The fear of going digital
How people excuse to go Digital and lose business
An interesting scenario that I would like to share about the fear of going digital from a small distributor in TamilNadu.
I was on an assignment in setting up super stockiest and distributors in Tamil Nadu for an FMCG manufacturer from Pune, Maharashtra.
I discussed about the higher margins that the Manufacturer is willing to offer to SS, distributors and retailers as compared to the other competitors and the MRP that’s quiet lesser than the other regional brands and quality in par with any regional/national brand. The distributors are quiet thrilled and are ready to sign up the contract. I told one thing… as part of the SalzPoint platform that we had set up for the manufacturer with the help of the swipenclean.com official website, the distributors will get a free App from which their sales persons can take orders. The manufacturer wants to track real time sales information so that they can plan production effectively for the next batch to deliver to the distributor. One distributor said, our sales persons are not that qualified to use Apps. I called one sales person and asked him if he can watch movies and chat with his friends from his smart phone, then he can use our SalzPoint App easily. The sales person saw the demo of the App and said yes he is comfortable. But the distributor was still reluctant from his sales person to use the App to take orders. When I probed more and ask for the reason, he said that he does not want the manufacturer to know what sales are coming from which shop. He said that the billing is going to happen between the manufacturer and himself. So, why should the manufacturer bother to know what happens to the sale of the brand below him and with what rate and margin I offer to the retailer??
I have to politely tell him that if he is not adopting technology, then he will not get this business.
Now, not just in case of SupplyChain segment, there are still lots of segments in MSME in our country that are avoiding to adopt digital with a fear that their transactions will be tracked. The MSMEs are the ones who said that they got hit badly due to demonetization, etc. That was because they did not have proper mechanisms put in place then, to manage their sales and service operations. But now since GST has come in place and we are providing them an opportunity to take advantage of these platforms as a service at a very affordable prices and hand holding them to realize the benefits similar to what the large manufacturers get through a high price. They should be willing to change, otherwise they will lose the business opportunities.
Thoughts??
– By Sathyanarayanan Raman