BeatRoute’s 2024 Product Recap

At BeatRoute, our vision is clear: to be known as a company that helps the retail and distribution world use constantly evolving tech as a way of sales. We aim to ensure that our customers are always equipped with the latest and greatest in technology – not just for today, but even 10 years from now. This vision fuels our culture of continuous innovation, where progress is not just a goal but a fundamental principle.

In 2024, we doubled down on innovation to meet your evolving needs. Whether it’s cutting-edge features or the little tweaks that make a big difference, we have made product upgrades designed to help you lead in today’s fast-paced retail and distribution world.

Deepening Our Enterprise-Grade Functional Scalability

Retail brands often face a common frustration: SaaS solutions that are rigid and inflexible, unable to evolve with their complex and dynamic needs. They restrict them when it comes to solving their ever evolving, complex problems. We have proven this notion wrong for 150+ enterprise customers.

Our enhanced capabilities this year focused on ensuring seamless functional scalability, enabling our customers to tackle unique challenges with confidence and precision.

Goal Driven Sales Tech Strengthened with Operational AI and Conversational AI

AI has been a hot topic in the industry, but its application in retail distribution often leans toward generic, gimmick-driven implementations. At BeatRoute, we take a different approach. As frontrunners in AI innovation within our industry, we have woven advanced AI capabilities into our proprietary Goal-Driven Sales Tech, delivering real, measurable outcomes.

Operational AI and Conversational AI were the cornerstones of our 2024 AI advancements. We understand that many of our customers are still working on data readiness or setting up future-proof enterprise architectures. That’s why we’ve advised a long-term AI strategy while simultaneously enabling the most viable first and second AI projects.

• Industry-Parameterized AI Order Recommendation Models: This innovative release is tailored for FMCG, Consumer Durable, and Building Material industries. By integrating contextual intelligence into our AI solutions, we’ve enhanced the outcomes of transactions like order placement. We’re excited to collaborate with customers in other verticals to further refine our AI models.
• “Help Me Plan” Feature: Under our Operational AI theme, this upcoming release empowers users to optimize their planning processes. Designed for public availability within a month, it represents a major leap forward in intelligent, AI-driven decision-making.
• Conversational AI with CuesBOT 2.0: Imagine having ChatGPT tailored to your sales data. This release introduced advanced conversational AI, allowing users to type questions and receive clear answers, including tables, graphs, or charts. Currently in beta, it is available exclusively to our Ramp-Up customers.

Other Major Product Highlights from 2024

In addition to our major themes, here are some of the standout updates and features we introduced this year:

Map One Customer to Multiple Sales Team Members & Partners/Distributors

Context
Previously, it was challenging to configure customers, routes, and distributors to enable collaboration between teams from different functions, such as sales and marketing, or to allow multi-category sales teams to serve a single customer. There was no way to map a single customer to multiple sales representatives or distributors, limiting flexibility in customer management.

What did we build?
We introduced the ability to map a single customer to multiple sales team members, routes and distributors. This improvement facilitates collaboration between marketing and sales teams working on the same customer and enables multi-category sales teams to drive better product range coverage.

Multiple Shipping Locations for Single Orders

Context
Previously, in BeatRoute, while users could define a “bill to” party and a “ship to” party, there was no functionality to facilitate multiple “ship to” parties for a single order. This limitation hindered scenarios where supplies billed to one party needed to be shipped to multiple associated parties – a common requirement in the Building Materials industry, Agri-inputs and others.

What did we build?
We introduced the ability to add multiple “ship to” parties for a single order. This enhancement allows businesses to bill one party while seamlessly shipping to multiple associated locations while giving the benefits of volume promotions, meeting the complex logistical needs of industries like Building Materials and others. We shall continue adding more such industry-specific capabilities.

Track Participation in Community Engagement, Seminars or Training Events

Context
In many industries, effective demand generation requires active engagement with B2B customers and channel influencers. Agri-inputs companies organize community events with retailers and farmers, cosmetics brands train salon owners and technicians, auto ancillary companies conduct workshops with retailers and mechanics, Pharmaceutical companies do events with doctors, and building materials companies work with contractors and dealers through demonstrations and community events. Traditional methods of tracking participation in community events and training sessions are often manual and inefficient, leading to inaccuracies in determining ROIs and missed opportunities for follow up action.

