Case: development of an ERP system for sales representatives

We have developed an internal service for the company's sales representatives. Creating and maintaining an up-to-date customer base, planning, and reporting. Read more below.

Customer

Our client is a manufacturer of herbal products, nutritional supplements, and teas. Its products are presented in pharmacies and retail outlets throughout Russia and Kazakhstan — the distribution network covers about 120 cities.

Situation

In each city where the client's products are sold, its representatives work. Their task:

keep the database up-to-date,
expand the distribution network,
monitor how the product is presented in retail outlets,
and conduct educational events for pharmacists and customers.

The representatives' work is supervised in the head office.

The representative plans their own tasks for the week. This plan includes visiting retail outlets to check product availability, making calls, and holding events. At the end of the week, a report is compiled on the work done, which is sent to the head office (until the implementation of the ERP system-a randomly compiled Excel file).

Aim

Required of us:

Collect a single database of distribution points (existing and potential) and keep it up-to-date.
Implement a unified planning and reporting system among all representatives.
Develop a convenient tool for representatives to use daily.
Unify the format of reports and the procedure for sending them to the head office.

Decision

During the analytics stage, several interviews were conducted with the company's management and representatives to find out what functions should be implemented in the service. What actions make up the representative's working day? Which planning and reporting horizon should be selected to make the tool really convenient to use.

Prototypes of the main screens were created and user scenarios were designed.

Planning tools

The company representative is responsible for controlling all distribution points. As a rule, this is a personal visit to the pharmacy/store, a call or letter is possible. Its purpose is to check how many products are on the shelves, whether promo materials are available, and whether you need to pay special attention to this point.

Also, the representative can plan work with points of sale that are not yet included in the distribution network, and negotiate sales of the company's products. These actions should also be included in the plan.

The selected planning horizon is one week. The representative makes a list of actions for the next week (calls, emails, visits, events) and coordinates the plan with the curator.

To add a point of sale to the plan, the representative selects it from their database or adds a new one (if it is not already included in the distribution network). For an event, you can choose the type of session and leave a comment.

Reporting system

At the end of each visit, the representative must prepare a report for the curator. To do this, the service provides the “Write a report” function, which can be edited in the future. On a given day, all reports are collected together and automatically sent to the curator's email address in the same format.

The report is filled in using a special form: the availability and quantity of products of certain types, the availability of promotional materials (leaflets, samples, etc.). Also, for each point, the representative can leave a comment in free form and assign it the status: all is well / no samples / requires attention.

All representative reports are stored in a separate section of the system.

As a rule, I make a plan for visits and expected work for the week ahead. Depending on the current tasks and goals, as well as on specific situations, I can schedule an event (meeting, pharmaceutical club, or presentation) a few weeks before it.

The base of the points distribution

When we started working on the service, the client did not have a single database of all points of sale of their products. There were several sources:

Map of points of sale on the company's website.
Each representative in each region has its own database of points of sale: most often in the form of an Excel table. This database, as a rule, did not completely coincide with the database presented on the site. Also, it included not only existing distributors but also potential candidates for cooperation.

We solved this problem as follows: we took the database from the site as a basis, supplemented it with importing tables from representatives. Points that are not yet included in the distribution network have also been added to the database, but with a special mark. The result is a complete and up-to-date list of partners.

In the future, we integrated this database with the company's corporate website. Now, if a representative starts a new point of sale in the system, or deletes an outdated one, the information is automatically updated on the site in the list and the map.

The database is convenient to work with thanks to the search and filter system, which has been updated several times based on feedback from representatives.

A representative can schedule a visit in several ways, including from the page of a specific point of sale.

Result

Based on the results of the work:

The ERP system was implemented in the company and is actively used by representatives and their supervisors.
The distribution point database is kept up-to-date and automatically updated on the company's corporate website.
Curators at the head office receive reports that are generated automatically according to a set schedule and in a single format. This allows you to keep up with the situation in each region and easily track the effectiveness of a particular representative.

Since the launch of the system, a lot of time has passed, and all this time it is a daily working tool for dozens of regional representatives. We continue to support and develop the service.

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