FMCG Distribution(Route to Market): Complete Beginners Guide

Hello everyone, Welcome to this course on FMCG Distribution, a Route to Market guide for beginners and Intermediate in the world of FMCG, a Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector.

This course is a comprehensive course on entire gamut of end to end FMCG Distribution activities that is being carried out between various stakeholders involved in the entire Distribution network. In a nutshell, this course discusses majorly on the movement of products from the time a product is produced in a manufacturing plant, some company like Nestle or P&G, till it reaches the retail outlets shelf for the end consumers to purchase it. So, that’s the overall flow of this course.

The Introduction to FMCG Distribution course will get started with a quick overview about FMCG sector in general. It is important to understand the basics of FMCG sector before heading into the niche as FMCG distribution. So, on a high level, we will discuss on what is FMCG, its characteristics, types of FMCG categories and product mapping available in the market, product hierarchy that is being followed in the FMCG, how FMCG products play a major role in our day to day life style and a quick overview on some of the major and household FMCG companies that is been operating in the market.

With this overview, lets dive into the world of FMCG distribution. We will discuss what is FMCG distribution is all about, how products are always available in our nearby Kirana stores or Super markets, what are some of the major Distribution network channels involved and how the overall Distribution structure looks alike, what is the difference between General Trade and Modern Trade and with that, will end the section by giving a quick overview about some of the major Distribution softwares that is being used and getting popular in the new age Distribution network.

With the introduction we had in the previous section, lets get into the details and understand more about the Distribution softwares, starting with Salesforce Automation Platform or SFA. We will discuss on some of the major features it offers, advantages of using the Salesforce Automation software in FMCG distribution followed by a picture demo to understand the Salesforce Automation in real action. Then, we have a follow up section on Salesforce Automation since SFA can be configured into multiple personas like a role based access. We will discuss each persona briefly and understand each personas use cases and how it fits into the overall Distribution network.

Post SFA, we will discuss more onto the Distributor Management System or DMS. It is another important software that is being used by Distributors to manage the end to end activities inside the Distributor office. So, we will discuss on the major features of DMS, how Master data is managed in DMS, advantages of using DMS, followed by a picture demo of the actual DMS.

Post completion of DMS, lets briefly discuss about the B2B eCommerce platform which is getting very popular in the recent times, especially post the Covid 19 Pandemic era. So, as we discussed for SFA and DMS, we will discuss on the major features, functional flow of complete processes, advantages of using a B2B eCommerce platform, followed by a quick demo on the actual platform.

So, with that, we almost come to an end of the course on the FMCG distribution. The last section is to understand some of the latest and key trends that is growing rapidly in the FMCG Distribution and FMCG as a whole. Some of the technologies to name a few are Image Recognition, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Digital Payments and Revenue Growth Management. Apart from the quick overview to understand these technologies in simple terms, we will also discuss on some of the use cases and how it is currently being used in the FMCG sector

So, that’s the wrap. That’s it. Just a quick note before getting into the course. The overall objective of this course is to keep it simple and I’m not going to use any technical language just for the sake of using it. The mode of language will be very simple and easy to understand and I will try to deliver it as simple as possible.

See you there in the course. Thank you.