Working with Product Range

The product range of the distributor should be expanding with time as it is simply the growth of the distributor’s market presence: the products and their quantities + adding new products and increasing their ordering quantities + retaining all products in the market of distribution.

From this, we can see that there will be 2 groups: old products and new products. Depending on what happened to them, we will address sub-groups separately.

• Old Products that have been ordered before but not reordered (“lost product”)
• Old Products that are decreased in ordered quantities order by order (pre-stage of the “lost product” where we should catch this trend and fix what is causing the decrease)
• New Products the customer inquired but not ordered (“lost product”)
• New Products AC offered to the customer - Expanding Product Range

1. Getting started with product list and the background

This development is directly related to the project of Verification Processes: Manufacturing Agreement & Existing Exclusivity

As after receiving the information shared by the customer in that project, we have an understanding of the existing product list that has ever been projected, discussed, ordered and allows to target each one.

Lost Products (this data is gathered in the MA + APO + CPR Project):

• Ordering products data (are the quantities consistent, increasing or decreasing. If decreasing, ask the possible cause of it)
• Stopped ordering but quoted many times (there is no new order for a product in the period of 12-18 months which depends on the product)
• Stopped ordering and did not even get any RFQs in the past year (Lost product)

Lost Registrations (this data is gathered in the MA + APO + CPR Project):

• Registered products never ordered

Lost Quotes/Lost New Product (Odoo)

• Quotations provided, but were not confirmed to the order stage.

Note: this will only show fully lost quotations. If only 1 product of many was lost during the Sales Order confirmation, access “Compared Products” tab in SO or see the products in the Customer’s tab in Excel “Client Status” which is used for margins confirmation. The dropped products do not get moved from there and marked in red as “lost”.

Besides the customer tab, to check what products were quoted but never ordered, we need to assess lost OPPs:

1. Go to the customer contact card and click “Lost OPPs”



In this Kanban view, it can be seen at what stage the OPP was lost:

• Evaluation (the products were not even quoted. Probably we could not produce them or it was already out of the customer interest)
• Proposition (the quotation was sent to the customer, but it did not make it to the negotiation stage. Probably was left with no reply, or the product was rejected with no further feedback or we could not do anything about that feedback at that time: MOQ is too high and no vendors accepted it, price, documentation, etc)
• Negotiation (after revising the product price/qty the quotation was still not confirmed to the order)

By accessing the lost OPP, check the reason the Salesperson mentioned when marking this lost:



To check in details, check the emails and internal notes, tasks of that RFQ to understand the background.

The above sources to understand the back history of why a product/quote was lost is essential to move to the next stage.

2. Working with the targeted product list

Once the product list and the reasons are determined create and RFQ if the products and check:

• If the customer is still interested in this product and it is valuable for us. (If, for example, the product was quoted once for a tender and never requested again, it is probably not worth looking into this. We want to work on the products that were/will be in the constant distribution, but the problem appears to be due to AC, customer or external factors faults.)
• EL: if the customer orders similar products already from other vendors (for example, our quotation for oncology products for MTP was not confirmed, but we see on EL the customer imports from India or MRA with Vet vaccines from Turkey)

If the above 2 criterias are excluded from the products list in the RFQ, can proceed to the next step.

Lost Reason	Possible suggestions	Tools
Customer: prices not acceptable	If the complaint from the customer is realistic: - Check with current AC vendors again if the situation improved and re-offer the product.  - If the target cannot be achieved, we need to research a new vendor.  Refer to Sales Dept.: Weak Products Program	1) EL Filter:  By country By product This will show the average price of import of the product in that country  2) EL Filter:  By Customer To see if the customer orders similar products and at what price level.  Based on this information, decide if the request from the customer is realistic. Basically this is the target price verification.
Customer: cannot meet MOQ	Same as above	Same as above
Customer: lead time not acceptable	Check if that was one time request for a very short lead time (possibly tender)	x
Customer: inaccurate requirements	If the problem was with the product specifications, try to see if the customer knows the correct ones and the product is still in demand -> proceed to offer	x
Customer: financial incapability	Check if the situation has improved. Assess if any change in payment terms can be considered.	x
Customer: proceeded with another supplier	If we know the customer still can consider us as a supplier of this product -> check EL and proceed to offer	1) EL Filter: By country By product  To see what vendors supply this product to this destination country and at what price and if we can compete 2) EL Filter: By customer  To check what supplier this is and what prices and quantities they get the product
Customer: unresponsive	Need to get a reply on what the reason was	x
AC: price/MOQ not competitive	If we cannot meet the requirements with the current AC vendors: Sales Dept.: Weak Products Program	x
AC: cannot produce specifications	If we cannot meet the requirements with the current AC vendors: Sales Dept.: Weak Products Program	x
AC: insufficient documentation	If we cannot meet the requirements with the current AC vendors: Sales Dept.: Weak Products Program	x
AC: exclusivity restrictions	If we cannot meet the requirements with the current AC vendors: Sales Dept.: Weak Products Program Note: this only works if the exclusivity restriction is per vendor. In this case we can find a new vendor to register with.	x
AC: cannot find suitable vendor	If we cannot meet the requirements with the current AC vendors: Sales Dept.: Weak Products Program	x
AC: internal conflict	Needs to be assessed case by case to decide on the strategy	x

After the list is prepared and the prices are obtained, proceed to quote with a new offer as per standard procedures.

