Request for Proposal: Sales Force Automation

Date: 29th September 2009

Background:
As part of one of the organization initiatives, Godfrey Phillips wants to explore opportunities of at
field force level to collect and report more accurate and granular information levels for its sales
and marketing departments
Information which is being desired for this Marketing related information like share of voice
which fall under the category of market demographics
And secondary sales information by the retailer along with other information as the stock out of
any critical brands etc.
This is presently done at the Whole sale dealer (WD) / town level.

Godfrey Phillips Sales Hierarchy:

EVP
Sales
RSM
SM
ASM
AM
One AM looks after 5 6 WDs and each WD have approximately 10 sales executives and 2-3
TMS.

The As Is Process:
Process

Method

Market
Data collected
Demographics by Trade

Granularity

Frequency Sales Team

Involved
Consolidation Quarterly
TMS, Data
at the WD /
Entry

Issues if any
Errors during
multiple levels

Information

Secondary
Sales
Information

Merchandising
Supervisor
(TMS).
Manually
consolidated
by TMS or
Data Entry
Operator.
Finally
prepared by
the AMs
Thru the
Branch
Automation
System either
by the WD
thru internet or
by the Admin
staff at Branch

town level

Operator, AM
(GPIL),
HO
Merchandising
Team.

of data
consolidation
and the
number of
reworks
/duplications
in the process

Consolidation Weekly
at the WD /
town level

WD / AM
(GPIL) and
the Admin
Team at
Branch

Relatively
stable the
Market
Demographics
information.
However if we
receive more
granular data
we will be
able to plan /
concentrate
on target
audience
during
marketing
activities

The To-be process

Process

Method

Granularity

Frequency

Market
Data collected by
Demographics the TMS directly
Information
thru a hand held
solution and
consolidation by
the software
solution

Retailer
level data
(Granularity
increases)

As and
when
required

Secondary
Sales
Information

Retailer
level data
(Granularity
increases)

Weekly

Data collected by
Sales Executive
Either by
recording sales or
thru the procedure
of order booking
and then sales

Sales Team
Involved
TMS

Benefits

Sales
Executives

Granularity
of data
increases
Data
consolidation
errors will
minimize.

Granularity
of data
increases
Data
consolidation
errors will
minimize

The Project and phases

Godfrey Phillips is new to the concept both technically and process wise and hence it has been
decided to phase the project to multiple milestones.
We intend to do a Proof of Concept exercise to understand the feasibility of the initiative (paid).
The scope of the exercise will be Market Demographics data to be captured by TMS in the field,
with 10 TMS with adequate sampling of regions and demographics.
However before we enter the PoC phase a best estimate of all the types of costs involved in
such projects needs to be completed. This should include the following items
Approx. total cost of operation, per user, involved in implementing the complete solution also
segregated as

Infrastructure Setup Cost

Infrastructure Maintenance Cost
Data communication costs with various options
Device cost (Mobile/PDA)
Software development/customization cost We understand this will require a complete
understanding the requirements clearly, hence we are looking at budgetary figures as
also various models in which the solution can be made available to us.

We intend to initially attempt the market demographics thru the TMS and then look at the option
of secondary sales reporting thru the solution by the sales executive.
The movement to the next milestone is dependent on the success in the preceding phase. After
each phase the project steering committee will evaluate the implementation and decide on the
way forward.

The Requirement & Next Steps

Reference Document: SFA Sales Analytics.pptx
The following items have been identified as a tentative list of data items / information which
needs to be targeted thru TMS solution. The actual list will be shorter and will be reworded for
simplicity.
The questions will be to capture

Availability
Visibility
Sales
Freshness
Competition Activity

Availability

Are all the GPI brands

available?
Is any of the brands facing
stock-out situation?
What is the depth of stock
f(No. of packs available) or
the available brands?
What are the competitor
brands available?
What is the stock depth for 34 major competitor brands?

Visibility

Are all the major GPI brands

visible?
How many packs of GPI brands
you can see in the waist to eye
level?
How many packs of competitor
brands you can see in the waist
to eye level?
No. of on-shop branding units
(for GPI as well as competitors)
No. of permanent in-shop
branding units(for GPI as well
as competitors)
No. of temporary display units /
POSMs in the shop (for GPI as
well as competitors)
How would you rate the
condition (cleanliness / material
defects
etc.)
of
the
merchandizing units in the
shop?

Sales

How many packs of major GPI

brands have been sold in the
last one week?
How many packs of new GPI
brands have been sold in the
last one week?
How many packs of major
competitor brands have been
sold in the last one week?
Is there any new competitor
brands started making inroads?

Freshness

How old is the oldest stock for

the most popular GPI brand?
How old is the oldest stock for
the new / slow moving GPI

Competition Activity

brands?
How many D&D packs have
been returned to salesman in
last one month?
Is there a new scheme
launched by a company?
Are the retailers excited about
the benefits? Are they actively
promoting the brands?
How old is the oldest stock for
the new / slow moving GPI
brands?

Godfrey Phillips wants an approach paper with the estimated costs for full roll out of solution to
the above indicated number of field force i.e. to TMS teams across the nation.
Godfrey Phillips also wants to evaluate the option of rolling out a similar solution to sales
executives in case the cost of the implementing and maintaining the solution is not a prohibiting
factor. Please submit a separate approach note for the same.
The number of questions for the PoC phase will be around 7-8. These will be prioritized by the
business team at GPIL. However the solution should be designed in a manner so that the
Application administrator should be able to increase or decrease the number of questions in a
section.

Timelines for the project:

Release of the RFP
Response from the partners (probable)
Contract Awarded
System Implementation & pilot completion

8th October 09
14th October 09
23rd October 09
4 months from the date of issue of PO

The scope for the PoC:

The scope of the PoC will include all the TMS in our 4 pilot markets (Jaipur, Indore, Chandigarh and
Karnal)