Implementing a Field Force Automation Solution can have multiple benefits for a company, with ensuring discipline across the entire field team being one of the most common reasons for such implementation. Lack of discipline is often the first problem statement that an organization aims to address with the adoption of an SFA solution. This is because having an active and disciplined sales team on the field can mean that half the job is done.

Key Parameters to Measure Discipline in Field Force

To solve the problem of lack of discipline in the field force, organizations often look for a mobility-based solution capable of geo-tagging and time-stamping. However, it is important to understand what key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and track to analyze discipline-related issues. The SFA solution provider should be able to suggest these parameters and provide relevant data points based on the regular use of the SFA app by the field team.

Assistive, with its vast experience in building Field Force Automation solutions and managing large field forces of many Fortune 500 brands, can help clients decide on the right parameters and guide them on how to track those parameters. Here are six essential parameters that organizations should closely monitor to gauge the discipline of their field force:

1. Average Visits Per Day

This is a simple yet important metric to track for the field team. A significant drop in this metric in the first couple of months of SFA implementation compared to manually collected data indicates a lack of discipline in the team. Regular monitoring and necessary actions can help companies achieve 100% improvement in this KPI within the first six months of implementation.

2. Average Working Hours

To ensure discipline, all field employees must meet the organizational guideline of minimum working hours. In the absence of a biometric device to capture such data, this can be obtained from the SFA app. The definition of working hours may vary across organizations, but this KPI parameter must be monitored for the field team.

3. Average Market Hours

The field team is supposed to spend a significant part of their daily working hours in the market. However, it is a common problem for many companies that their field team is not present in the market as much as they are supposed to be. Hence, the metric of Average Market Hours, which is the time spent between the first and last outlet visit, should be measured and monitored thoroughly.

4. Average Store Hours

As the field team is mostly in motion for most of the day, it is important that they spend less of their market hours traveling between outlets and more time actually at the outlet doing different activities. An organization must check the average store hours its field team is spending, which can be derived by considering the difference between check-out and check-in time at a store.

5. Average Time Spent per Store

The Average Time Spent per Store is a derivative of the above metric, which is simply Average Store Hours divided by the number of stores visited. A very high value of this metric means the team or a person is not making enough visits, and a low value means vice versa.

6. Average KM Travelled per Hour

As traveling is a must in any field job, a field employee has to spend Travel Hours, which is Market Hours minus Store Hours. However, indiscipline comes into play when the person is not traveling enough during these travel hours. That is why it is important to measure Average KM Travelled per Hour, which can be derived easily if the GPS coordinates are captured for each outlet visit, and then using Google APIs, the distance between the outlets is calculated.

It is necessary to calculate all these metrics at the most granular level (i.e., for each employee and for each day) and then roll them up to the organizational or geographical hierarchy so that all stakeholders at different levels of the company get visibility of these KPI parameters first at a summary level and then they can drill down to the extent they want to.

To learn more about Assistive's Field First features, visit this page.