MARICO

Use of technology in Sales

Force Automation
SDM Project – Part C
IIML

2009
Submitted to Prof. Aithal

Submitted by :

Group 11 - Section C

Manu Avinash 24078

Veena V 24110
Praveen Kumar 24126
Naveen S 24263
Rahul Sanghvi 24279
Vipin Nair 24290

IIM L
Table of Contents
Technology in Sales Force Automation ......................................................................................................................2
MARICO ......................................................................................................................................................................2
Use of Technology in the Primary sales force ........................................................................................................2
Order Processing and Inventory Management ......................................................................................................4
COLGATE PALMOLIVE .................................................................................................................................................5
Technology in Sales Force Automation
Technology is the buzz everywhere nowadays and so is the scene in India. Now technology and its
implementation are not just confined to Software companies and in the HO s of all companies. Technology
has also started to be used in Sales Force automation in many FMCG companies across India. The sales
force automation ranges from using hand held devices for taking down orders in the market to complete
automation of order processing and inventory management.

We plan to do a comparative study of the sales force automation in 2 FMCG majors – Marico & Colgate
Palmolive. We plan to study what all measures have these companies taken when it comes to automation of
sales force using technology. We will study the use of technology in 2 fronts – Use of technology in the primary
sales force & use of technology for the order processing and inventory management.

We would like to study about the sales force automation that has already taken place in these companies and
its impact on increasing sales / efficiency of the sales process. The reason for choosing these 2 companies is
firstly because both have a very different portfolio and secondly, both are pioneers in using technology in
sales force

MARICO
Use of Technology in the Primary sales force
Marico has implemented the use of Personal Digital Assistant (PDA’s) in all the major cities of the country.
The PDA is used by the DSR’s to note down orders when he goes to the market. The PDA’s replaced the
traditional beat book which was used till then.

The reasons for implementing the use of technology / PDA in the primary selling were:

Limited Information visibility

o Stock levels

o Retailer specific information (P3M etc.

o Schemes.

o LPM , Volume targets vs. Actuals

Manual process

Improve DSR productivity.

Focused information at his fingertips.

o Current Stock Levels.

o Target vs. Actual figures.

 o Must-call SKU, Focus Brands.

o Outlet wise P3M.

o Primary / Secondary Schemes.

Minimizing Manual work.

The Key success factors of for the PDA were:

Ease of Use.

Application response time.

Ease and reduction of data entry.

Minimum Navigation.

Application stability

The major functionalities that the PDA served were:

Order Booking/ Modification.

Collections Entry/Modification.

Provision to add new outlets.

Sales Return.

Reports

o Day’s Order Summary: Day’s LPD, EC.

o Day’s Collections Summary.

o Scheme details.

o Beat wise performance report.

o Beat wise Channel wise performance report.

o Brand/SKU wise P3M report

In short, it made the sales call more scientific

Order Processing and Inventory Management
Marico has centralized software called MIDAS which it installs at all distributor outlets. The software is a
state of art software and one of the best of its kind in the industry. The software is connected through a
central server whereby all data entered into it can be viewed in real time by the top management who have
the Administrative rights.

The software performs a gamut of functions:

o Order Entry
o Billing
o Inventory Management
o Daily audit reports
o DSR incentive reporting

The DSR on coming back from the market will

synch his PDA to MIDAS and all the data will be
downloaded there. At the end of the day, the TSO
will upload all the data to the central server and
then it can be viewed by anyone in the company.
This software has made order processing, billing, inventory management so very easy.

It has saved a lot of time which used to go in manual processing initially.

COLGATE PALMOLIVE
Having used paper exception reporting for some years, Colgate-Palmolive encountered several problems
such as accuracy of data, which was recorded in the field and then interpreted and processed in their sales
office, to then merging this manual data into manual reports. Not only were errors a critical element, but
also the turnaround time associated with sending the data from the field through to the reports at the end of
the process. This resulted in limited usable value of the data – as the information collected by field sales
teams must be rapid, succinct and targeted to be of effective use.

Colgate Palmolive has a central Database system which is connected to all the distributors of the country
who update all dispatch transactions to the retailers and wholesalers in their territory. The Computer
Operator plugs in the data as soon as the dispatch is made. This way the Regional Managers or the Area
sales manager is able to assess the sales of a particular territory. Also an order is directly placed at the
Colgate Palmolive ware house which is the difference of the stock levels at the stockiest/distributor point
and the inventory level set to that stockist by the area sales manager in every three days and it is physically
dispatched the next day.

In some parts of the country like Mumbai, the Sales officers use hand held PDA devices to take order from
their wholesale and retail accounts and all this data is uploaded into the central database system at the
stockist point and the order is dispatched.

The idea here is not only about data collection but it is a Field sales tool which would assist the sales officer
with an enhanced territory management and provide a resource for information on product, category,
promotional and other informational selling aids.