What did we build?
We enhanced our Campaign Forms to track participation in community engagement and training events. Event organizers can now set up target participants within the form, allowing teams to mark attendance directly from a predefined list as well as add new participants on the fly. This feature also enables viewing what all events a farmer or plumber or doctor participated in facilitating better relationship management and more effective demand generation strategies. 

Incremental Order Nudges to Customers on WhatsApp/Viber

Context
Our B2B Customer App is designed to help brands build a direct digital connect with their retailers and customers, but simply providing a self-service interface is only half the job. Our approach emphasizes two-way engagement, focusing on driving measurable, incremental business for brands.

What did we build?
We added three incremental nudges that can be triggered on social channels like WhatsApp, Viber, and FB Messenger:

• Nudge customers on SKUs not bought, but selling in neighborhood outlets.
• Nudge customers on schemes expiring soon.
• Nudge customers on products not bought recently but purchased in the past.

These nudges are aimed at driving range selling and scheme utilization. We continue to evolve functionalities in terms of adding new features on digital engagement and converting that into incremental business. In 2025, we plan to merge this into our cross-sell AI Agent that will find pattern matches of other similar customers and automatically create effective nudges.

Distributor-Wise SOA in Customer App in Case of Multiple Suppliers

Context
In cases where customers are supplied by multiple distributors or supply points, there was a need to provide greater flexibility and transparency in accessing the Statement of Account (SOA). Existing functionality lacked the ability to show distributor-wise SOAs, which is a common requirement in industries where retailers are supplied from multiple distributors or primary customers from multiple depots. 

What did we build?
We introduced an enhancement to the customer app that allows distributor-wise SOA visibility. This feature can be configured at the admin level, giving companies the flexibility to display either a combined SOA or distributor-level SOAs. When configured for distributor-level SOAs, customers can select a distributor and download the corresponding SOA directly from the app.

Setup Product Variants to Handle Color, Size, and Other Attributes

Context
In many industries, products are categorized and sold based on their variants, such as color, size, and other attributes. However, managing these variants alongside overall inventory at both the product and SKU levels presented challenges.

What did we build?
We introduced the concept of Product Groups on top of the existing SKU framework. This allows BeatRoute customers to manage products and their variants seamlessly. Customers can now:

• Simplify ordering at both the product and variant (SKU) levels.
• Manage inventory at both the product group and SKU levels.

Additionally, we incorporated related improvements in SKU management, stock reporting, and other relevant reports to enhance usability and accuracy.

Track Must Sell and Focus Sell Performance vis-à-vis Multiple SKUs as a Group

Context
We have had an existing, innovative functionality in our platform to drive the sales of Must Sell (MSL) and Focus Sell (FSL) SKUs. Earlier, this functionality allowed MSL/FSL declaration and compliance at individual SKUs only. But customers sometimes want to drive MSL/FSL at the category or group level as well. For example, a toothpaste company might want to declare their ‘Herbal Toothpaste’ category as MSL, instead of just one SKU from the category.

What did we build?
We upgraded the system to track SKU performance at the group level, based on their attributes, and enhanced visibility for better compliance and reporting. We introduced the ability to declare any SKU attribute as part of an MSL or FSL group. A dedicated MSL and FSL management page now allows users to define target segments, timeframes, and repeat order cycles. Compliance prompts are displayed during order-taking based on whether any SKU in the group has been sold. Scorecard KPIs have also been upgraded to track MSL/FSL compliance at the group level.

Collect Video Inputs in Campaign Forms

Context
Certain forms, such as complaint registration, product feedback or warranty claims often require video evidence for better insights. Previously, such functionality was unavailable, limiting field data quality. Similar need existed in some industries where community meets are done with buyers or channel influencers where video capture as evidence is desired.

What did we build?
We added an option to include video inputs in Campaign Forms. This feature enables users to capture video responses in forms like complaint registration, product feedback, site surveys and service fulfillment.

In 2025, we are taking Campaign Forms’ reporting to the next level by making reports even more intuitive to read and comprehend. Additionally, we are introducing a “Pending Actions” concept, allowing managers to access and address actionable form submissions from a single, centralized location.

Control Price Configurations by Customer Segment

Context
Many companies allow their sales teams to offer custom prices during order collection but often want this functionality limited to specific customer segments. Previously, this feature could only be enabled for all customers or none, resulting in uncontrolled pricing changes and reduced oversight.

