Before jumping into the details of why there is huge demand for managing and tracking secondary sales lets understand what secondary sales is? In simple terms all business transactions and inventory movement happening between first line (Supplier, Manufacture and Company Warehouse), second line (C&F agents, stockist, distributor) and third line (Retailers and end users). Sales between second lines to third line has termed as secondary sales.
Typically distribution channel of FMCG, Pharma and similar industries include warehouse, C & F agents, national distributors and super stockist, sub stockist and distributor, wholesaler and retailer these players may vary from company to company and its policies. In majority of the cases the company has the direct access of its primary sales which is from company to C & F agents to stockist but guesstimates when it comes to tracking daily sales/return, actual stock movement, orders to be processed and payment collection etc. When it occurs at distributors/ wholesalers place.
This may look very simple on paper or during board room discussions but gives rise to various business challenges.
Some of the core challenges faced by FMCG, Pharmaceuticals and similar companies include:
- Unable to track and mange secondary sales
- little or no visibility of secondary sales activities
- No protocols to track and measure sales report
- Inability to forecast product stock out
- Complicated and dissatisfactory sales return process
- Longer inventory handling time causing revenue loss
- Delayed stock replenishment causing opportunity and revenue loss
- Delayed dealers claim and scheme processing due to inaccurate and desperate sales data
Secondary sales management software allow you to keep an eye on the overall sales processes primary as well as secondary. Tracking and controlling the secondary sales data which offers seamless visibility across channels and enables you to track sales force activity and measure their individual performance, thus empowering you to take informed decisions on time, every time by providing them with POS software through which they receive stock and sell stuff and allowing import of sales data from Excel which is not recorded in your organization’s sales.
Business benefits of secondary sales management software:
- Improvised supply chain management & better production planning
- Accurate and real time information on secondary sales order, billing, sales return and payment collection across the distribution channel
- Effective measurement of Target v/s Achievement
- Shorter order to cash cycle
- Provide complete insights about market and industry help to build effective sales and marketing strategies as per the trend
- Help to build effective production planning
- Provide the ability to track performing and nonperforming product, territory, team or sales rep
- Avoid unexpected product launch delays due to poor market analysis and forecast
Apart from these above mentioned benefits secondary sales management software also comes with various add-ons like mobility solution, cloud computing which allow its users to access it anytime, anywhere during go and ability to integrate with any legacy system which further help you to import the complete data into legacy system very easily.