Discover how Vithoba, a leading FMCG Ayurvedic brand, transformed its sales and inventory management with Stratefix’s data analytics solutions. Learn how data-driven strategies fueled growth and streamlined operations across India’s vast retail landscape.
The Indian FMCG market is projected to reach $220 billion by 2025, with Ayurvedic products gaining substantial traction due to rising health consciousness.
The global Ayurvedic market is expected to grow at a 15% CAGR from 2022 to 2028. This growth is driven by increasing consumer demand for natural and sustainable products, creating opportunities for brands like Vithoba to expand their presence both online and offline.
Vithoba, a trusted name in the FMCG Ayurvedic industry, offers a wide range of wellness products through both online and offline channels. With a robust distribution network across India, Vithoba’s products reach consumers via a vast network of distributors, retailers, and e-commerce platforms.
However, as the company expanded its operations, it faced critical challenges in managing its sales and inventory data efficiently. That’s when they partnered with Stratefix, a data analytics solutions provider, to bring clarity and precision to their business operations.
The Challenge: Disconnected Data and Limited Visibility
Vithoba’s sales and inventory data was scattered across multiple systems, primarily managed through Excel and Tally at a departmental level.
While data was being collected, it lacked organization and actionable insights. For example, if they wanted to check or compare region wise data or dealer wise data, there was no way to get a comprehensive sales, supply or evaluation report.
The management faced several critical challenges:
- Inventory Tracking Issues: Vithoba struggled to track inventory levels accurately across its distribution network. Overstocks and stockouts at various retailer and distributor sites were common, leading to missed sales opportunities or surplus stock.
- Lack of Sales Visibility: Vithoba’s management lacked a comprehensive view of sales data. They were unable to track real-time sales performance across different stores or regions, making it difficult to identify best-selling products or underperforming territories.
- Untapped Distributor and Retailer Data: Though Vithoba had access to distributor and retailer data, it was not utilized effectively. They wanted to analyze which distributors and retailers were underperforming and establish better relationships with them.
- Delayed Decision-Making: Without real-time data, making timely and informed business decisions was a challenge. The management needed a robust reporting system to visualize data points critical for day-to-day operations and strategic planning.
The Solution: Comprehensive Sales and Inventory Dashboards
Stratefix stepped in to design and implement a tailored data analytics solution for Vithoba.
The project involved creating three key dashboards: Primary Dashboard, Secondary Dashboard, and Inventory Dashboard.
These dashboards were developed to provide real-time insights, helping Vithoba manage their data more effectively and drive informed decision-making.
Secondary Dashboard: Direct Retailer Insights
The Secondary Dashboard focused on Vithoba’s direct retail sales data. It provided granular insights, allowing the management to track daily, weekly, and monthly sales performance at the retailer level. Some of the Key features included:
- Real-time sales data visualization by zone, region, state, and area.
- Identification of top-performing retailers and underperformers. One click reporting system was developed where the management can get overall performance data with customised options to review weekly, monthly, yearly as compared to previous time period.
- Sales segmentation by retailer type, easier identification of high performing sales segments like kirana stores, medical shops, or general stores.
- Sales and overall Performance tracking for individual outlets to help improve sales efficiency and target interventions.
- Realtime report for Sales team’s performance across pan India territory in terms of products or retailers.
Management now had access to check which all retailers are covered under individual distributors.
Primary Dashboard: Distributor Performance Tracking
The Primary Dashboard was built to provide clarity on distributor performance and overall channel sales.
This dashboard transformed raw sales data into actionable insights with features such as:
- One-click access to distributor data: Management could now view each distributor’s daily, weekly, or monthly sales performance.
- Top 10/20 distributors: The dashboard highlighted top-performing distributors, allowing Vithoba to recognize and strengthen key partnerships.
- Product performance analysis: Identification of best-selling products by region or distributor, contributing to overall revenue.
- Distributor segmentation and relationship management: Vithoba could now identify distributors who were not placing regular orders and work towards improving these relationships.
- Super stockist vs Direct distributors: Real-time stock data visualization by zone, region, state, and area. Management now had access to check across pan India territory who were their super stockist or direct distributor.
Inventory Dashboard: Balancing Stock Levels
The Inventory Dashboard addressed the company’s inventory challenges. With a real-time view of stock levels, Vithoba could now strike a balance between overstocking and stockouts.
The dashboard included:
- Stock movement tracking: Monitoring stock availability at distributor sites.
- Real-time alerts for stockouts or overstocks: Enabling timely restocking or inventory redistribution.
- Regional inventory performance: Insights into inventory levels or closing stock by zone, state, or region, helping optimize stock distribution.
- Customised Inventory report: Easier identification of Monthly, weekly and yearly inventory levels for distributors in Pan India.
The Impact: Data-Driven Decision Making at Scale
The implementation of Stratefix’s data analytics solution brought about significant improvements in Vithoba’s operations.
The dashboards transformed raw data into actionable insights, empowering Vithoba to make informed decisions in real time. Key outcomes included:
- Enhanced Sales Visibility: The management could now access real-time sales data across all regions, down to the store level. This allowed them to identify high-performing products and focus on underperforming areas.
- Tracking Sales Team’s performance: Identify high performing sales persons across regions, now with the new dashboard it was easier to identify and suggest improvements.
- Improved Inventory Management: By effectively tracking inventory levels, Vithoba minimized stockouts and overstocking, reducing inventory costs and maximizing sales opportunities.
- Strengthened Distributor Relationships: With a clear view of distributor performance, Vithoba identified underperforming distributors and worked towards improving their engagement. This improved the overall efficiency of their sales team, revenue and distribution network.
- Faster Decision-Making: The comprehensive dashboards enabled Vithoba’s leadership to make data-backed decisions quickly, driving both operational and strategic initiatives.
- Tailored Insights for Growth: By segmenting their distributor and retailer data, Vithoba was able to tailor its strategies to specific customer types, enhancing overall sales performance.
- Decision making on-the-go: Stratefix created a highly secured dashboard with end-to-end encryption which could be accessed from anywhere without location restrictions or irrespective of the devices used by the management team.
Conclusion
By partnering with Stratefix, Vithoba transformed its data management practices, gaining visibility and control over its channel sales and inventory operations pan India. Through tailored dashboards, the founders gained real-time insights, optimized stock levels, enhanced distributor performance, and accelerated decision-making.
The dashboards not only resolved the company’s immediate challenges but also positioned Vithoba for future growth through real-time insights with data.
As Vithoba continues to expand its footprint in the FMCG Ayurvedic market, the insights gained from these dashboards will serve as a critical foundation for its success.
