Click the image above for details Today's FMCG industry, with the support of the internet, is changing rapidly. The essence of the internet is sharing, interaction, virtuality, and service. The essence behind "Internet+" is the "flow of data." The internet has made data flow, creating free movement among enterprises, people, and devices. As the internet continues to penetrate and influence, brand owners' digital transformation has entered the deep-water zone, and consequently, distributors' digital transformation is also moving into the practical implementation stage. Some distributors might say, "My business is good now; I don't need digitalization." But in my view, if your upstream brand owners have already started transforming, over time, issues of mutual matching arise. When the match is poor, the manufacturer-distributor partnership will dissolve quickly. Some distributors might also say, "I've already configured terminal devices for my sales staff as required by the brand owner, so I've started digitalization." But in fact, terminal devices are just the initial step of digital transformation, merely completing market data collection. True digitalization involves studying the data based on collection, thereby deriving market competition patterns, strategic goals, efficient business models, and next steps. Regarding digitalization, distributors care most about three things: 1. How to make money efficiently through digitalization? 2. How to improve cost-effectiveness through digitalization? 3. How to manage personnel efficiency through digitalization? Today, we discuss the third item. In daily work, managers often say: "The team is hard to lead, and people are hard to manage." But why is the team hard to lead? Why are people hard to manage? Most of the time, they can't articulate the reasons. It's hard to define specifically why it's difficult to manage. In essence, we should focus on three aspects: first, the team's allocation mechanism; second, team cohesion; third, team organizational performance.

-01- Team Allocation Mechanism Needs Digital Support The above table shows a common salary structure for distributor sales teams. The design itself is fine, but the key is the proportion of each component, which directly affects the work enthusiasm of sales staff. In many cases, distributor owners, to pursue team stability, set a high proportion of basic salary, making sales staff income less correlated with sales volume. Once this happens, there will inevitably be high base pay, egalitarianism, and unclear rewards and punishments, meaning more work doesn't lead to more pay, causing people to be unwilling to contribute more, thus affecting business efficiency. At this point, it's necessary to re-examine whether the current compensation and incentive systems ensure that more work leads to more pay and that income is highly correlated with performance. 1. Digitalizing Basic Salary Everyone understands that the only item related to basic salary is attendance, but is attendance just clocking in and out? Of course not. We need to quantify attendance indicators digitally. For example, for sales staff, quantifying attendance could be: how many stores visited per day? What specific tasks need to be done in the store (shelves, cut cases, freezers, merchandising, etc.)? At this point, attendance becomes specific numbers: what's the completion rate? That's the attendance rate. It's worth noting: The content of digitalized attendance must be items that sales staff can achieve with a positive attitude, not items requiring skills or techniques like daily sales amount or number of deals closed (those belong to performance appraisal). 2. Digitalizing Performance Pay Performance pay is directly linked to output or contribution, so it needs digitalization to clarify period targets, sales targets, over-target, and challenge targets. Performance pay assessment generally includes: sales target, sales by product target, single-product commission target, incremental target, new product promotion target, each with clear period numbers. For example: In a certain region, the period sales were 100,000, key product A sold 2,000 units, this period's target is 120,000. If the target is exceeded by 10%, performance bonus increases by 10%, and the commission for the excess portion of key product A doubles. The core of performance pay is quantified and detailed indicators, allowing the team to earn money clearly and work steadily. A reminder: For frontline sales staff, quantified performance indicators should focus on process execution, such as merchandising indicators, distribution indicators, etc., while sales managers' performance indicators should focus on result indicators, such as stage achievement, stage growth indicators, etc. 3. Digitalizing Incentives Incentives can be positive or negative, serving as feedback on employee performance, and cannot be expressed in words. For example, we all know that without good process indicators and a good market atmosphere, product sell-through will inevitably be affected. For example, to provide market atmosphere incentives, incentive indicators could be the number of merchandising materials (posters, price tags, cards, etc.) in regional terminal stores, the number of cut cases, the number of shelf facings, etc. Let everyone understand the gaps under clear rules, making high incentive payouts well-deserved. The best example is Jinmailang, which digitalizes all market actions, such as: 5 shelf facings + 3 layers thickness scores 2 points, a 2+1 cut case scores 2 points, 15 bottles in the freezer scores 2 points, merchandising materials like posters and price tags score 1 point each, etc. Through scoring, frontline staff are incentivized. Calculate the average monthly visit score for all outlets of frontline staff, and compare the store average score next month to judge market performance. Then, based on score increases or decreases, provide incentives, effectively motivating frontline staff to create a good regional market atmosphere. 4. Digitalizing Benefits/Allowances Benefits/allowances are generally linked to years of service and attendance, so I won't elaborate here.

