Mobile Technology: A Dramatic and wide-reaching change in conditions

Mobile technology is revolutionizing competitive intelligence in FMCG

sales & distribution

Traditionally sales people had to record information regarding each outlet/customer manually. After receiving records from the sales person, the distributor had to enter the data manually. This process was cumbersome, error prone and time consuming. A sales person’s job also included CI activities such as understanding pricing, product specification, product positioning, and the marketing strategy implemented by competitors. The salesmen had to record all this CI information on paper. For the company and distributor it was a difficult task to record, compile and clean the data. The process made competitive intelligence time consuming and error prone. Some companies experimented with hand held devices (HDD) that facilitated automatic data collection and collation. Companies were able to analyze current market trends by analyzing 1. Customer satisfaction (towards own and competitor products), 2. Competitor pricing, 3. Competitor product specifications, and 4. Positioning of the products, and outlet analysis with respect to the particular competitor.

Advantages provided by HDD to companies to carry out CI activities. The following graphic shows some of the advantages provided by mobile technology to companies, distributors and sales people:

Apart from capturing the 4P’s of competitors, sales force also captures information regarding customer

satisfaction, inputs related to the right time frame to launch similar/particular products, customer

segmentation done by competition, competitor’s salesman information, etc. Companies are now

utilizing the technology in order to significantly enhance their competitive intelligence capabilities, to

deliver more informed marketing/business strategy.

As connectivity improves across India and the world, mobile technology will be more widely used, and

possibly new CI applications will emerge. Usage too, will spread from FMCG to other consumer goods,

and possibly even non-consumer goods. For management and managers, actionable intelligence for

sales, distribution and marketing will now be a single click away!