The Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry is one among the fast growing industries with consumers everywhere. Fast Moving consumer goods or consumer packaged goods are products that are sold quickly at relatively low cost. Though the absolute profit made on FMCG products is relatively small, they are generally sold in large quantities, and so the cumulative profit on such products can be substantial.
Salesmen play a critical role in any FMCG industry; and for that matter in any industry, a salesman’s role is critical. The efficiency of the product is useless if the salesmen are inefficient. This calls for energetic salesmen whoare efficient. The average qualification of salesmen are limited to schooling. Most of the salesmen are school dropouts. Unlike the well qualified, with these salesmen the demand for ambiance, infrastructure and a conducive work environment are the least preferred. Monetary benefits are the driving force.
The monetary benefits include salary, allowance and incentive. Out of these, only incentive is the most critical and variable factor. The incentive being linked to the salesmen’s performance and the attractive incentive provided by these FMCG giants, is the only reason why most men still stick on to a salesman’s job. The salesmen put in their heart and soul to achieve their targets and thereby get more incentive. At a point, the companies identified that the salesmen are being manipulated either by their company executives or the distributors.
To overcome this, to get closer to the salesmen and to give him a sense of belongingness with the company, FMCG companies started making the incentive structure transparent. And to keep track of the salesmen’s performance, the incentives were linked to parameters that help both the salesmen to work efficiently and the company to progress.
Various companies use different incentive parameters. These parameters have