With up to 60% of consumer purchase decisions being made at the last moment, excelling
at the point of sale is vital for business success. Across Africa, an industry-leading solution
is helping HEINEKEN's sales force achieve excellence, working closely and effectively with
customers to find opportunities that benefit all.
TUSKER
The Need for Discipline
The point of sale leadership drive in
HEINEKEN includes a shift in attitude,
with sales teams inspired to be
more entrepreneurial, proactive and
decisive in every day conversations.
Underpinning this spirit is firm discipline,
ensuring the basics are spot on. "You
need discipline in the first place
when you have a huge sales force like
HEINEKEN," says Ruud van den Eijnden,
Senior Sales Director for Africa and the
Middle East.
Spotlight on Africa
HEINEKEN operating companies across
Africa are a great example of how to use
SFA successfully.
Sales Force
Excellence
Smiles all round as
Perfect Execution
is practised using a
personal tablet
very day, consumers
contemplating buying
a beer are scanning
supermarket shelves, browsing menus
and examining rows of draught taps
as they make their decision. In this
'moment of truth', factors including the
products' availability, their visibility and
preferred brands are quickly weighed
before the choice is made.
Throughout HEINEKEN, there is an
active drive to be global leader at the
point of sale. To reach this goal means
supporting the 23,000 sales force
heroes, helping them improve their way
of working with customers to achieve
excellence in execution.
One development contributing to strong
sales discipline at HEINEKEN is the
growing use of Sales Force Automation
(SFA) systems - cutting-edge information
systems that track product movements and
improve customer visits.
The beer landscape in the region
has undergone rapid development.
"The situation has really changed in
Africa," says Ruud. "There is increasing
competition, which makes it important for
us to change our focus and work harder
with customers to get our products into
consumers' hands."
In a region with more than 1,300 sales
representatives visiting more than 35,000
outlets per day, significant questions were
being asked about whether the sales visit
process was always as good as it could
be. Were customers being visited often
enough? Were they all receiving an equally
high level of HEINEKEN service?
The way to get answers to these questions
was the industry-leading SFA solution
10 World of HEINEKEN Edition 1 201A
