Ekmik's field team works across India's beauty and cosmetics trade, covering distributors and retail outlets, running in-store activities and recording what sells.
To manage all of that from one place, Ekmik moved its field operations onto 1Channel's cloud-based sales force automation platform.
Attendance, outlet visits, in-store activities and sales at every level of the channel are now captured in one mobile app. Managers follow it all through dashboards and scheduled reports.
About Ekmik
Ekmik operates in India's beauty and cosmetics market and sells through a network of distributors and retail outlets.
Like many cosmetics and personal care businesses, Ekmik needs its field team to do more than take orders.
Team members also run in-store activities such as product demos, sampling and makeovers. They record sales made to shoppers as well as the orders placed by retailers and distributors.
The Questions Ekmik Needed Answered
A beauty field team raises the same practical questions every day. Ekmik wanted one system that could answer them reliably:
- Is the team where it should be? Attendance needed proof of location, rather than a time typed into a phone.
- Are outlets visited as planned? Managers needed to see visits against the beat plan and judge how productive each visit was.
- What is selling, and where? Sales happen at three levels: shoppers buying in store, retailers ordering from distributors, and distributors holding and ordering stock. Each level needed to be captured.
- Are in-store activities happening? Demos, sampling and makeovers needed to be assigned to the right people and recorded, along with outlet questionnaires.
- How soon do managers see the numbers? Reports compiled by hand slow down every decision.
- How much admin lands on the field? Leave requests, new users and store assignments needed to move without paperwork or back-and-forth.
How 1Channel Set It Up
1Channel configured its platform around Ekmik's team structure, product range and outlet network. Business workflows and app menus were set up to match the way Ekmik works.
Attendance That Can Be Verified
- Geofenced sign-in and sign-out. Attendance is marked in the mobile app and checked against GPS coordinates and a configurable geofence radius.
- Clear daily statuses. Team members mark themselves present, absent, on leave or on a week-off.
- Automatic reminders. Anyone who has not marked attendance within the set time, or has not captured sales for the day, gets an automated reminder.
- Defaulter emails. Managers and administrators receive an automated email listing attendance and sales defaulters.
Market Visits by Beat Plan
- Assigned outlets. Each team member sees the retail outlets on their beat plan and visits them from the app.
- Visit monitoring. Managers follow their team's market visits through reports and location tracking.
- Visit productivity. Standard and in-app reports show how productive each team member's visits are.
Sales Captured at Every Level
- Tertiary sales. Sales from retailer to shopper are captured in the app, with a PDF generated for each entry.
- Secondary sales. Sales from distributor to retailer are captured with a PDF order.
- Distributor stock and orders. The team records distributor stock and places orders, with a PDF confirmation once each order goes through.
- Outlet stock. Stock recorded at an outlet adjusts automatically against sales and inward inventory.
- One product list everywhere. Every product uploaded from the backend is available for sales, orders and stock entries.
In-Store Activities and Questionnaires
- Role-based activities. Activities such as demos, sampling and makeovers are configured and assigned to users according to their role.
- Visit questionnaires. Configurable questionnaires are assigned to users to complete during store visits.
Organised Master Data
- Product structure. Products are organised by brand, category, sub-category and SKU, with a price master keeping sales values accurate.
- Outlets and distributors. Retailer, distributor and store masters are maintained in the system. Distributors and outlets can be grouped into business categories, and distributors are mapped to users and stores.
- Bulk uploads. Master data is loaded through predefined Excel templates.
- Team setup. Supervisors and area sales managers create users and assign or unassign stores through the web portal.
Dashboards and Reports
- Web dashboards. Managers see sales, attendance, stock, orders and field activities on web dashboards, along with custom dashboards built around Ekmik's agreed KPIs.
- Near real-time data. Activity and transactions from the field appear in reports almost as soon as they happen.
- Reports in the app. Attendance, sales, stock, order and productivity reports are also available inside the mobile app.
- Reports by email. Daily sales performance reports reach managers by email, and configurable scheduled reports reach managers and administrators automatically.
- Exports. Standard reports export to Excel or CSV, and attendance reports can be downloaded from the portal.
Built for Everyday Field Work
- Works offline. The app keeps working without a connection and syncs once the network returns.
- Android, iOS and web. The field team uses the mobile app, while managers and administrators use the web portal. The platform is hosted securely in the cloud.
- Leave without paperwork. Leave requests are raised in the app and routed to the reporting manager, following a multi-level approval flow.
- The right access for each role. A multi-level reporting hierarchy is configured in the system, and menu access and permissions are assigned by user role.
- Staying connected. Administrators post announcements on the app's home screen, and notifications can be sent to users inside the app. In-app chat supports users, and a documents library holds PDFs, training material and videos.
What Changed for Ekmik's Team
The field team now starts the day with a geofenced sign-in and sees the outlets planned for that day. Sales, stock and activities are recorded in the same app, even where the signal drops.
Managers no longer wait for reports to be pulled together by hand. Attendance, visits, sales and stock reach them through dashboards and scheduled emails, and defaulters are flagged automatically.
Because shopper sales are captured alongside retailer and distributor orders, Ekmik can follow its products from the distributor's stock to the outlet shelf and on to the shopper.
Routine admin, from leave approvals to new users and store assignments, now runs inside the system.
One Record from Distributor to Shopper
For a beauty business, the counter is where demand is won. What happens there matters as much as the orders flowing behind it.
Ekmik now holds that picture in one place, captured as the work happens. It gives managers a firmer basis for planning beats, assigning activities and supporting the team in the field.
