Right Approach To Distribution Management Software (DMS)

With today’s competitive business and the ever-changing market dynamics, businesses are evolving every minute to stay relevant. Having a solution in an increasingly competitive environment for tracking channel sales is very important in order to achieve increased revenues and faster ROIs. 

Owing to this, more & more companies are consciously adopting distributor management software for complete visibility of their channel sales.

You can manage your distributor network with various approaches. In the industry, while some approaches are fairly new, some have been prevalent for quite some time. It’s also tough to point out one particular approach that would perfectly work for the entire distributor network.

Manage your Distributor network with Various approaches:

#Custom Billing Software

When DMS first started, large brands asked their super stockists and distributors to install the brand’s own custom billing software.

This worked perfectly back then because most distributors only handled one or two brands. However, in today’s world of multi-brand distributors, this approach completely fails. A distributor simply cannot install and run five different billing software programs for five different brands.

Read More – 3 Costly Inventory Analysis Mistakes Made by Distributors

#Web Portals

Next, companies tried giving distributors a dedicated web portal to log their sales.

Distributors heavily resisted this. Why? Because a multi-brand distributor found it exhausting to learn and log into several different web portals every single day just to update data. Furthermore, since distributors only used these portals for reporting (while doing actual billing on their own software), they sometimes entered fake sales numbers just to show they met their targets. This defeated the whole purpose of having a DMS.

#Data Extractors

The method of data extraction, as opposed to web portals or custom solutions, involves exporting data from the billing software of the distributor and then importing those data on the company’s software. This method was lengthy and time-consuming, so it didn’t work well and was short-lived.

#Integration with Distributor’s Tally / Busy

This is the game-changer for the Indian market. Instead of forcing a new software on the distributor, companies now integrate their DMS directly with the accounting software the distributor already uses, usually Tally or Busy.

This makes life incredibly easy for distributors. They do not have to do double data entry, and it eliminates data mismatches.

SalesBabu DMS works exactly on this principle. It seamlessly connects with the distributor’s existing Tally system.

• You get real-time access to secondary sales and inventory.
• You stop chasing distributors for daily reports.
• You push master data, prices, and new schemes directly to the distributor.
• You control the MRP, prevent backdated entries, and manage reorder levels automatically.
• Purchase Orders (POs) generated in the distributor’s Tally automatically sync with your system, automating primary sales.

Read More – Distributor Management Software in India’s FMCG sector

#Modern DMS Solutions: A Comprehensive Approach

To address the shortcomings of traditional methods, modern DMS solutions offer a comprehensive suite of features. These include:

• Centralized Order Management: Streamline the entire order process from placement to fulfillment.
• Real-time Inventory Tracking: Ensure accurate stock levels and avoid stockouts.
• Automated Reporting: Generate detailed reports on sales performance, distributor activity, and inventory turnover.
• Advanced Analytics: Gain valuable insights into market trends and customer behavior.
• Integration with Other Systems: Seamlessly connect with ERP, CRM, and accounting software.

#Mobile Apps

In today’s world of advanced technology, the latest trend amongst all is a mobile-enabled DMS app wherein the distributor can do the data entry on the mobile app. 

To map the rural distributor network this approach is more useful where infrastructure is not that developed or in the case of very small distributors who don’t have the resources or knowledge of using a desktop.

With the proper software solution in place for your sales and distribution activities, you can achieve remarkable performance in even the most fast-moving and disintegrated marketplace. 

Designed for the complex Indian market landscape, SalesBabu Distribution Management Software (DMS) provides complete visibility of the secondary Sales or stock lying at the distributor’s end. 

It can be integrated with the distributor’s Tally so that parent companies don’t have to deploy a separate portal at the distributor’s end and still can monitor and track all relevant information. The distributor can continue his work using his existing Tally software for his day-to-day billing and other activities.

A Tally integrated DMS like SalesBabu DMS is not just about extracting the data from the distributor; it is also capable of pushing information to the distributors like the masters, prices, and schemes that eventually bring a lot of grip and control to the principal. 

This feature enables the principal company to exercise complete control over the distributor’s MRP, Item Alteration, Backdate entries, Ledger Alteration, Negative Stock billings and Reorder levels. The PO generated by the Distributor’s Tally syncs automatically in the principal company’s software thus automating the primary sales as well.

SalesBabu’s Distribution Management Software offers an entire spectrum of DMS solutions in order to capitalize on the maximum number of distributors for a company. 

So a DMS solution integrated with Tally might work for most of your distributors but for mapping, the small distributors that are not using any billing software of their own or are not using Tally, for them mobile-enabled DMS platform make more sense as it’s easy to adopt without much of infrastructure investment and training.