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| Case
Study - Chambal Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited. |
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Chambal
Fertilizers "personalizes" its services
with a CRM application |
| Chambal
Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited (CFCL) is
a leading player in the manufacturing and
distribution of fertilizers. It operates in
three segments - Own manufactured fertilizers,
Trading and Others. The Own manufactured fertilizer
segment comprises of manufacturing and trading
of urea, pesticides, fertilizers, bio-fertilizers
and seeds. The Trading segment includes the
purchase and sale of fertilizers and agri
inputs. The Other segment includes the software,
yarn and food processing activities. The Company
has urea manufacturing facilities with a licensed
capacity of 1.518 million tonnes. The Company
markets imported DAP and MOP under its brand
name 'Uttam', through a marketing network
of 937 dealers and 14662 retail outlets. Its
fertilizer plant is located in Rajasthan;
textile mills in Himachal Pradesh and its
Software facilities in Chennai. |
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| CFCL has
a large geographic spread of its client base.
It operates through a network of Distributors,
Dealers, Regional Sales offices and Sales
representatives, targeting the end customer
- the Farmer. Majority of the end customers
live in villages and a regular contact with
them is usually a challenge. The stiff competition
amongst companies serving the agriculture
sector requires them to be on their toes continuously.
The remote location of most of their clients,
the large number of clients and prospects
coupled with the socio-economic factors prevailing
in this segment make development of Customer
Relationships, a challenge.
An effective CRM requires organizations
to know their customers very closely and
very well. Knowing personal information,
family details, economic condition, farm
details, crop details, buying pattern, personal
or work related needs etc. are pieces of
information, which, if available in a usable
form, have the possibilities of opening
up huge opportunities for companies to serve
these farmers more effectively. A well serviced
client provides solid foundation for 'loyalty'.
In today's fiercely competitive business
environment, these companies target their
clients not just for providing them products,
but also for providing services. For a large
organization knowing and addressing the
needs of its farmer base might seem like
an impossible task. This can however be
made possible by the use of a CRM software.
Effective management of the 'Product Flow',
'Services Flow' and 'Information Flow' can
be done only with the help of such a tool.
CFCL frequently runs campaigns to gather
specific data from farmers, retailers, dealers/
distributors. A questionnaire is filled
for each of the participants of the campaign.
Giving some cash/ gifts usually ensures
high level of participation in such campaigns.
For a farmer, the questionnaire comprises
of basic information relating to the farmer
such as family details, source and amount
of income, details of land, source of irrigation,
details pertaining to fertilizers used,
seeds used, pesticides used and details
relating to crops etc. The farmer may also
be asked to give order of preferences of
desirable services for agriculture, children's
education, animal husbandry, health and
others.
The objective of this exercise is to identify
individual farmer needs. For example, the
agriculture needs could be related to soil,
water, fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, farm
credit, post harvest management, etc. Animal
stock related needs could be animal insurance,
animal health camps, animal vaccination,
etc. Education related needs could be providing
scholarships and study aids. Family health
related needs could be free health check
up camps, children vaccination/polio drops,
health/life insurance and hygiene programs.
This information collected during these
campaigns goes to the central database at
HO. Regular updates on this information
helps keep this data current.
The key entities that help build and support
the CRM and sales network, gather client
data and provide them products and services
are:
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Marketing Head Office |
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Regional
Marketing Offices |
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Marketing
Offices |
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Customer
Relationship Executives (usually the Sales
Representatives or specially deputed personnel) |
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Dealer/ Sub-dealer |
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| All e Technologies
team comprising of Functional and Technical
Consultants custom developed and implemented
a CRM solution based on Microsoft technologies.
The web enabled software uses Visual
Basic, COM+, ASP and MS SQL database.
A backend engine automatically picks
up emails comprising of field data and
populates the database. This enables
users even at remote locations to do
data entry in an offline mode and send
it as an email attachment. This process
significantly enhances productivity
and enables users to enter data at the
place of origin. The solution provides
Maintenance, Data-Entry, Reporting and
Query Analyzer functions. |
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| The
solution has helped CFCL to monitor
and analyze: |
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Level of customer satisfaction, location
wise |
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Customer care being offered by the field
staff, location wise |
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Popularity
of services being offered by the company;
helping decision making for continuation/
discontinuation |
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Demand
for additional services being sought |
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Overall
success of the CRM initiative |
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Impact
of the CRM initiative on Sales (by region
and location) in the long run
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| All-e's team
comprising of Functional and Technical Consultants
developed and implemented an e-Supply Chain Management
application that complies with the 1996 federal
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA). The platform is developed in a 100%
Java-based environment and represents open, n-tier
software architecture consistent with the Java 2
Enterprise Edition (J2EE) software standard. Users
have 100% browser-based service, secure firewall
protection, 128 key SSL encryption, entity and role-based
user access, and extensive transaction and security
logs that streamlined the highly inefficient medical
implant supply chain with a pure web-native system.
The application web-enabled the existing supply
chain and, in doing so, it automated certain process
steps and made others more efficient with accurate,
measurable outputs. |
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| Following is
a summary of some of these functions available in
the solution provided to CFCL: |
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Maintain
(Add/ Modify/ Delete) and Manage data related to
the Head Office (MHO). |
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Maintain
and Manage Regional Marketing Office data. The system
allows creation of Marketing Offices at Regional
levels (RMO). |
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View RMO performance.
