Automating Business

face="Times New Roman, serif">Automating
Business

face="Times New Roman, serif"> style="font-weight: normal;">FMCG
company CavinKare discovered problems in capturing audit information
from regional offices and collecting it at its head office. The
existing process wascumbersome and lacked consistency

face="Times New Roman, serif">INTRODUCTION

Chennai-based
consumer goods company CavinKare has multiple successful brands in
its portfolio, including Chik, Nyle, Spinz and Fairever. After
establishing a strong distribution network over the last 25 years, it
now took on larger national players to increase its marketshare. As a
step towards making its distribution network more efficient, the
company implemented Nokia Tej for its distribution audit process.

face="Times New Roman, serif">PREDICAMENT

Visvanathan,
GM-marketing, CavinKare said, “Our main concern was to ease out
the burden, that the sales guys carry each day. Assimilating data is
too cumbersome.” Currently, CavinKare has an employee strength of
1,520 and 1,300 stockists cater to approximately 25 lakh outlets
nationally. The company has a rural market base and it now needs to
establish its presence nationwide across market segments.

On
a daily basis, a team of 30 people carry out sample checks on the
retailer community. Since this information is captured manually, at
the end of the business hours, each auditor goes to an Internet
café
to upload this information on a central system. But Internet access
is more often than not, a challenge in rural areas. Owing to daily
pressures, the team used to store the information either at the end
of the day or next day. Visvanathan said, “Precious time was lost
in information transfer. In the highly style="font-weight: normal;">competitive
FMCG industry, every day andevery customer is
important.”

face="Times New Roman, serif">

THE
SOLUTION

In
March 2010, the company implemented Nokia Tej to automate its
distribution audit process. The implementation was piloted in Chennai
with a pan India rollout over the next 2 months. All 30 members of
the audit team were given Nokia handsets, loaded with Nokia style="font-weight: normal;">Tej
customized for their use. “We worked very closely with the audit
team to customize Nokia Tej for CavinKare's seamless use,” observes
Chand Malu, business head, Nokia Tej.

face="Times New Roman, serif"> style="font-weight: normal;">Hands-on
training was given to the weregiven Nokia handsets, loaded with Nokia
Tej customized for their use. “We worked very closely with the
audit team to customize Nokia Tej for CavinKare's seamless use,”
observes Malu. Hands-on
training was given to the CavinKare team on the usage of the
application. With the implementation of Nokia Tej,
distribution audit data flows on a real-time basis to the central
system. The 150-member strong sales teams, including the area and
regional sales managers, now have the option of accessing this
information and making decisions on a real-time basis. With Nokia
Tej, the auditor enters the data as he travels from one retailer to
the other, thereby avoiding the end of day rush.Information is
captured on all the CavinKare brands vis-à-vis competitor
brands.

face="Times New Roman, serif">BENEFITS

“Nokia
Tej has significantly increased the productivity of the audit team.
The 2 to 2.5 hours spent keying in the data is now being redeployed
towards more productive activities,” said Visvanathan. CavinKare
saved 1.5 to 2 working hours every day, which
is equal to 60 hours per month per person, which can now be used more
productively. With the implementation of Tej, data is now reaching
the headquarters on a real-time basis instead of the typical 24 hours
delay when the process was manual. The data is more accurate now.

face="Times New Roman, serif">Apart
from this, employee's productivity canbe tracked. The management
can monitor their movements after each sales call. Nokia has also
promised uninterrupted after-sales service, which makes the
deployment more viable. Given the success in the distribution audit
area, the company now plans to rollout Nokia Tej for its order
capturing process across the field sales force.

face="Times New Roman, serif">TESTIMONIAL

Viswanathan
said, “We are extremely happy with the solution and result. Nokia
has the reach and passion to deliver. They were willing to invest
time and resources.Though they anticipated teething problems, it was
resolved in no time. Nokia went along with our sales team on field to
understand the process before implementation. Since the first project
was successful, we are already in talks with Nokia for our next
project.”

face="Times New Roman, serif">COMPANY
SPEAK

Malu
said, “We believe in our products and solutions strongly.
CavinKare is the perfect example of how our solutions can be
customized and fit according to our customer's requirement. We are
hopeful in establishing a long business relationship with them in the
future too.”