As the pandemic hit India, many businesses – including Channelier – were faced with making swift decisions. By being grounded in a strong set of principles, we were able to act fast. For us, that decision meant helping our employees, partners, and communities adapt to a new reality at a time when staying connected is more critical, yet more difficult than ever.
As the need to stay home became apparent, our priority was to ensure all our employees and partners took steps to stay safe. We equipped them with the tools and training necessary to quickly shift to a modified work environment. A shift like this presents challenges, but it also presents an opportunity for innovation. The pandemic has pushed us to reimagine the use of technology to both maintain and evolve those connections.
Here are the ways in which we are helping our partners deal with the COVID-19 disruption:
1. Minimizing the distance travelled by (and hence, exposure for) salespeople:
With robust route optimization, Chanellier is finding the most cost-effective route for a set of stops for salespeople. We use this to minimize drive time for multiple stops, while also accounting for a range of complexities like customer time windows, vehicle capacities, driver schedules, and more. In recent times, this has become even more important than usual in order to ensure that salespeople travel as less as possible while supporting business as usual.
2. Ensuring compliance of safety guidelines by using technology:
Channelier’s selfie attendance feature has been upgraded to also keep track if employees are wearing safety masks while reporting for work. This is an attempt to ensure the compliance of all safety guidelines and rules thereby ensuring the continued safety of our partners and by extension, their customers.
3. Keeping track of not just our partners, but also their near and dear ones:
To ensure our employees, partners, and communities adapt to the needs of the time and are able to keep track of the well-being of their family members apart from themselves, Channelier is using COVID status update forms. It allows us to take timely action to segregate positive or at-risk personnel while providing them immediate help and assistance for a full and timely recovery.
4. Reducing exposure for retailers by using secondary orders:
Similarly, retailers and channel partners can protect themselves from unnecessary exposure by the use of secondary orders that can be placed on Channelier without any in-person interaction. Additionally, the SmartOrder feature enables you to manage the distribution of stocks effectively & efficiently. The system automatically routes orders to the relevant vertical channel partner(s), based on defined rules and relations.
5. Using Machine learning to create “Recommended order”:
Page views, product enquiries, order data as well as other operational data are melded together using Machine learning to generate a “Recommended order” to be placed. Metrics like geographic, business type, business size, operational parameters are taken into account to ensure a smooth experience for users placing their orders on the platform.
6. Remote reporting to ensure safety of ASM as well as salespeople:
In order to ensure that business goes on as usual, in spite of the massive disruption due to the pandemic, the platform allows sales staff to report remotely to their supervisors and ASMs. This is necessary to ensure the safety of both set of people as well as their family members and is another testament to Channelier’s continuing efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
ERP
