Challenges FMCG Managements Face for an Effective Market Coverage

FMCG Management Challenges

Field sales professionals of an FMCG company act as a mouthpiece of the company as well as retailers and so play a crucial role in increasing market coverage effectiveness.

They provide relevant information to the FMCG management about the POS matters that affect consumer influence and simultaneously provide crucial information to the retailers about the product.

If this information related to POS matters: availability, visibility, and accessibility of the product, could be harvested successfully, it can help a great deal in understanding the market scenario and thus increasing the market coverage effectiveness.

A report reveals that “60% of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sales can be influenced at the store level”—as published on nielsen.com. The data clearly shows how FMCG managers can channelize their field sales resources in influencing consumer decision.

In the current times, FMCG management’s challenges know no limits when it comes to increasing market coverage effectiveness.

Challenges Faced by FMCG Firms in Increasing Market Coverage Effectiveness

Now that the market is thriving on competition and the new technologies are making it into the hands of consumers, it has become essential for the FMCG companies to empower their field sales professionals to help them deliver information more appropriately. Failure in doing so could lead to challenges in increasing market coverage effectiveness, such as:

Lack of Efficiency in Reading the Selling Scenario

As consumers are getting empowered by technology, FMCG market is witnessing a persistent change in consumer behavior. Having a persuasive selling skill is not enough. Leaders in the FMCG management need to read the existing selling scenario effectively and require the ability to predict the upcoming pattern so that crucial decisions could be taken well on time.

Field sales professionals can play an important role in increasing the efficiency of FMCG management in reading the selling scenario if the right tools and technology empower them.

To effectively increase their ability to read the selling scenario, FMCG management is required to invest in software that could help them in several ways like:

  • Identify lost opportunities
  • Identify new avenues to target
  • Determine the ROI of their field sales strategy
  • Provide real-time visibility into the workflow system
  • Enhance sales forecasting
  • Help analyze the performance of each field sales professional relative to the target

FMCG management’s challenges can be reduced by ensuring that field sales teams and supply chain teams are working in collaboration to track the stockpiles for retailers and distribution along with generating robust business intelligence that strengthen decision-making.

Also Read: 10 Ways FMCG Companies Can Benefit From Cloud-Based Field Sales Software

Providing Relative Servicing

The relative servicing is the value provided in contrast with the competition. According to a study across 155 brands, where the servicing level is lower, brands have performed 81% of their average, whereas where the relative serving is higher than the competition, the performance has increased by 1.2 times the national average.

It is the responsibility of the field sales professional to provide crucial information about the competitors’ strategy prevailing in the market. If the company can enact on the information at the right time, they can effectively increase their market coverage and enhance sales performance.

Reaching Right Stores at the Right Time

For strong in-market performance, it is essential for the FMCG companies to reach out to the right stores at the right time with adequate service levels.

According to Vijay Udasi, Executive Director, Sales Effectiveness Practice lead at Nielsen India, “How much and what we place in the right stores is a critical decision and gives the right outcome in terms of sales increase.”

FMCG management team is required to work on strengthening their decision-making to precisely select the right stores and provide the right stock.

Here again, technology can help in identifying the market requirements, which could be fulfilled by the FMCG company on time.

No Visibility into Work Order Management

Lack of visibility into the work order management limits the quality of insight available with the FMCG management team.

Besides, when the work order volume increases with multiple locations and equipment inventories, it becomes challenging for the facility managers to organize the task for field-sales professionals with a data-driven approach.

Utilizing a work order management software could provide the required visibility into work order management which can increase the market coverage effectiveness in many ways, such as:

  • Increase the number of jobs handled each day
  • Enhance the first-call resolution
  • Fewer errors
  • Improve customer satisfaction

How Can Technology Help?

Agility is the pervasive sentiment in sales. Technology can provide this agility to the FMCG companies through which they can:

  • Improve operational efficiency
  • Identify new opportunities
  • Manage multifaceted supply chain requirements

FMCG relies heavily on market research to identify consumer behavior and field sales professionals play a crucial role in market research.

FieldCircle is into transforming how global enterprises manage their field service operations. Our comprehensive and easy-to-use field service management software helps enterprises leverage the power of cloud, enterprise mobility, IoT and data analysis to boost the performance of your sales operations.

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