FMCG Company news South Africa

Key Distributors boosts sales by 25% with ConnectFMCG

Key Distributors, a business of Value Logistics, is a warehousing and sales company focused on the distribution of FMCG products to formal and informal retail markets in South Africa. The warehousing and distribution landscape has changed in the past decade, shifting from formal retail to the ever growing segments of the informal trade and forecourt business. This shift means pressure to visit more stores across a larger territories with smaller sale baskets per customer.
Key Distributors boosts sales by 25% with ConnectFMCG

To remain competitive and add more value to their customers, Key Distributors needed to transform its business into a technology driven one in order to keep pace with growing customer base, ensure efficiency and drive sales. They wanted to become more automated and effective, whilst optimising trade experience and ensuring relevance throughout the customer journey.

Over a 12 month period, Key Distributors went from using a paper based manual sales processes to a digital-first organisation. They did this by transforming their technology set-up, adopting new technology partners and integrating with existing stock management systems. Key Distributors partnered with the ConnectGroup to implement the ConnectFMCG sales force automation and mobile ordering platform to revolutionise their business and increase sales.

Results

Key Distributors estimates that by partnering with ConnectFMCG they have:

    - Increased SKU’s covered in sales by 25 %

    - Serviced up to 25% more customers on a daily basis
    - 30% increase in turnaround time for the picking, routing and delivery of orders
    - Aided a cleaner debtors book by making data driven decisions like exchanging free stock for price adjustments

    - Understood active sites and eliminate time wasted on in-active or duplicate accounts

The ConnectFMCG platform has benefited the Key Distributors business through integrating their handheld app driven solution with the stock management platform. This has been key in giving sales reps more knowledge, power and control in their negotiation with traders. Sales reps now understand live availability of stock on hand in the warehouse, where before sales were largely conducted “blind”. This means a more transparent sales transaction with a faster and more accurate deliverable. Sales reps are also up to date with real-time price adjustments and ad-hoc promotions made at Head Office whilst they are in the field. Reps can see the order history of each customer which reflects credit limits and helps determine potential to increase orders whilst in store. The time taken to capture an order is reduced which allows the rep more time to evaluate POSM, merchandising and evaluate business development opportunities. It also allows the rep to increase their site call rate per day by 25%. ConnectFMCG has recently added a cash receipt module to the platform which allows reps and drivers to log the receipt of cash from a customer, input the details into the app and instantly generate a PDF receipt. From here they are able to WhatsApp or email the receipt to the customer.

How to connect: Email Jane Sarah Rosen, Partner at ConnectGroup, a division of MegaVision Media at az.oc.tcennoceraew@enaj

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