Sales activities of a region report to the respective
RMO. The system allows the user to select an RMO
and view its performance. The range of seasons and
years for which the performance needs to be viewed
are user selectable. The user can also select the
products for which the performance is to be viewed.
The performance data includes the planned, actual
and percentage achieved. |
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Maintain and
Manage the Marketing Office data. This includes
addition of new Marketing Offices or deletion of
existing ones, creation/ deletion of locations covered
by that marketing office and transfer of a marketing
office from one region to another. A transfer history
is also available. |
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A Marketing
Office has Distributors/ Dealers/ Sub-dealers associated
with them. A plan is made for each of them. The
system enables monitoring their performance as well
as identifying the status of Services promised to
them |
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Plans for Distributor/
Dealer/ Sub-dealer may be generated using the system.
This involves setting targets as well as keeping
track of the services asked for. Monitoring planned
vs. actual is possible here |
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Report of pending
activities at the level of Dealer/ Sub-dealer under
an MO can be generated. |
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Monthly Sales
report may be generated at any level. This could
be done for the level of Dealers/ Distributors etc |
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Product Sales
Report: A Sales report can be generated at the level
of individual products, for different Dealer/ Sub-dealers,
in an MO |
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Product Sales
report may be generated at the level of the Customer
Service Executive (CSE) |
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Service Dealer
report |
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Report on Pending
Product and Services for an MO or a CSE |
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Performance
monitoring of an MO for a specified period of time.
This is available for a user selectable season,
range of years and the product |
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Dealer/ Sub-Dealer
management. This includes Add/ Modify/ Delete of
the Dealer/ Sub-dealers. Sub-Dealers may be added
to specified dealers, their registrations renewed,
registrations cancelled, registration history viewed
and sub-dealers transferred from one dealer to another.
All additions include providing the information
details expected by the company. |
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Addition of
Prospective Dealer/ Sub-Dealers. The system assists
in identification of those for whom any enquiry
was ever registered |
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Performance
monitoring for a Dealer/ Sub-dealer, for user selected
range of seasons, years and products |
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Maintenance
and Management of Customer Service Executive: Addition,
Modifications, Deletions and Transfers of CSE can
be done. System enables monitoring the CSE performance
and history. Periodic Planning for the CSE can be
done in the system. Performance is evaluated against
these Plans. It is possible to analyze status of
plans generated with regard to the services rendered
and product sales achieved by a particular CSE belonging
to a selected Marketing Office, for a selected year
and season. A list of pending activities and a monthly
report are also generated |
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It is possible
to generate the Product Sales reports by farmers
coming under a selected CSE. |
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A list/ report
on farmers, under a CSE, for whom any new inquiry
has been generated with a period is available |
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Enquiries for
farmers can be added, modified and deleted |
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Daily report
of all activities/ sub-activities for a farmer selected
or for all farmers belonging to a CSE is available |
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Inactive CSE:
Based on a criteria defined by the company, a list
of all inactive CSE, under an MO can be viewed |
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The CSE and
MO are required to file periodic reports with the
Regional Marketing Office. The system can provide
a list of pending reports for a given period of
time |
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Farmer Maintenance
and Management. The system allows addition, modifications
and deletion of a farmer. User may view a list of
Active/ Inactive farmers, or search for a farmer
by search criteria from CSE, Name, Farmer Code,
Location (District, Tehsil). Farmer data can be
modified. Farmer may also be transferred from one
CSE to another |
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Farmer Performance
can be viewed for specified time periods, season
and for specified products. |
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The company
may add/ modify/ delete from the list of its products |
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List of Crops
can also be maintained using the tool |
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List of activities/
sub-activities relevant to Farmer/ Dealer/ Sub-dealer
can be maintained in the system |
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System allows
recording Feedback in the form of Complaints, Suggestions,
Appreciation or Comments |
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Action Taken
Report enables user record the Action Taken on a
Feedback. Report on the Feedbacks where action is
taken or not taken is available. History of actions
taken on a given feedback is also available. The
user can define several things including the owner
for a feedback. The owner may also be changed if
needed |
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Feedback Statistics:
Feedbacks can be viewed by regions/ locations. A
statistics of Feedback - total number, open, closed
for all the categories is available |
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Membership expiry:
If the registration of Farmers, CSE, Dealers etc.
was done on a membership basis, the system allows
tracking of expiring memberships. This helps in
renewals |
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Calendar functionality
enables user to create a calendar, mark holidays
and work days for the company |
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Several
performance reports - for farmers, CSE and MO wise,
for Dealers MO and RMO wise etc. are available |
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Important Day
reporting is possible. When registering Farmers,
Dealers etc in the system, it is possible to identify
certain days as important days (birthday, marriage,
festival etc.). The system enables viewing of important
days within a specified period. A personal communication
sent on this occasion helps in keeping the relationships
warm. |
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Buying pattern
comparison. The system allows viewing the buying
pattern for a Farmer / Dealer / Sub-dealer for a
particular period and comparing it with another
year. This analysis can be done for a set of selected
products, by Farmer, MO or RMO. |
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Application
Snap Shots
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