distributors. The commercial activity with Univer’s partners is managed by a team of sales representatives and is supervised by two area managers and a national sales manager. The organizational areas in which the target market is segmented are supplied by four logistic warehouses located in: Cluj Napoca, Odorheiul Secuiesc, Bucharest and Kecskemet. The company is selling and delivering directly to Key Accounts.Since 2005 the company is using Transart’s B-Org ERP for business management, inventory, purchasing, sales, billing and – in general – all business operations related to accounting: receipts, payments, commercial papers, etc.

New goals, new requirements

Capitalizing the experience gained by the parent company from Hungary, the management in Romania has set an ambitious plan aimed to increase sales: increasing brand awareness in the consumer’s minds based on a coherent plan based on trade-in promotions and merchandising activities.

For this plan to succeed, one of the main needs identified was to equip the mobile sales force with PDA terminals running a FFA (Field Force Automation) application. Besides the possibility to collect market information, Univer wanted to improve management of points of sales materials and also to support sales activities carried out by field agents.

On the other hand, the successful implemen-tation of such a plan crucially depends by effective accomplishment of the proposed tasks and activities by each sales field-team member. In other words, it was essential that the computer system would provide functionalities for: validation and control for the field reps work, a tool to facilitate a more accurate understanding of the personal sales objectives and a simplified way to record the activities performed by field reps in order to achieve these goals.

The chosen solution

The HERMES system implemented at Univer Product includes:

  • HERMES Merchandising & Marketing used for gathering market information (from Point of Sale – POS, stores, distributors, Key Accounts – KA) using questionnaires on mobile terminal (products, prices, the presence of various POS materials);
  • HERMES Sales sales automation to the distributors (taking orders from distributors, promotions management, revenue);
  • Reporting module ensure monitoring and optimization of sales force activities.

Native integration with existing B-ORG ERP system, already installed at the client:

– Import from ERP: products, prices, inventories, customers, unpaid invoices, deliveries, average sales / customer;

– Export to ERP: orders taken from partners/distributors (including discounts and extended payment terms), receipts, (BO, CEC), proceeds by agents on the PDA.

  • Mobile terminals: Motorola ES400 with GPS.

 

The main business functionality implemented at Univer, with HERMES system include:

 

  • Collecting market information using questionnaires: presence and prices (both for own products and competitor’s);
  • Monitoring the promotional materials in major customers (KA, distributor’s big stores): secondary placements, dispenser, large stand, small stand;
  • Monitoring the implementation of shelf merchandising activities – activities outsourced to a specialized partner;
  • Taking orders from customers/distributors for which the delivery is operated directly from Univer deposits, with automatic management of discounts and payment terms;
  • Possibility to record receipts (cash) during a visit to the customer/distributor;
  • Ability to collect existing stocks at distributors for the products classified as “focus product “.
  • Monitoring and recording daily routes and main activities carried out by field sales representatives in visited locations (including GPS coordinates checking).

“HERMES has allowed us to automate the main field activities of our sales representatives and also to diversify the work that they perform. After several months of using our system I believe that the main gain is that we now have available real-time reports based on valuable business information collected directly from the market. Information travels faster in the system, two-way, and we can (re-)act quickly. I’m particularly pleased about the simplicity and flexibility in creating new questionnaires in HERMES.” Robert Bodor – Regional Sales Manager, HERMES project manager Univer Product.

 

Gained benefits

The benefits achieved from implementing HERMES at Univer are:

  • Market information flow from the field to the company headquarter and a comprehensive set of reports based on data collected from the point of sale;
  • Improved coordination and control of the sales representative’s activities in field;
  • Increased motivation and involvement of sales representatives in direct relationship with customers and distributors;
  • Automation of the implementation of customized commercial policies, for each distributor;
  • Increased understanding and segmentation of target market: the main locations (shops, KA, etc.) that generate sales for Univer’s products (and competition’s);
  • Increased efficiency of using the promotional materials (POSM) at the points of sale, creating premises for a consistent sales growth;
  • Reducing the number of administrative sales representatives tasks, previously operated manually;
  • Shortening the time of orders preparation and validation on field;
  • Operational support and control management of sales and marketing executive, thanks to an extensive set of reports specific to this activity;
  • Reduced costs and inefficiency: the control of the cost of logistical-operative (fuel, promotional materials, etc.) due to enhanced control of agents’ activities in the field;
  • Ability to take photos from stores (displays, shelf) in order to monitor and justify the conformity with merchandising standards imposed by company.

“The continuous flow of information from the market/field to headquarters, the real time reports obtained, the fact that the HERMES system allows communication with our people in field and the possibility to see how effective they are – is the most important benefit for us. Practically, now we can take integrated actions relying on fresh information, locally to an area or globally with all reps in the Sales Team. Moreover, now the time to obtain needed reports is reduced by over 90% compared with time span needed before HERMES implementation. Correlating this with other valuable information that we obtain from the field using HERMES, I can now focus better on core activities: sales, points of sales promotion or coordinating and supervising of the fieldwork of sales team. In other words with this new tools we have created, in a short time, the premises for consistent sales growth and market consolidation of Univer business in Romania. ” Attila Comsa – National Sales Director, Univer Product.