Case study: How to handle the chaotic management of POS realizations?

Many entities are involved in the production and installation of POS materials. It involves many people on the part of a manufacturer, client, and seller. The larger the project, the more likely it is that the realization will not go smoothly. So how can we ensure that the management of each project is more efficient and transparent?

Many companies that use point-of-sale support are looking for the answer to this question. One of them is Budweiser Budvar, which annually realizes many larger or smaller projects in the field of POS promotion. “Imagine that we want to place more than a hundred displays in stores. From the moment a manufacturer completes them until they are installed in a store, there are many people involved in such a project. Our sales representatives negotiate a location, the logistics department transports displays, and the installation teams assemble them. All the activities are being supervised by the client. If there is a lack of thorough coordination and an overview of the situation, complications can occur,” describes the Sales Support Manager, Alžběta Eignerová.

In general, the management of POS realizations usually goes chaotically in several different ways – in tables, lists, many e-mails, or unsatisfactory programs. However, the more channels there are, the more the possibility, that important information will be lost somewhere, the deadline will not be met, or even get out of control of the budget, grows. The consequences of insufficient overview can show, for example, in the fact that POS resources will not be used sufficiently, which can lead to waste and complications that no one wants.

This led to the fact that we have come up with software that integrates the individual phases of realization in one place and involves all actors into the management in the entire process of creation, realization, and registration. So we wanted the information system to simplify and clarify the efficiency of plants, installation, as well as subsequent registration and management. It brings clients a comprehensive overview of all their POSs. At the end of everything, both retail and end customers are satisfied with much greater certainty.

Each user has his point of view

The supplier, customer, logistics, and warehouse are connected online in the system. The client monitors each phase of his order in real-time and online. With the help of photos and notes from the installation teams, he can see that the POS media is placed in the correct condition in the right place, and if necessary, he can request a correction by simply entering it into the system. For example, if the ordered displays can be given during the first day, the customer immediately registers it in the system and knows that he must order more.

In Budvar, they also switched fully to logistics software, and even partially participate in its creation. “Thanks to this, we can create it according to our needs as well as the needs of other potential companies that promote their products at the point-of-sale. The function of so-called dashboards has proved its worth, where each user can see only what he needs to see in the system. In practice, we can imagine this by a sales representative focusing on a specific store. He enters the dimensions of the display and the components he needs into the system, and it appears in the system as a proposal that we approve. In the system, we simply enter everything for production and delivery to the supplier,” mentions Alžběta Eignerová.

Evaluation of sales representatives

The software also includes a map that shows the location of in-store communication resources in individual stores. “Thanks to that, we can see the location and type of POS and where there are empty spaces. We can thus take steps to strengthen the activities of the sales representative in the relevant area,” adds Alžběta Eignerová from Budvar.

Sales representatives can also be evaluated via data from the system. The customer has an overview of how active the representative was and where he managed to place the POS. This information is reflected in special evaluation pages and summary reports with appropriate performance comparisons.

More complex and long-term in-store communication activities, such as cash zones, shelving systems, or even entire beverage departments, always consist of many components. They are installed in various sizes, assemblies, and variants. In these cases, the system itself evaluates, proposes, and informs about the need for further production and storage of individual components based on previous sales, which could be missing shortly and thus complicate the flow of installations. This optimizes not only production and stocks but also the financial resources that the client allocates only to the necessary parts. Controlled deliveries from production to the warehouse eliminate delays and waiting for production.

Has the display already been withdrawn?

The software is also used as an archive of completed orders because it can be used to filter between active and inactive projects. Based on our experience, it happened to us that after a long time, clients turned to us with a question like, ‘Do we still have an end cap in that shopping center, or has it already been withdrawn?’ Not only can they see the status of the POS in the system, but they will also find out how successful it was. Sometimes they even called us with a request not to delete the photos exposed from the software, because it is the only place where they keep records of them.

They have been working with the system in Budvar for over a year. “It’s a big advantage for us that the software works like a living organism. It is constantly updated and evolving. We can adapt it as we need. So far, we use it to manage POS in stores, but in the future, we are also considering the involvement of on-trade,” concludes Alžběta Eignerová.