-02- Team Cohesion Needs Digital Support When it comes to team cohesion, the first thing that comes to mind is shouting slogans together, having meals together, going on team-building trips, or other activities. Of course, organizing these activities can increase team cohesion. There are many ways to enhance team cohesion. Which method is most effective? Or how do we measure whether cohesion has reached the ideal goal through certain team-building activities? This is a question we need to focus on. Cohesion is not just verbal description; it can also be a digital comparison. For example, one company breaks down cohesion into 4 aspects and 12 sub-points, with scoring standards, allowing for digital comparison of cohesion levels across units. Note: Score items are generally set at three levels: poor = 0 points, average = 3 points, good = 5 points. Team cohesion can be digitalized. Only with quantification can we compare more objectively and discover gaps. Speaking of this, distributors place great importance on team cohesion, hoping their team is united and invincible in the market. But some may find such assessments a bit pretentious. Some distributors even follow their gut feelings about team cohesion: when they feel the team is a bit sluggish, they take the team out for a meal or karaoke to boost morale. Is it effective? I believe the answer is self-evident. From my early experience leading teams, I used the cohesion digitalization table in monthly and quarterly performance interviews, conducted in a relaxed tea party atmosphere. Everyone opened up, talked about work and the future, and we got more accurate and efficient feedback from the team, pointing the way for team building and improving personnel efficiency. For example, in one assessment, I found that item 2 scored low across the team. Later, I learned that to save labor costs, the distributor had lost a driver and hadn't actively recruited a replacement (when I visited the distributor, he smiled and said he was actively recruiting and the driver would be in place soon), causing serious delays in delivery and exchanges, occasionally leading to minor frictions, reducing team cohesion and weakening combat effectiveness. After correction, things improved immediately. Think about it: we're all adults. In long-term cooperation, we tend to leave room for each other. Unless conflicts are irreconcilable and there's no suitable way, managers can't get such information. Another time, I found that an excellent business development item (items 11/12) scored very low. After investigation, the employee had served for 3 years, excelled in all aspects, and needed further career planning. If not addressed promptly, he might resign. If he jumped to a competitor, the loss would double. Later, I helped him with career planning and explained the company's promotion mechanisms and opportunities, successfully retaining him. Finally, I want to say that it's not shameful for distributors to be a bit "sentimental" with their team. Being open and honest isn't just for heroes of Liangshan; it also requires compassion and care.

-03- Team Organizational Performance Needs Digital Support Whether a sales organization can withstand market tests depends on whether it can enable ordinary employees to achieve performance and continuously improve organizational performance in an increasingly competitive era. However, if an employee can't achieve performance, the problem sometimes isn't the employee themselves, but rather the inability to clearly recognize the reasons hindering their performance improvement or the gap with excellent colleagues. This reason is often hard to articulate in words. We can improve team organizational performance from the following six points: I've listed the details above. Some items clearly need digitalization, such as performance assessment, sales targets, and incremental targets—without numbers, they can't be achieved. Organizational cost-sales involves expenses and profits, which are inherently numbers. Work planning, business goals, and resource allocation are also numerical indicators. These items are already being implemented by distributors; they just need to strengthen methods and techniques, continuously optimizing based on different products and market competition patterns. But some distributors might ask: How can team development be digitalized? Let's give an example: the digital dimensions of personnel career planning in team development:

1. Personal cumulative annual achievement rate ranks top three in the team; 2. Personal regional growth rate ranks top three in the team for the year; 3. Mentorship system: comprehensive score ranking top three in terms of number of apprentices mentored per year, apprentice turnover rate, apprentice performance achievement after graduation, growth, etc.; 4. Team reputation score (poor, average, good) ranks top three; 5. Market terminal store owner reputation, based on sample surveys (poor, average, good) ranks top three. As long as these five indicators are met, the employee can be immediately promoted to reserve cadre, with improved treatment, and can also participate in PK for formal cadre promotion, activating the organization. This solves the career planning issue in a fair and just environment, also reducing the risk of losing excellent personnel.

Final Thoughts: FMCG is a labor-intensive industry, and personnel costs have become the largest operating cost. Often, the loss of personnel costs is invisible. Distributors understand that when employees don't come to work, they lose a day's wages. But the biggest loss is the waste of labor costs caused by poor personnel management, low cohesion, lack of goals, unwillingness to contribute, and failure to improve organizational performance. The core of digitalized personnel management is to enable quantitative tracking and improvement in the management process, making the enhancement of personnel efficiency clear.