Three Metrics that Show How a Top FMCG Company Used Secondary Sales Insights to Drive 2X Growth

The name of the company featured in this case study has been withheld to protect client confidentiality. While some minor details have been changed to protect the client’s identity, all the outcomes and numbers in this article are accurate.

A couple of years ago one of India’s most respected consumer goods companies set itself aggressive, arguably unrealistic, strategic goals. The company’s CMO led a high-profile rebranding effort for its flagship brand and went to press with the goals he envisioned for the company.

The CMO announced that the company was aiming to double the annual revenue of the already mature company within a period of 3 years. The company realized that to achieve this ambitious goal, it needed to fire on all cylinders.

It started by charting out an ambitious growth plan powered by fresh investments in sales, marketing and manufacturing. Apart from investing several hundreds of crores in rebranding and setting up new manufacturing facilities, the CMO also asked his team to take their secondary sales and distribution game up several notches – a key piece of the growth puzzle considering the importance of market reach and availability to its brand’s successful rebranding as a youth brand.

The sales and distribution team were given specific goals to increase their sales force and to add one lakh outlets over the course of one year. Not surprisingly, the team zeroed in on automation as a critical growth driver of its operations and chose Bizom as its sales force automation partner.
Don’t worry, we won’t treat you to a full-fledged case study at this point.

However, the proof of automation is in the outcomes, so we would just like to leave you with three metrics that provide a preview of the outcomes the FMCG company achieved through sales force automation:

1. Outlet reach increased by 86% in key markets: This was achieved through the cumulative effects of increased compliance from field force, hygienic geo-tagged outlet information, and optimized PJP design. The field force succeeded in adding just a little under 1 lakh outlets in a year.
2. Average time in the market up by 21%: The sales force application provided managers with a geo-tagged view of their sales representatives on the field and allowed them to track distance covered, total calls, and productive calls. This in turn empowered them to drive the desired behaviour and increased the average time spent in the market to over 7 hours a day from under 6 hours.
3. Secondary scheme spend reduced by 60% on a converted case level: Managers were better able to manage scheme budgets by taking data-driven decisions.

As for the strategic goal of doubling revenue by 2018, the numbers, again, speak for themselves: going by media reports, the company closed the 2017 fiscal year with revenues just shy of the target. This is despite the shocks delivered by demonetization and GST rollout.

We hope to soon bring you a complete account of this company’s inspiring story of driving business outcomes through automation and the insights and advantages it offers companies that operate in hypercompetitive markets.

Watch the three-and-a-half-minute video below for more insights on how Bizom’s sales force automation solutions have helped organizations reach their goals. If you’re curious about how you can drive your organization’s strategic goals through supply network automation, feel free to get in touch with us.