If you operate in the orthopedic, tissue, biologics, or any other space that leverages a combination of loaner and consignment inventory, you likely have a field sales team. This team represents your brand and is your platform for growth and market adoption. How can you best enable them to sell and fulfill more effectively, without burdening them with additional work? Here are three strategies that can deliver big dollars to your bottom line.
1. Invest in Transparency
This is perhaps one of the largest sources of ROI that manufacturers and distributors alike can leverage. Often overlooked, transparency into sales and inventory operations is one of the few things that can improve both top-line sales and bottom-line profits. With transparency comes improved efficiency, accuracy and engagement, along with reduced risk, fewer errors and less cost. At a high level, adding and embracing solutions to improve transparency can:
- Shorten ordering and submission times
- Improve inventory allocation and efficiency
- Create a trail of part movements
- Limit lost inventory
- Improve audit accuracy
- Shorten issue resolution times
While transparency sometimes comes with a dollar cost, companies don’t need large IT budgets to reap the benefits. Investing in transparency is as much about the right business processes and discipline as it is about having the correct technology in place to augment those processes. Simple changes like increasing the frequency of store room audits or keeping a digital trail of all orders and communications can go a long way to solving challenges and tracking down inventory. When companies are ready, investing in a solution that provides full transparency across the entire order to cash cycle can have big returns for field teams. More on that solution later.
Keep in mind that transparency goes beyond helping just field teams. Increased transparency benefits any team that deals with the order to cash process. This can include sales, operations, customer service, inventory, warehouse and finance teams.
Knowing where all outbound kit and instruments are heading can help inventory teams reduce outbound freight costs; combine this with knowledge of consignment stocks in field locations to push freight costs even lower while improving utilization and turns.
2. Simplify, simplify, and then simplify some more.
Ask any sales or customer support rep what they dislike most about their job, and the answers will likely include the amount of administrative work they need to do after their actual job is completed. By enabling our teams to focus specifically on their job, we enable them to be more effective. This efficiency can come from process and/or behavior changes, but often times it comes from leveraging technology. Automating standard and recurring tasks can lead to big ROI quickly. Here’s an example:
Scenario 1: Sales rep schedules a knee replacement and then needs to manually type or write out each of the sets and instrument kits required for this particular case. They also need to jot down a few extra parts based on the guidance of the surgeon and then email or fax the order in to customer service. Alternatively, they call in and need to list out their request, and customer service needs to write or type in the order.
Scenario 2: Sales rep schedules a knee replacement and their app automatically suggests the sets and instruments based on historical orders for this case and surgeon. Rep augments or edits the suggestions before saving, and the order is automatically sent to customer service for approval and processing, no faxes or emails needed.
While simple in nature, scenario 2 might take 10 minutes less than scenario 1. Deploy that across an entire sales organization and you have a significant level of time savings for teams. Remember, the less time that your reps and district managers spend behind their computers or writing orders, the more time they can spend with customers and accounts, building your brand and fueling your growth.
Mobile applications are less effective when they rely on manual activities like sending emails, placing a call or sending a text. Select a mobile app that transfers information in real-time between team members to ensure maximum efficiency gains
- What you can’t measure, you can’t optimize
Most of us understand the value of data in today’s world, but what is the best way to leverage data to make better decisions. Most companies today have data, but that data is stuck in emails, spreadsheets and paper forms, especially when you work in the medical device world. Best in class field teams not only collect and capture data, but they analyze, present and act on that data in real time. There are countless data visualization tools available, like Tableau or Domo, and all allow you turn your raw data into information quickly and effectively.
Dashboards are only as relevant as the data they contain. Opt for a configurable dashboard so that you can change your analytics to match your business processes and the KPIs you want to track
Now, take this one step further. Companies like Act-On (for Sales organizations) have their own proprietary analytics engines. In this model, you no longer need to organize and import your data into your solution – data is captured and automatically organized and presented in a visual format within the solution itself, and all the better if this is one in real-time. That way your data is captured once, automatically compiled, and presented in a real-time, visual format. Plus, you don’t need to pay for an additional tool. The trick is finding a tool with the right analytics capabilities and interface to support your organization’s metrics.
The above are a few ideas, but it is by no means an exhaustive list. What are some ways you support your field team? What are some gaps that you’d like to see filled?
About the Author: Seiyonne is VP @ Mobitor, who provides cloud-based solutions to optimize medical field inventory. The company’s applications are designed to modernize and improve field employee productivity while giving management and back-office teams real-time visibility into inventory, assets, field activities and KPIs so they can better address potential and current challenges. For more information visit www.turnslift.com.
The opinions expressed in this blog post are the author’s only and do not necessarily reflect those of MassDevice.com or its employees.
The post Three ways to get more out of your field inventory team appeared first on MassDevice.
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