Constantin Semyonov: The industry solution of CRM should advance business requests

Constantin Semyonov: If to speak about those companies from the sphere of FMCG with which we work and on whom our solutions are focused, and these are the companies of national scale, then for them such features as the huge customer base (tens of thousands of active partners) and big staff of sales representatives are characteristic of work with this mass of clients.

It is clear, that the management of such number of employees requires automation, and the majority of systems offered in the market of CRM-solve the main objectives in the field of sales and management of sales agents. But in order that the company was a market leader, she needs to use most effectively resources of all services involved in sales process at the same time tasks which automation of the solution is not provided standard functionality of CRM systems begin to come to the forefront. At this stage of market development we see several such tasks where increase in efficiency can give essential competitive advantages for the company is an automation of marketing actions (from preparation of the budget before obtaining the actual results), operating control behind placement of the equipment in outlets and also the automated and transparent assessment of results of work of all staff of service of sales.

TAdviser: If to tell about marketing actions, then what support from CRM should consist in?

Constantin Semyonov: As you know, main objectives of marketing actions — sales increase in some region or the sales channel and also promotion of a new brand or specific goods item. And here all should solve the same problems — as it is correct to create the address program of an action and how then to count its efficiency? Both problems can help to solve CRM (in integration with planning and budgeting systems).

First, CRM allows to collect data on outlets and their actual sales allowing to create the address program of an action. Secondly, a system allows to monitor the actual holding an action. In "the Monolith:" we maintain by CRM special type of activity for sales representatives, so-called "activation" of a marketing action — on them the budget of an action is decomposed, and they allow to monitor execution of this budget as in them the specific events connected with holding an action are fixed. It turns out that the action as such is a set of the aktivation matching on dates and keyword parameters (for example, to a brand), but the outlets carried to different groups.

The address program of the carried-out action is fixed in a set of "aktivation", and then used for collection of information about the actual sales within the action and the monitorings executed by sales representatives. These data are transferred to the forecasting module where analysts can compare planned and actual increase in sales volume in the course of the action and also in a budgeting system, for calculation of cost efficiency of an action.

Thus, use of CRM gives the chance of detailed planning of marketing actions and does their carrying out by the most transparent and managed.

TAdviser: What gives CRM in the field of control of placement of the equipment in outlets — what there are new opportunities here?

Constantin Semyonov: Control functions by a retail store equipment were in "the Monolith: CRM" starting with the very first versions is an important element of industry solution as the FMCG companies can have hundreds of thousands of such objects, and their service and control of use is included into tasks of "field" staff of service of sales.

Rather recently we added the module allowing to use possibilities of modern mobile devices for scanning of barcodes of a retail store equipment. It small improvement qualitatively would change water process of management of these objects, allowing to connect the accession numbers of each item of equipment which are stored in a system with the barcodes applied on the equipment, and further to keep all account by the scanning method at each visit to outlet or on a warehouse.

Such opportunity (in combination with GPS tracking of provision of the agent) gives the management of service of sales guaranteed reliable information about existence of the equipment in each outlet at the time of each visit and also allows to control quickly movements of the equipment between outlets and warehouses of distributors. Thus, the company not only has information on the actual placement of the equipment on outlets, but also can estimate its reliability with a high accuracy.

As process of control of existence and movement of the equipment becomes automated, it leaves "a gray zone" and becomes one of performance indicators (KPI) and for the sales representative, and for the distributor.

TAdviser: What opportunities can the CRM solution for creation of a performance evaluation system of staff of service of sales give?

Constantin Semyonov: At a large number of sales representatives (and in the industry of FMCG it can be thousands of employees) the service of sales inevitably purchases a hierarchical structure — positions of supervisors, area managers, etc. appear. And if the problem of calculation of KPI of workers of "local" level — sales representatives — is rather standard since it is most well formalized and simple in calculation, then the problem of increase in efficiency of all service of sales surely requires sooner or later automation of calculation of KPI for employees of all levels — and for this purpose singular solution is necessary. In "the Monolith: CRM" is for this purpose implemented the special module of the analysis and efficiency evaluation. Tasks (target indicators, KPI) can be appointed separately on roles, territories, with a possibility of detailing to each position. Indicators are calculated daily, and each employee of service of sales (from the sales agent to the head of all service of sales) sees every day as far as he carried out tasks of the current cycle.

In each level the GPA of accomplishment of KPI and the rating of each employee is calculated. On the basis of ratings a system allows to build programs of motivation for encouragement of the best (among appropriate level since, of course, there is no sense to compete, for example, to the sales representative with the area manager). Our system allows to organize the public portal which in real time shows the current KPI levels of all participants in corporate network of the company; the same data are available through a mobile CRM-application Monolith of Agent.

Experience of use by our clients of the module of the analysis and efficiency evaluation shows that the openness of this system and also the fact that all information is updated and is available in real time, gives very powerful incentive to improvement. It is clear to all who and on what basis receives this or that encouragement or collecting.

Thus, CRM becomes the transparent management tool all levels of service of sales, allowing to include in a single system of assessment of partner distributors and clients also.