August 2012, requirements for a full fledged application to access retail distribution came in to Vinfotech's mail-box. After a few initial talks with the client, the understanding of the project were made clear. The good thing about the project is that it started with the QA feedback and this enabled the team to schedule and deliver the first release in a time span of 2 weeks.

While a lay man might have some trouble understanding the application, it carries the simplicity of the color white for retailers, store owners and sales representatives.

Retail is all about converting analysis and research to reports that could further be utilized to increase sales and this idea has been taken from concept to market by the Vinfotech team in a way that just doesn't get simpler than this. From tracking sales people to allotting tasks to sales reps, the application covers it all and offers a great UI. A person with a good aesthetic sense would perhaps have a word of praise for the designs.

Cutting to the Chase – What's it About?

In the current scenario, a product goes from the manufacturing unit to a number of stores and the manufacturer is very keen on knowing why his product is doing well in some stores and not so well in others. His first move would be to send out sales representatives to these various stores to collect various kinds of data. Starting from the isle that the product is kept in to the position of the shelf that the product is placed in, various kinds of data is accumulated and compiled by sales reps and after a few nights of hard work, this data is sent to the business owner in the form of a report. In the meanwhile, if the manufacturer or the business owner forgets a point or two, the sales reps need to hit the stores all over again to compile the missing data.

Placement View makes it simpler for sales reps to compile the data and send it to the analysers. The business owner on the other hand gets live feed of the activities of the sales reps with Placement View. The business owner can add to the list what he might have forgotten initially and the sales reps can have a look at the tasks that need to be done.

A lot of emphasis is being laid on the simplicity of the app and here's why:

• The admin or the business owner (the sales manager in case of big companies) can manage the retail business at the store level in the comfort of his office.
• The sales reps can make updates on their iPhones and inform the status of a task to other sales reps and the admin in a matter of seconds.
• The admin can manage mandatory retailer programs in a single database.
• The admin gets to keep an eye on his sales rep by simple glancing at that screen on his desk.
• The sales reps can simply click pictures of the store isles, shelves and other necessary entities and send it to the admin or the manager in a few clicks.
• The paperwork is eliminated and the time taken decreases exponentially to receive and compile reports from various sales reps.

What Data? What Tasks? Elaborate!

Initially the administrator needs to add his own little database to the app –

• The salesmen
• Products
• The stores where the products are kept

The admin or the manufacturer or the sales manager also decides the permissions, shares the log-in details with his sales reps and post updates. This was one of the first implementation that the Vinfotech team executed for the project.

The admin then needs to allot tasks and work to his sales reps. He can of course set the priority of the tasks that they need their sales reps to work on. The tasks can range from entering the price of the product to taking pictures of the product resting in the store and uploading it in a pre-set template. The sales reps can themselves prepare a task and share it with others. This simply helps sales reps to make their work simpler. They can also flag a certain task if there is a problem with the product and the positioning of the product in the store or for any other reason for that matter.

As soon as a task is completed by the sales rep, he marks it done and the administrator gets a notification. He can then either leave a remark / comment or delete the task.

Ode to the Forgetful Mind!

Let's face it, a sales rep and a sales manager are both humans and might forget a task or two. In this case, a manager can simply add or allot a task to the sales rep later and a notification would be sent to the sales rep. If a sales rep has left a certain locality and moved on to another without having completed a certain task, he can always reallocate the task to a sales rep in the previous locality. The admin can view the pending tasks and since how long they have been on hold along with the number of times a sales rep has forgotten a certain task.

This way, a whole set of analytics can be developed by the admin with maximum ease. No chases, no paperwork, no extra time taken and definitely no slacking!

Sound good? And simple? Well, Placement View has been planned to be a very easy to use application. All in all, the Vinfotech team has designed and developed a simple data-driven software solution that aims to provide increased transparency and accountability at the point-of-sale.