Manufacturers and distributors often face challenges in their daily operations trying to achieve good performance. Deploying the field force teams is one of them since it represents a key contributor to the Operational Expenditure but it is also essential to drive the relationship with the distributors and customers (retailers). In this article, we want to share best practices to help you define the right indicators to better measure the productivity of the field force.

As a first step, the manager needs to define and calculate the KPIs that will work as the basis of the field team monitoring depending on the type of role. We recommend dividing them into categories to differentiate and organize better the assessment. Here 3 examples of categories that can apply to different roles:

• Time worked
• Outlet coverage
• Sales efficiency

Other types of KPIs categories can be added as per the specifics of the role/activity. An essential part of the process is to establish the targets for each category and afterward each KPI, as well as the variable commission scheme (if applicable) to motivate the field teams to reach these objectives. From our experience, we have seen cases in which the field force is not motivated enough, usually because companies lack the ability to measure their productivity precisely.

One way in which businesses can improve the monitoring and performance of the field force is by implementing field force automation systems. Adopting software to manage their field operations allows managers to go from paper to digital and obtain real-time data and analytics to improve the decision making. It is possible to configure the KPIs that are relevant to take on the task of productivity monitoring in an easy and precise way.

Based on our experience working with clients who have decided to implement FieldPro, our field force automation solution, we are listing different types of KPIs that managers can use and apply to ensure the good performance of the field teams for each category mentioned above:

1. Time worked

• Start time: first visit logged on the app
• End time: last visit logged on the app
• Working time: end time - start time
• % of the staff who did their visit before 9am (or the defined starting time)
• Visit duration: check out - check in time. To measure the time spent at the outlet
• Visit time: sum of the visit duration during the day
• Transport time: total working time - total visit time. This can be expressed as a visit or transport ratio. What is the % of time the field staff spends actually engaging with the retailer/agent? You want to ensure the transport time is minimum with good route planning.

2. Outlet coverage

• Number of visits per day
• Number of unique shops visited. As ascertained with the geo check-in/check-out feature that we have in our solution for example, where the start and end of the visit can only be reported if the GPS shows that you are at the shop location.
• % of the shops / agents in the portfolio visited (outlet coverage). This is a fundamental KPI to ensure the sales rep / TDR visits everyone in his portfolio and not always the same / easy agents / shops. This KPI is relevant if you look at a longer period, like 30 days. A fair assumption is that the sales rep / TDR should be able to visit at least 50% of his portfolio in a month.

3. Sales efficiency

• Man days: number of unique days worked
• Active sales reps: sales rep with at least 1 sales during the day
• Calls = Number of sales done
• Strike rate = Number of sales / Number of visits
• Sales value
• Drop size = Sales value / Number of calls
• Sales quantity
• Average quantity sold

Succeeding in this complex environment requires an appropriate field force automation system with the right granular and analytical data to understand in real-time the field force and business performance. Our solution FieldPro helps manufacturers and distributors to achieve that level of visibility and efficiency in record time. Get in touch with us today to better manage your field operations.

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Do you want to discover more? Read our article about the Top KPIs to monitor distribution performance

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