Persha Privatna Brovarnya: full coverage control and product availability management are the key success ingredients

The beer market is one of the most competitive and technologically advanced in Ukraine; its practices can be useful for other FMCG manufacturers. In order to maintain a leading role on it, its players need, first of all, to effectively manage their sales. One of the market leaders, Persha Pryvatna Brovarnia (PPB) (First Private Brewery), is sharing its experience. What tools help PPB to effectively manage sales and achieve goals, says National Manager Viktor Vardimiadi.

Now everyone says that the future lies in automation and innovation, but not everyone wants to implement them at their enterprise. What became a trigger for you, thanks to which you decided to automate sales management processes in national networks?

We operate in a super competitive market, where, apart from small breweries, there are four large players. The speed of making the right decisions directly affects success. The faster you take them, the more effective you are. And we understand that any changes can only be made based on specific numbers.

Observing how the neighboring countries are developing, we understand that Modern Trade in Ukraine will definitely grow, while the share of traditional retail will decrease. For us, this is a key channel for development.

We have a fairly large staff working in the “fields”, thanks to automation, we see a real digitized situation for each employee.

How did you choose a service? What will you advise your colleagues to pay attention to when choosing a service?

We met with a large number of companies that provide similar services. It's no secret, now there are a lot of them. The process of selecting a partner lasted more than six months, during which time we launched several pilot projects. IPLAND colleagues showed maximum involvement: we had a huge number of constructive meetings, made a lot of achievements, all our wishes were taken into account - as a result, we got a personalized product that we intended to see.

Globally, for us, two points were important:

1) automation of the field teamwork (avoiding group chats in instant messengers, unsystematic flow of photo reports, task setting in notebooks);

2) ease of use in a mobile application and the ability to conveniently analyze data behind a desktop using dashboards.

What were your goals at the beginning of using effie >?

The main one was the management of field teams throughout the hierarchy. We clearly saw what performance indicators could be measured, and at what level they were at the time of launch. For example, we saw how much time employees work in the fields, how much of this time they spend in retail outlets, and how much they spend on moving. Based on the data received, we were able to qualitatively assess the number of required personnel and make changes in routes.

The second key point for us was monitoring the availability of goods. While in the office, we were able to simultaneously observe a situation in 4,000 outlets: the availability of goods, the situation on the shelves for specific SKUs in a particular outlet, the number of outlets that were currently serviced.

There are a lot of tools in the service, but the basic ones with which we started working from the first day are territory management and work with the availability of goods.

What functionality is most in demand today, and why? What opportunities does it give you?

The main ones remain work with coverage and availability of goods, price monitoring, work with a gallery of photo reports and monitoring the implementation of tasks.

We launched the Rating of Sales Representatives, immediately resulting in increased motivation. Thanks to effie > today it’s much easier for us to manage trade marketing campaigns, we can digitize coverage, POSM availability. The speed of reaction to the situation in the fields is extremely important for us, and every day, thanks to the effie > service, we are accelerating.

What reports do you use? What decisions do you make based on the information?

One of the key reports for KAMs is the availability of goods, the actual presence of goods in each retail outlet. The turnover of our products is rather high, outs are unacceptable. Thanks to effie > we can avoid them or significantly minimize losses and digitize them for both sides. We work with reports on the dropouts from the matrix assortment daily.

In effie > we analyze everything that happens in the trade floors, we see all prices in online mode, we see the dynamics of our sales and competitors, and we understand what changes are taking place now and which ones are coming. Thanks to control, we improve our efficiency.

When we introduced the service, we saw that the coverage we work with constitutes only 63%. This meant that we worked poorly on more than 1/3 of our territory.

A month after the project was launched, coverage percentage increased from 63% to 82%, and 3 months later, it exceeded 90%. Despite the fact that the turnover of merchandisers in the market is so high that the staff is never 100% filled.

Of course, there were a certain number of people who, after the introduction of the new system, made attempts to get around it. There was a risk that with the introduction of control, we may lose up to 40% of the staff, but those who really wanted to perform remained, and those who looked for reasons not to work dropped out. The rotation of merchandisers and their supervisors decreased (compared with last year results), while due to the correct work with routes and coverage, the need for the same number of staff decreased.

Have you introduced new KPIs for your employees? Which ones?

We globally revised KPI field staff. Now each supervisor has the ability to track their results online, sees the indicators in numbers, has the ability to quickly identify the “red zones” and promptly influence the result.

We monitor the work of teams in retail outlets. For example, we established for ourselves that logistics should take no more than 20% of the time, and each supervisor must visit at least once every month each retail outlet, which is in his area of responsibility with existing tasks in terms of the coverage level in his territory. Thanks to effie > we see that even if the team is 80% staffed, the territory is 95% serviced.

How is the control of your arrangements with the networks built today?

In monitoring the implementation of agreements with networks, one of the key parameters is the availability of goods on the shelves, the availability of goods during promotional events, the implementation of all approved agreements at retail outlets.

We maintain constant contact with our partners, and when we see that there is a difficult situation somewhere, we respond with lightning speed. Now we can open a specific dashboard and talk about specific results, about fulfilling or not fulfilling tasks. We can justify the solution of complicated moments based on a photo report with the results in dynamics. This is a huge advantage of working with effie >.

What effie >functionality do you plan to use in the future?

Our next step is the full integration of trade marketing. In one ecosystem, promotional planning, followed by the task of production, flash-like synchronization with the “fields” by activities, including feedback. For us, the key point is to minimize the time spent on technical, operational aspects.

Company Information:

Persha Pryvatna Brovarnia (PPB) (First Private Brewery) is Ukrainian production, created in 2004 for the production and sale of natural fermented beverages. The company’s portfolio of brands includes more than 20 successful brands, proprietary (PBB) and those produced under a license agreement. Among them are the world famous HEINEKEN, Czech beer KRUŠOVICE and the American PABST BLUE RIBBON.