Cosine Builds In-store Retail Sales Intelligence Solution using Force.com

Challenge

• Winner of Marketing magazine’s ‘Field Marketing Agency of the Year’ in consecutive years, Cosine is one of the UK’s leading providers of field marketing solutions.  Clients such as J Sainsbury’s plc, Weetabix, and BT rely on Cosine to help raise awareness, grow sales, retain customers, and supplement their existing sales force 
• Cosine wanted to launch a new service, named Cosine ‘Instore’, which would allow branded FMCG manufacturers to reach the retail marketplace and deliver sales support to stores without using their own sales teams
• This system would enable Cosine to manage field sales teams working on behalf of supermarkets and their suppliers.  These teams (employed directly by Cosine) visit targeted retail outlets to take action in call and gain the intelligence needed to drive sales actions both locally and centrally.  The system is integral in enabling Cosine to effectively maximize product availability, support promotions, and activate new product launches.
• The new system required the flexibility to support short client lead times for program execution, it needed to support any type of retail multiple (from large supermarkets to local retail outlets), and support the needs of the pool of agents working in-store to implement the client campaigns.

Solution

• In a business-led implementation, Cosine chose Force.com Platform as a Service (PaaS) based on the speed with which this enterprise application could be built and rolled-out, the ease of configuration of Force.com, and its ease of use
• Force.com has been deployed to more than 400 Cosine staff and the network of field sales professionals in the UK to manage the end-to-end processes associated with ‘InStore’―a managed merchandizing service   
• The cloud-based business application platform enables the Cosine team to quickly and easily create objects associated with each InStore campaign, including the products and stores it relates to, the schedule for the campaign, a brief for the field sales agents, and data capture templates
• Once the sales agents have completed the call and gathered the data in the identified retail outlet, they log onto the secure Salesforce CRM platform and enter their data using the supplied templates
• Salesforce CRM is used by Cosine to interpret the data―giving clients the intelligence needed to target the right level of activity for individual stores.  It also means clients can focus their budget where it will make the biggest difference and enjoy a higher return
• Cosine is also using the on demand, billable-by-use platform to identify, recruit, assess, and validate the success of each field sales candidate.  This ‘Workpool’ allows Cosine to track agent availability and productivity, match campaigns to individual agents, and view the geography of their catchment area

Results

• Based on the flexibility of The Force.com platform and its ease of configuration around clients’ needs, Cosine has been able to manage the end-to-end execution of each InStore campaign three times more quickly than it would have done using a stack of separately designed hardware and software products
• Cosine―through InStore―is helping branded goods manufacturers maximize in-store impact, create more shelf appeal for consumers, maintain in-store displays for better consistency and high impact between visits, and measure the return generated from the field marketing budget 
• The PaaS model requires no hardware or software, no maintenance, and evolves with each release of the platform
•  In due course, Cosine will offer agents the flexibility to input data in the stores in real-time using a mobile device.  The firm will also deploy a portal as part of the platform, ensuring clients receive vital aggregated and trend data in a self-service environment