In The Retail Market Knowledge Is Power

In the retail market knowledge is power – how, for example, are your special offers doing? Information helps ensure the success, rather than the failure, of your sales or marketing campaign. How though can you get real-time information upon which to act?

As a consumer as you wander around your supermarket you are invariably faced with a series of special offers to help you save money, along with carefully placed merchandise tempting you to make a purchase.

Product positioning and marketing campaigns don’t happen by accident though and often retail companies outsource the management of their sales and marketing campaigns.

A company providing such a service has to be agile, fluid and flexible to meet a clients needs.

No longer can a retail operation run their sales and marketing campaigns based on weekly reports, as happened a decade or more ago. Instead real-time information is needed.

One market leader operating in this space is FSS, Field Sales Solutions, with the Fusion of technology and people – Fusion Fieldology.

FSS are using technology to the full, exploiting the use of tablet computers and smartphones to provide clients with vital data that will help their sales and marketing campaigns succeed.

As Mike Cottman, Chairman & Chief Executive of Field Sales Solutions says: “It allows you to maximise the return on investment the client is making with us.

“On day one of the campaign they will see it unfolding in front of them, right across the UK, across maybe 10,000 shops and whether we’re doing a good job, a bad job, the deal we’re selling is competitive or we need to change it. We can change all those things at the press of buttons now.”

FSS maximises the use of data which directly impacts on its clients performance, including in the aisles of supermarket giants such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons .

Established in 2002, it’s based in Thame in Oxfordshire and now has a turnover of around 11 million pounds.

Brand owners, whether that be in the confectionery, soft drinks or other market sectors, work with FSS on a long term or short term basis to meet specific needs.

As Nicky Yates, Sales & Marketing Director at FSS says: “You can have the best strategy in the world, but unless you implement it, as we do, it’s worthless.”

Whether it’s to help a sales drive, deal with compliance, or carry out some mystery shopping, FSS can deliver. They operate on a paid on performance basis, meaning they get paid based on the success of their performance.

For example in 2011 they played a major role in the launch of the Health Lottery. The requirement was to sign-up some 40,000 retailers to sell the Health Lottery in a very short period of time. They achieved this and in the process trained 165,000 retail staff, held 175,000 face to face retail calls and placed a million pieces of point of sale material.

Having the right people is critical and they look to build relationships across all of the business, internally and with their clients. They are exploring further advances in technology to help clients gain a competitive edge in the market sector.

As Mark Cottman says their people “Add value to the whole retail distribution chain and they play a really key part in it.”

Find out more about the FSS in this Telegraph sponsored video:

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