At present scenario in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) when multinational biggies are struggling with slowdown in sales and dipping revenues, one of the swadeshi herbal and ayurvedic brand is multiplying its revenue day by day. This swadeshi brand started couple of decades before but the way it has positioned its self has consternated its competitors and revived an ancient old segment of “Ayurveda”. There are various factors behind the success of this brand but its supply chain and sales and distribution strategy is the back bone of this impressive success.
I have tried to delve deeper myself to understand its supply chain and distribution strategy. In April 2012 it has officially announced its entry into the retail sector by launching 100 products to be expanded up to 800, including bodycare, healthcare, digestive, cosmetics, toiletries and others products. The national and multinational FMCG brands playing in this fast growing more than 1 trillion $ Indian market have started facing intimidation from home grown and an absolutely swadeshi competitor.
The fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) segment is the fourth largest sector in the Indian economy. The market size of FMCG in India is estimated to grow from US$ 30 billion in 2011 to US$ 74 billion in 2018.
Food products is the leading segment, accounting for 43 per cent of the overall market. Personal care (22 per cent) and fabric care (12 per cent) come next in terms of market share.
In spite of many driving factors like rising income level, enhance awareness regarding brands, desire to experiment with brands, evolving customer life style, growth of modern trade, availability of online channels for shop etc. , this industry is experiencing sluggish growth rate at recent due to late arrival of monsoon, higher inflation rate and reducing demand trend in rural areas.
So the FMCG sector is very curiously awaiting for the applicability of goods and service tax (GST) which will bring significant change in the traditional supply chain structure. Currently industry players are holding depots, warehouses and carrying and forwarding agents to avoid 2 % CST or it’s better to say to avail input tax credit. The traditional supply chain has been designed by keeping the tax benefits in mind.
Your field force are the face of your organization, they are responsible for creating your brand image in the market with their effective communication, commitment and relationship with your customers. If your field force are not satisfied you cannot build your brand value in spite of spending millions of dollars in marketing and promotion. So the leading organizations are always giving huge importance to field force excellence.
We always have experienced that employees working in restaurants like Café Coffee Day seemingly happier than in MNC Pharma companies. Your field force are not machine that can be driven only by efficient process alone. They require proper motivation, guidance and training to make the process work. Pharma industry is the industry which is facing high attrition rate and the reason behind that is hidden dissatisfaction lies in field force. Here are the top 5 obstacles towards achieving field force excellence:
1. Inability to get information needed in timely manner
Generally we have seen that Pharma industry rapidly hires field representatives and after providing 3-4 days training send them on the field and then the problem starts, field force needs to be updated always but the ground reality is that there is a huge communication gap between top management and field force. Even good information takes its own sweet time to reach the people at the ground level. Quality of information and timely dissemination of information can do wonders towards achieving field force excellence.
GST stands for Goods & Service Tax, is a consumption based tax levied on sale, manufacture and consumption on goods & services at a national level.
Seen as the panacea for removing the ill-effects of all indirect tax levied by state and central government. Exports and direct tax like income tax, corporate tax and capital gain tax will not be affected by GST. Alcohol, crude petroleum, motor spirit, diesel, aviation turbine fuel and natural gas will be out from the jurisdiction of GST. The current complex tax system will be replace by dual GST which is concurrently levied by central and state government.
- CGST (Central GST)- levied by center
- SGST (State GST) – levied by state
- IGST (Integrated GST) – levied by central Govt. on inter-state supply of goods
Advent of cloud services, highly proliferation of mobility solutions and major acceptance of digital technologies have transformed the age old approach of traditional detailing of Pharmaceutical companies with eDetailing. Pharmaceutical companies are working very hard to influence KOL’s (Key Opinion Leaders) who are doctors, physicians and surgeons responsible for prescribed their drugs to the patients.
We often experienced when we visit any doctor or physician the long queue of MR’s with their heavy bag waiting for their term to meet the doctor for detailing about their newly launched drug to increase their share of prescription.