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Ashish Ohlyan, VP of Cholayil
attained 2X growth in secondary
sales with an integrated sales
automation platform.

Ashish Ohlyan, VP of Cholayil
attained 2X growth in
secondary sales with an
integrated sales
automation platform.

Ashish Ohlyan, VP of Cholayil attained 2X growth in secondary sales with an integrated sales automation platform.

The Story of Medimix, Cholayil’s flagship brand

Touted to be India’s largest selling handmade soap made using 18 herbs, this 52-year-old brand had humble beginnings in its founder’s kitchen. Today, Medimix has become synonymous with ‘skincare, the natural way’.

Medimix-Brand-Story

Producing more than 900 tonnes of soap bars a month, the Medimix legacy, rich with nature’s secrets, has been carefully handed down through generations and has resulted in the development of various products and remedies that have the potency to heal with the power of nature.

Getting Ready to Power Into The Future

Ashish Ohlyan, the VP Sales of Cholayil knew that to retain market leadership for Ayurvedic personal care products, he would have to incorporate a transparent and accountability-led sales culture from the ground up. 

“From a growth standpoint, I was looking for a technology solution that could support Cholayil’s vision as well as their Sales strategy. My first priority was to automate all on-field sales operations to track primary sales and distributor inventory, and then get a 24/7 line of sight on what my sales team was doing in the field. But that solution also needed to  resolve my existing challenges.”

An existing solution that was counter-productive

“Traditionally, my team would record all orders received from retailers in their respective diaries. At one point, we even adopted a sales automation tool but unfortunately, it was rudimentary and very glitchy – outlets would disappear in the app or the system would capture the wrong geolocation etc. So the actual workflows of capturing orders, retailer feedback, competition tracking etc. were still getting done manually. 

As a result, we could neither improve on our revenue potential nor could we access data on primary orders, which left us shorthanded in terms of forecasting demand and replenishing stocks.”

On-Ground Visibility was a challenge

When Ashish would sit for reviews with his team, they were under-prepared because they had no visibility on what was happening in the market. “My mid-managers were not confident about whether their SOs were covering all outlets in their beat every day, or how many outlets were giving orders. Because data was collated from multiple spreadsheets and formats, the reports would take more than a day to make. 

This was seriously impacting the speed at which we were able to respond to customer demand or take initiatives based on market patterns. All the strategies that I had carefully planned with my team were going for a toss!” 

From Diary to Digital: How did FieldAssist resolve his challenges?

Since FieldAssist onboarded Medimix during the pandemic, the FieldAssist team conducted a comprehensive online training on the FA Field App for all 280 users as well as their MIS team.

Ashish Srivastava, the National Sales Manager at Medimix, first launched the app in Kerala. After having a very successful first launch, he rolled out the solution to other states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu etc.

To start with, Ashish’s team rigorously used Sales Reports on the go using FA Analytics to track distributor stock and gauge secondary sales.  Over the next couple of months, the FieldAssist team helped their SOs scale up their usage of the SFA app by conducting physical training in non-metro cities and rural areas for all 2500 users.

  • Over a period of 6 months, the Average Value per Call increased by an average of 20%  
  • Net Value of Orders punched jumped 2X within 3 months of adoption
  • Total Calls increased by almost 50%  over the year across 3 states
  • Joint Manager Working brought up SO effectiveness on the field

Currently, Ashish’s team members have started to use Beat-o-Meter to maximise their outlet penetration, and they have seen a spike in the Active Outlet numbers.  His managers diligently use the Joint Manager feature to identify key learning areas for the SOs and to make the retailer experience stronger. 

Cholayil has also adopted the FieldAssist DMS to get better control on their primary sales as well as distributor inventory. 

Now that the brand has achieved a fair amount of traction on-field activities, FA Battleground is next on their list for gamifying employee performance to improve productivity via content, target vs Achievement alerts and social recognition.

Today, both Ashish Ohlyan and Ashish Srivastava can sit back reassured that with FieldAssist’s integrated solution and support, they have a robust, future-ready sales environment that can definitely bring Cholayil closer to its vision of becoming the most favoured ayurvedic brand for customers not just in South India, but throughout the country.