Shelf brand management: to go with the flow or to boost sales?

Today in national networks there is very high competition among manufacturers, including manufacturers mineral water and soft drinks. To maintain leadership in this market, you must constantly keep abreast of the pulse, often making important management decisions precisely and in time. Understanding this and setting a goal to be as competitive as possible in managing the shelf, brand and sales in the VIP-network through merchandising, Bon Boisson Beverages has decided to automate trade marketing and, accordingly, optimize sales processes.

As examples of global companies show, the introduction of tools for administering merchandising processes allows you to use existing resources as efficiently as possible. Bezerku Hilarion, Business Process Engineer at Bon Boisson Beverages, Department of Modern Retail, tells more about this experience.

What are the top priorities for your merchandising?

To always be among the first, it is important to know the situation and manage relationships at each outlet, control the shelf and positions of our brand in comparison with competitors' products, ensure the constant availability of our products on the shelves, monitor the activity of competitors, and manage all changes in the context. Merchandisers are not only hands, but also the eyes of trade marketing and sales.

The specifics of our business is such that the merchandiser must ensure the availability of products on the shelf, the standard of representation, and other tasks. And the need to control all steps of the visit becomes a key process. After testing, we have chosen the effie> service.

What functionality of effie> is the most useful for you? What opportunities did the service give you?

It is impossible to single out the most useful functionality, since only a comprehensive set of functions allows one to form a balanced assessment of the situation and, as a result, apply a balanced management decision.

When introducing the service, we were able to bring the control of our own trade-marketing activities to another level. We got the opportunity to work with operational data and their history. We were always up to date when our competitors hold their promotions and on which product, this knowledge helps us adjust our own activity.

The report “Correspondence of the Assortment Matrix” turned out to be very useful, with the help of which we can control the conformity of the assortment on the trading shelves and be sure that our SKUs are present on the shelves according to the approved matrix.

It was also very important for us that the tool gave us the opportunity to control the work of field employees on the route. With effie> this is not a problem - the service captures every step of the merchandiser, and summary reports are displayed on the dashboard.

With the introduction of mobile control over the work of merchandisers, the discrepancy between the Company values and a number of employees was revealed, which entailed the natural rotation of the team of merchandisers, increasing their productivity and responsibility. Previously, merchandisers could use about 30% of their working time for personal purposes, which today is an element of hidden motivation in a number of companies, and we, unfortunately, were no exception.

Arriving at the point of sale, the field employee checks the availability of goods on the shelf, as well as their display according to the planogram. With effie> a planogram is always at hand, this frees up the time for the merchandiser to collect information about the outlet, competitors, and other tasks.

The mobile accounting and control system of the merchandiser is pleasantly complemented by a visualization tool for the results on the site. Effie> dashboards have competitive privilege and are a good tool for monitoring results and activity across the entire management vertical. However, this service requires significant Internet resources, but we hope that with the development of technology this task will be resolved as well.

What functionality was unexpected but very useful for you?

Together with IPLAND, we managed to create a convenient report with the establishment of a store check. This dashboard allows you to set outlets by their priority, based on inconsistencies recorded by the merchandiser (assortment matrix, planogram, etc.). It allows the supervisor to choose for testing not just points of sale, but real problem areas.

What other advanced features did you get with effie>?

If we talk about the leaders of field teams, when performing store checks, they can directly assign instructions for the merchandisers using effie> on their phones, finding all kinds of inconsistencies and tasks that need to be performed at the outlet. Thus, the process closes when the merchandiser fulfills the assigned instruction, his Manager controls its performance, etc. (circle-wise).

How did you hear about effie>?

When we were in search of sales management solution, luckily, at one of the conferences, we learnt about IPLAND Company. At that time, we actively studied all the proposals that existed on the market, and, based on the principle of fair choice, decided to work with IPLAND.

Thanks to effie> service, our Company was able to implement KPI works of merchandising teams on the basis of formalized data, connect KPI of merchandisers and their direct managers with sales results, and approach the assessment of weighted efficiency.

In merchandising, effie> is a flexible tool that allows you to collect any information from the coverage and work online (reporting, etc.). As a result, we gained confidence in the future. Sales growth in the first month of putting effie> into operation amounted to 126%, and this is encouraging.

What is the most anticipated feature of new effie> service?

We are among those companies that do not wait, but implement ahead of schedule. And it is the readiness of IPLAND to develop and quickly implement many of our wishes that aims us at a joint future.

What moments would you note when working with IPLAND?

I am very impressed that this Company is always open to our experience and is ready to improve and develop with us. Thus, we are building a powerful partnership channel, giving each other an impetus for development.

IPLAND holds a very active position in conducting business, they always strive to answer all inquiries, they are ready to listen and accept new ideas and thoughts. effie> is amazingly often updated, several times a month, and in these updates the Company takes into account our wishes and recommendations. Each new function greatly facilitates the implementation of applied tasks, and with each update there are more and more of them. The service is constantly being improved, including in the convenience of work.

Company information:

Bon Boisson has been a leader in the production of mineral water and soft drinks in Ukraine for 20 years. The Company ranks the 4th in terms of production volume in Ukraine and is in the TOP5 of the largest national manufacturers. The portfolio of brands includes TM BON BOISSON, Bon Lemon, Miracle Garden, Black, Kvas Boyarsky. The main principle of the Company is tradition and quality.