If your company employs many sales representatives and/or merchandisers, developing for them manually the optimal routes for visiting outlets is not an easy task. To solve this problem the CDC Group developed Routing++, a new module which is part of the Optimum GIS geoinformation system.

This module enables the operator to generate routes for mobile agents using electronic maps and tools for automatic planning provided by the Optimum GIS system. The calculation procedure takes into account plethora of parameters including ‘home coordinates’ (start and end points of the route – usually the place of residence of the ‘field’ agent), location of sales outlets, start and end time of the visits to sales outlets, zones, etc.).

The routes may be generated for a sales representative on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis; they set a territory that is highlighted on the map with a certain color. A view like this shows the entire scheme of outlets being distributed among sales representatives. If required, the operator can adjust routes by moving objects directly on the map.

In developing routes, individual links of outlets to sales representatives, sales representatives to personal zones, and several sales representatives to a unified zone may be used. The route generated as a sequence of sales outlet addresses is sent to the sales representative’s smartphone or tablet PC via the Internet using any available communications channel (GPRS, 3G, 4G, WiFi); having received the addresses the sales representative cam immediately start fulfilling his/her jobs.

The head of a team of sales representatives (merchandisers) receives the required information on the route of each agent including addresses of and times of visits to sales outlets, frequency of visits, the distance passed, and the total time spent on the route. The additional module, Optimum GIS Monitoring, enables viewing GPS tracks of the sales representative’s vehicle as of a specific date and to compare the planned route with the actual one.

At the end of the day, report may be generated using any parameter: number of visits, total of orders, or total of sales.

Calculations show that using the Optimum GIS Routing++ module one can boost the efficiency of operations of sales representatives and merchandisers by, on average, 20%. Since the routes are more compact and balanced, working time is saved so that agents can visit more outlets. Also, owing to routes being optimized, costs on fuel and lubricants for sales representatives’ vehicles are reduced by 30-35%.