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Empower the last mile for agility!
Conventional distribution systems in FMCG have CFAs invoicing to distributors, who in turn sell to retailers. A prevalent practice amongst the leading companies is to ‘control’ the transactions at CFAs and distributors.
For example, if a distributor wants to sell a large amount to a retailer and it deviates substantially from the monthly plan, he needs to take approval of the sales team. This is supposedly done to prevent selling across territories.
However, it also comes in the way of meeting a sudden spurt in demand, which is event-based. For example, malaria or dengue outbreak in a city could shoot the demand for home insecticides by 10x. If the distributor needs to take approval for fulfilling this genuine demand and if the approval process is bureaucratic, the company is likely to lose this additional demand.
Empowering the last mile to fulfil sudden spurts in demand helps in better demand fulfilment. Validation, if any, should be done post facto rather than in advance.