A leading FMCG company in the country wanted to understand how their competitors were strengthening their go-to-market strategies

In the past few years, FMCG companies in India have been continuously expanding their product lines and changing their sales and distribution strategies. Our client, a leading FMCG firm in India, wanted to understand the sales and distribution models of their peers in order to strengthen their own GTM strategy. They sought to benchmark:
– Sales and distribution networks and models across various trades and cities
– Marketing strategies
– Channel programs
– Merchandising systems

The client lacked the competitive intelligence (CI) expertise required for gathering granular on-the-ground intelligence. Further, they wanted unbiased intelligence from an independent agency to validate the inputs from their own internal sources.

ValueNotes conducted a detailed pan- India study to understand the sales and distribution network and process of the peers

ValueNotes leveraged their industry and field network to reach out to over 275 respondents including the sales teams of key industry peers, distributors, merchandisers, retailers, distributors, retailers and salesmen. Our respondent base covered all geographies, key sales people for specific product categories, different sizes of modern and general trade, kirana stores, mom and pop stores, etc. Highly qualitative and intensive probing yielded deep and valuable insights on the sales and marketing strategies of industry peers.

Taking inputs from multiple respondents enabled us to validate the data collected and triangulate our key conclusions, resulting in highly reliable findings.

Information gathered on all competitors was finally collated and compared to understand the best practices and innovations in distribution models in the industry.

ValueNotes helped the client formulate a proactive go-to-market strategy to win against their key peers

ValueNotes research helped the client realign their own strategies through an understanding of the key practices that were helping other FMCG firms to boost their sales. The client was also able to establish where they stood in terms of their sales and marketing strategies, vis-à-vis their peers.

The research provided actionable intelligence and recommendations on areas such as:
– Channel programs and schemes that have been successful
– Training and development programs for distributors and internal sales teams
– Handling of new product launches and use of technology for order booking and inventory management
– Setting of margins and sales target