Increasing market share through sales efficiency (part i)

Distribution and sales efficiency is among one of the most difficult objectives to achieve for telecommunication providers in emerging markets. Sales efficiency derives on acquisition and acquisition derives on revenues. Therefore, any entrant in any market should prioritize this objective as it directly impacts the bottom line.

mmC is currently supporting a mobile operator in Africa in turning around their current sales strategy with two main objectives in the short and mid term. First objective is to heavily increase sales to reach the objectives established for EOY 08 and second is to Improve sales and distribution channels performance thru a model revamping.

With this objective we have started an “end to end” exercise considering three steps:

A) Improve the vision over the sales & distribution chain

1. Establishing a reporting and monitoring model to provide an updated and clear vision about sales & distribution performance
2. Defining KPIs and standardizing the reporting and monitoring model, and procedures to collect recurrently the information required to update this indicators

B) Improve sales & distribution effectiveness

1. Understanding the local market dynamics
2. Measuring the performance of the different distributors, sub-dealers and points of sales
3. Redefining the current remuneration schemes and basing them on effectiveness
4. Redesigning the sales and distribution networks according to business objectives

C) Control sales and distribution channels

1. Improving the channel monitoring mechanisms
2. Improving channel control and stock management
3. Stimulating remuneration based on objectives
4. Developing alternative channels (easier to manage)

Why of this exercise? Simple. The control over the sales and distribution chain is limited to the supply to distributors and activation by coded retailers. Therefore the daily sales, acquisition and activation rates is currently subordinated to the performance of these channels.

Main issues identified so far are: 1) We were having a lack of end-to-end control and monitoring mechanisms over the chain 2) There are no tracking mechanisms 3) It was difficult, sometimes impossible, to measure channel’s performance 4) There was no stock management (no way to identify stock-out, etc.) 5) Some fraud practice (ex. SIM card pre-activation) doesn’t allow having an accurate estimation on where the SIMs has been sold 6) It’s not possible to know were the scratch cards have been sold and 7) Almost 2/3 of POS are unknown (not coded)

Conclusion: It was necessary to revise the current sales positioning to increase the sales efficiency rates. With no additional budget for commercial commissions, the challenge resides on how to reduce the mismatch between the POS capillarity and the network coverage considering country’s demographics and with the main objective of reaching the activation target for the next two years.
Will let you know how are we approaching to this in a future post.

Best
CVA – Going from Madrid to Barcelona.