A certain mobile handset manufacturer uses a vast distribution channel comprising of National Distributors, Regional Distributors and Retailers, to sell its products to the customers. While operating its sales channel, the manufacturer faces an uphill task to keep track of the handset sales from the National distributor through the retail shops on a regular basis. To overcome these problems, a web-based application developed by Zed-Axis Technologies brings relief to the manufacturer by providing a reliable real-time, transparent access to its overall sales process.

The customized application of Zed-Axis has been implemented across the manufacturer’s sales channel to track its secondary sales. There are three levels of sales that take place before the handset reaches the customer’s hand from the manufacturing facility. The manufacturer first distributes the handsets to its National Distributor, which in turn distributes them to the Regional distributors (RD’s) and the RD’s re-distribute these handsets to the Retailers who finally sell to the end customer.

The application developed by the Zed-Axis concentrates on all the three stages and keeps the manufacturer updated about the overall sales by providing a variety of MIS derived by various filter options available. Reports could be based on the model numbers, region, category of the handsets etc.

The application also helps the manufacturer to introduce new channel incentive schemes (Bundled, Category/Model Specific etc) at different levels, calculate the incentives and address channel payouts. This information empowers the manufacturer to take informed decisions related to product planning, price placement, target segment, and retail and service network expansions.

All of this is possible only with real time entry of the sales and purchase data. “The challenge arises when channel partners don’t enter the data on time,” says Mayank Joshi, Associate Head (BD), Zed-Axis. When this happens, the manufacturer fails to get the real picture and the overall purpose of putting the application in place gets defeated. To overcome this, the manufacturer has decided on a monthly cut-off date, beyond which the sale of a defaulting partner is not accounted for the month. The partner does not qualify for the existing schemes, and is also deprived of any price protection.