The Hindu Business Line : The journey cycle

If you have spent your twopenny worth of time in sales, you have surely heard of the Journey Cycle. Some call it a route map, some call it a visit routine and some call it names more oblique than these.

To the salesperson at large, the journey cycle is essentially that routine he follows, calling outlet after outlet, facilitating that one important issue of consistency that servicing a sale demands.

It is the pattern of servicing he will offer to the end retail outlet or the buyer at large. The enlightened company decides this mostly. And the retail point depends on it.

The Journey Cycle is therefore about starting at a point and ending at another ... only to start all over once again, offering the company's brands and offerings of every kind to the buyer who sits at each peg of this cycle. Waiting to be serviced and served. For the sake of brevity, shall we call it a JC? The JC is, therefore, a part of the boring routine of the salesperson. But a very important part of the routine to the guy waiting for your call at the other end. In the days gone by, say 25 years ago, the JC was much longer than what it is today. Today, the JC is getting shorter and shorter.

Let's explore. Twenty-five years ago, the market was large in its geography, but there were a lot fewer people in sales. Today, it is different. Companies have invested wide and deep to employ more hands and feet to fulfil the basic task of distribution. Twenty-five years ago, the JC was long. Today, it is short. And getting shorter still.

In the days gone by, a retail outlet in a metro was satisfied with a call once in 14 days. An outlet in the interior markets was okay with a three-week cycle of coverage. Markets deeper still had to be content with the company van trundling into it once a month. But times have changed. Urban markets today enjoy a JC that never exceeds a week. Rural markets too seem to enjoy a shorter cycle. The salesperson will reach the destination once a fortnight for sure! Does not matter where the market is, the salesman will come there.

The JC is all about demand. It is all about the kind of market offtake that different products and services command at different points of time. When the offtake of your product is lesser and the shelf stock deeper than normal, the JC can be as long as you and the market want it to be. When stocks fly off the shelf faster and the volumes stocked grow deeper and deeper, there is a clamour for a reduction in JC time.

As the retail environment in the country boils over, more and more companies selling every type of product from motorcycle to manna from heaven will face the challenge of retailers demanding crunching of JC time to the bare minimum. Take the case of a brand new cigarette that has hit the shelf. The retailer will stock it well for a start. The sale is on a consignment basis initially. The retailer does not mind stocking anything you want, provided it is on a consignment basis of `stock now and pay later.'

This again has two variants — the `stock now and pay next week' format and the `stock now, sell and pay later for what you sell' format. The latter is deeper in its efficiency of ensuring deep stocking of a new product in the marketplace for sure. The former comes with a credit norm of a week, which may or may not be acceptable to the unsure retailer of the new brand. The brand may fly or sit like a waddling duck on the shelf.

Let's get back to the newborn cigarette brand. The brand is advertised heavily and its offtake is fast. The visit by the company's supplier next week is awaited eagerly. And when the salesperson arrives, she is asked to replenish stock that is greater in depth than what was supplied first. The retailer is just about discovering the power of the product's pull and does not want to disappoint customers who come asking for it. The retailer is, incidentally, still supplied on one of the two formats discussed.

In instance one, where the stock has been supplied on the `buy now and pay next week' format, the retailer willingly pays up when the stock is off the shelf completely. If it has moved only in part, he will do it that much grudgingly. If the stock has not moved at all, he will literally refuse to pay. He might even ask you to vacate his shelf in a couple of weeks from now. Hope this is not your product I am talking about.

In instance two, where the stock has been loaded in on a complete consignment basis of `stock now, sell and pay when you sell' format, the retailer is the happiest. Depending on what he has sold, he will pay. After enjoying a reasonable number of days of float on the quantum that he has sold in any case. The retailer of your cigarette is thrilled with the JC being weekly as of now. But he will remain thrilled only for a while. Only till the pressures of the future want him to demand a cycle that is shorter than the one you offer today.

Never mind what the cycle is today, the future will always ask for a cycle that is shorter. Why? And what's the future all about? We will discuss in detail in the next fortnight's edition of SaleSense.

The author is a business strategy specialist and the CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

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