A dynamic economy is attributed to an ever-changing market landscape where a variety of new products are launched every day and there is intensifying competition. Hence, to sustain this competition it is evident that the market player adheres to the best offerings from the point of manufacture to end-to-end sales and service to its customers.
Every product traverses through a lifecycle from its stage of manufacture to its final sales and delivery. Once the product is ready, it reaches the consumer through a system of wholesalers and retailers. An emerging market has a huge network of manufacturers, distributors, stockists, channel partners and hence the need to have better clarity on the market data and insights for its smooth functioning. Though the Channel Sales Management system is in place, there are few limitations like the presence of an unorganized distribution network with inadequate capital and tech infrastructure. Multi-brand distributors lack the necessary data for managing so many brands simultaneously and there is no clarity on real-time data on orders, inventory and claims. Also, limited penetration of the internet and inadequate logistic infrastructure in rural areas is a major challenge. These bottlenecks render a delay in the entire process thereby making the entire supply chain inefficient. Hence, the need for an effective Distribution System.
The essence of a Distribution Management System Software
Constant evolution in the product market and saturation in the retail landscape has made the role of a distributor very important.
Distribution Management deals with that stage in the supply chain, which is concerned with the distribution of the manufactured goods and includes packaging, inventory, storage, better procurement planning, price circulation, warehouses and transport facility for them. The whole process has to ensure that there are no errors or confusion with the timely and accurate delivery of the product. This is possible only with excellent communication, proper monitoring of transactions made and price monitoring at every step.
Initially, the traditional channel sales management and custom software based distributor management system was prevalent, which rendered few shortcomings like the lack of real-time and actionable market statistics for business decision making, duplication of work at the distributor’s end, huge license cost, misappropriation of data transactions, no control of secondary schemes and poor internet connectivity especially in the rural areas.
With the ever-evolving Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Fast Moving Consumer Durables (FMCD) industry, different players like Haldiram’s, Haier, Bunge and Crompton started using the first Tally-Busy integrated distribution management software (DMS) to keep a track of their distributors and the secondary sales data.
With the right software platform fuelling one’s sales and distribution activities, the company can achieve high performance in even the most fast-moving and fragmented marketplace. And that is where EAZY DMS (Distributor Management System) comes in, the best option for managing channel sales without burdening the distributor with additional software. Designed for businesses in emerging and developing markets, EAZY DMS is a distributor management system that provides complete visibility of the company’s secondary sales and stock lying at the distributor’s end by integrating it with the distributor’s Tally/Busy directly. Hence, the primary company does not have to deploy a separate portal at their distributor’s end and still can keep track of all relevant information. The distributor can keep using his existing Tally software for billing and order related queries.
Launch of Eazy’s DMS and its success stories
The next-generation distributor management system was launched in 2014-2015 with direct integration of Tally-Busy software, to manage them end-to-end. Very soon few FMCG majors like Bikano, Cremica, Anmol and FMCD majors like Finolex, Crompton, Panasonic and other companies like Borosil, Milton and DOMS started using it as their operations were based on multi-brand billing and easy accessibility even in offline mode. This integration led to control of secondary schemes and invoice, price alteration, data on stock inventory and replenishment tracking much smoother. Secondary sales got streamlined in different companies leading to 5-10% rise in sales on an average, no change management for distributors and complete visibility was there for the principle company, thereby leading to an influx of more distributors on this software. Companies like GoodyearTAFE and Jamna Auto Industries were highly benefitted with increasing sales and better clarity and transparency in the system..
Small scale distributors had been using the portal which entailed a lot of operational issues like having multiple portals for separate brands and lack of transparency. So they decided to move onto EAZY DMS due to its web-based presence which were available in both online and offline channels and facilitating a multi-brand approach. This enabled these distributors to focus on generating more business and servicing the clients for better returns, thereby enhancing their outreach and scalability. Analytical tools like extensive reports and Business Intelligence dashboards were maintained to attain real-time business insights for the field force and the senior management to take corrective actions.
While the manufacturers and distributors were elated with the launch of this software, the rural marketers and the retailers were looking for suitable software to revolutionize their working mechanism to achieve enhanced sales. A large beverage brand used a web-based DMS with 6500 distributors, but could only implement 3000 distributors on this software. Remaining 3500 distributors in the rural areas could not use this software due to lack of internet or computers. This enabled EAZY DMS to ponder on “What Next?” and if there are any means to make it useful for the larger players.
Launch of Hybrid DMS – NextGEN of DMS
With the launch of the EAZY DMS, though distributors’ pain was eased in the supply chain, sales demand and data for the retailers were missing. To ease out their operations mechanism, a hybrid model of the EAZY DMS called Eazy DMS 3.0 or Eazy’s Hybrid DMS was launched for tier 3 and tier 4 cities. This software provides an integrated Tally-Busy mechanism, web presence, offline-online access and a mobile app, Lite DMS for the convenience of all rural stockists and distributors who did not have internet access earlier. These were a couple of factors along with the onset of COVID-19, which propelled the organization to launch the Hybrid DMS.
The global pandemic that affected India from March 2020 created a lot of scope and demand for a similar analytical software at the retailer level too. The concept of digitization became prevalent during this phase as no distributor could personally go to the retailer to take orders during May-June 2020. This led to the launch of the retailer’s self-ordering app called Retail Eazy on 11th August 2020. This app is in its first phase, where retailers have got connected to the distributors and stockists. This hybrid model encompasses the entire journey from order booking to order fulfilment. It is based on an Oracle cloud platform and is more secure while it uses ‘Pay as peruse’, loyalty programs and ‘Pre-filled price for distributor and dealer orders’. It became a household name in the unorganized shoe market and smaller Kirana stores, companies like Campus Shoes and Borosil are in the process of implementing it.
The Hybrid DMS philosophy went into tie-ups with different Channel Financing Startups who make unsecured funding without any collateral or terms and conditions. Post COVID-19, liquidity is the main bottleneck amongst distributors and retailers. So this app-enabled all the retailers to be well aware of any funding opportunity they could leverage upon in the market.
Experts in logistics gained widespread acceptance in the market with the onset of different startup players like LALAMove, Porter and Delhivery who have been instrumental in creating an ecosystem for smoother execution of the supply chain. The app will sooner be integrated with logistic service providers who could enable the deliveries for the retailer, once he gets a notification that the order is ready to be despatched.
The Way Forward
Since the majority of the supply chain has been connected, the next step would be to connect the retailers to the customers. Connecting the brick and mortar retailers to the customers is indeed a stepping stone in this journey and discussions are on to make it feasible going forward. This app will be beneficial in connecting the retailers to the customers and their preferences.
The primary brand pays for the distribution management software which the retailer can use it to optimise sales following the top-down approach. The fifty brands that have been empanelled with this company have already tied up with 9000+ distributors, who are billing to more than 2.2 million retailers, using this one-stop solution. Hence successful implementation of the EAZY DMS and its versions has created a very smooth and sustainable supply chain management.