2. New Products: Expanding Distributors product range

We are actively targeting an existing distributor to develop more products to register with them, or to start a new range with them. This is usually a part of BD Sprint iterations.

1. During the bi-weekly sprint session, AM gets an assigned distributor to check on the possible new products to offer. Have their reg/ordered product list open.
2. Read the Distributor Profile. You may have forgotten some information about this customer, such as their target audiences, their strong and weak markets, etc. You may also need to read the meeting summaries from previous meetings.
3. Open EL, look for the customer.

Note: Do not use the full company name because the EL Database may write them in different ways.

• If found, check to see what other products other than AdvaCare products are in this EL database. Take notes of them unless they are negligible (meaning not a one time order of something small, perhaps a small tender quantity, samples, etc.). Take screenshots and keep them in the folder.
• If not found, skip this step.
4. Analyze, you want to consider all three criteria:
1. Our distributors list of ordering/registering products.
2. Distributor profile, what they are good at, what they don't want to spend time in, etc.
3. EL list of customer’s shipments from other suppliers (skip if nothing).
5. Form a trend analysis.

For example:

ABC customer does well on OTC pharma, OTC ointments, they just started on Supplements but seem to be moving. They do only small types of INJECTION pharma, and did order of medical devices only once quite a long time ago. They already said they don’t want to do injections because those are for hospitals and the cash turn around is slow.

6. Cross check the information between Profile and Product Trends. From there, draw your conclusions by answering the following points:
• CAN BE DEVELOPED: what is the product range that can be developed with them now?
• NO NEED TO DEVELOP: what products we should not even think about now? (maybe the customer said that his market does not care about certain things, or if our prices just cannot beat the local competition)
• NOT SURE: you think some products can work well there, but we never did anything with them. Before going crazy about it, let’s ask the customer for more background info. Maybe they just do not meddle in that type of products.
• COMPLEMENTARY PRODUCTS: products they do really well in may have complementary products in our range that can be sold together, or are used by the same end consumer. It may or may not fall in our customer’s scope, but there is no harm in asking.

For example, taking ABC customer again from the above example:

• CAN BE DEVELOPED: more OTC & RX pharma (non injections), supplements. Medical devices that are sold in pharmacies, not hospitals.
• NO NEED TO DEVELOP: injections, medical devices that are only used in hospitals.
• NOT SURE: none for now.
• COMPLEMENTARY PRODUCTS: since the customer buys a lot of gas relief products, maybe we want to pitch supplements that aid digestion. Since they are selling blood glucose monitors, maybe we pitch blood sugar medication, insulin syringes, etc.
7. Send the initial pitch email to the customer. The general strategy is to cover these three points, although each customer has their own communication style so adjust accordingly:
• Take them to the direction to focus on THE BENEFITS that they can have by adding more into the “can be developed” product ranges, the support we are ready to give. Attach images of our products from this range that they have not distributed yet. Attach each product promotional materials of those items if we have one. (do not send the range promo, they probably have seen it).
• Ask questions about “not sure”. Most customers love to tell you about their market, word it like you appreciate their insight.
• Make a mention about “no need to develop”, and that based on what you heard them say, they are not interested in this. We want to give them a chance to correct us, in case we incorrectly draw conclusions, or if something has changed in the market.

Again: adjust to each customer. Some customers probably do not like 1 long email covering all these points, so you might wanna break it down with 1st point first.

Note: This SOP is not about confronting a distributor who is not fulfilling our MA and buying the same products/not respecting exclusivity terms. If you notice these things from the EL, you may need to create a side project to address these distributor issues.

8. Ideally, we want our customer to come back to us with a product list they may want from our last email + their reasoning of not wanting to develop something at that time. Record the information in the Distributor Profile and create a new RFQ.
9. Make sure to do a few follow ups, different communication methods (email, whatsapp, phone call) to convey these points until you get feedback. If the customer really seems not interested enough, but does not say NO outright for whatever reason, we can dig deeper.

Note: if you think the lack of interest in development here is due to capability reasons (financial, logistics, political), which we can’t help, it may just be better to drop this now. Consult your Dept. Manager.

10. At this point, we may have a database of “customer’s competitors” already in the distributor internal notes. We can spy on them. If not, we need to locate these competitors. How to find these competitors:
• Take some of our customer’s best performing products and your “can be developed” products.
• Input them into the EL with the destination country of the customer.
• Check to see which other importers are doing these products kinda well.
• Take note of these importers in internal notes.

Now, we will use the EL thoroughly to look into the market, then provide this info to the customer.

COMPETITOR LIST

• On EL, input the competitor one by one. Check to see the list of products they are doing well in, also products from our “can be developed” list. List its product, SKU basis. We want to talk to the customer in a way where we tell them we feel these products can do well in their market, and our product especially can get their market share. Make sure to include our product pictures.
• As an additional step, we may also quickly check on our PA Quoted and SO Quoted database to see how our prices compare to the competitors. If we are about the same or lower, definitely include that vantage point in your pitch.
• Get the customer's response if they are interested in these products.