What did we build?
We introduced the ability to configure price-edit permissions based on customer subtypes. This ensures that sales teams can edit prices only for designated customer segments, providing greater control and aligning pricing flexibility with business strategy.

Target Workflows Using Custom Attributes

Context
Customer segmentation was limited to standard attributes such as type, subtype, class & chain, restricting the ability to target workflows and campaigns more granularly.

What did we build?
Custom customer attributes can now be used to target Campaign Forms, MSL/FSL tracking, and other workflows. This will allow teams to create customer segments on a more granular level & target different types of Campaigns and SKUs on these customer segments. We will continue to push the envelope in terms of making the platform more functionally scalable and enterprise grade.

Generate Invoice Offline for Ready Stock Van Sales Teams

Context
Generating invoices in offline scenarios posed significant challenges for ready stock teams operating in the field. Without access to reliable connectivity, teams struggled to provide customers with immediate invoicing, delaying dispatches and affecting customer satisfaction.

What did we build?
We introduced two distinct invoice templates – one for desktop and one for mobile use. The mobile version can function offline, allowing field sales teams to generate and print invoices directly from the Sales Force Automation (SFA) system. This ensures that customers receive invoices promptly, even in no-connectivity areas.

Industry-Parameterised AI Order Recommendation Models

Context
The existing linear graph order recommendation model lacked the ability to cater to the unique demands of different industry verticals. For instance, industries like FMCG, Building Materials, and Consumer Durables have distinct purchasing patterns and cross-sell opportunities, which were not adequately addressed.

What did we build?
We have built AI-powered Order Recommendation models tailored for specific industries, including FMCG, Building Materials, and Consumer Durables. These models leverage customer purchase history and cohort-based pattern matching to provide ready-made basket orders and cross-sell recommendations. By addressing the nuances of each industry, they enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of sales teams.

Multilingual Functionality in Sales Team App

Context
Multi-lingual capability was so far limited to Customer App. Sales teams operating in non-English countries often faced language barriers, which impacted user adoption, training efficiency, and operational consistency. The lack of multilingual interface limited the app’s usability for non-native speakers.

What did we build?
We introduced multilingual support across the Sales Team App, enabling all workflows to be accessed in regional languages depending on the country in which the sales team is operating. 

Upgraded Schedule Creation & Visibility

Context
Creating and managing route-level beat plans was time-consuming, with limited visibility into schedules, especially for TSM (Territory Sales Managers) and SR (Sales Representatives). This inefficiency led to challenges in adherence and coordination.

What did we build?
We introduced a calendar view that allows TSM and SR users to create, copy, and manage route-level beat plans. Enhanced upload and download functionalities now support detailed adherence tracking and team-level schedule management. This provides better visibility and simplifies plan creation.

Track Product Sellout Through the Customer Network

Context
Previously, sellout reporting in BeatRoute was limited to direct consumer transactions. For instance, in modern trade, sellout was typically marked by promoters against walk-in consumers. However, in scenarios where products are distributed through multiple layers—such as wholesalers, distributors, and retailers or distributor, retailer and channel influencers—there was no mechanism to log sellout against intermediate customers in the network. This limitation affected supply chain visibility and downstream sales tracking.

What did we build?
We introduced the ability to tag store/customer sellout to other customers within the network. For example:

• Sales teams can now report offtake at wholesalers against retailers connected to those wholesalers.
• In the agri-inputs industry, sales teams can log offtake at distributors against their associated retailers or dealers.

This enhancement enables companies to track product movement throughout the supply chain, down to the end consumer. It also opens up possibilities for implementing reward systems at various levels in the supply chain based on product scans.

Log Sellout Using Barcode/QR Code Scan

Context
In industries like consumer appliances, where products have unique serial numbers, accurately logging sales is critical for tracking warranties, service records, and inventory. Previously, sales logging relied on manual entries or serial number input, which was time-consuming and prone to errors, impacting operational efficiency and data accuracy.

What did we build?
QR codes with serial numbers and product details can now be scanned to log sellout directly, streamlining the process. We have added an option to define a rule to read serial numbers from QR code scan. This is available under miscellaneous configuration.

We are further enhancing the log sales process by allowing the sales team to directly scan products and record offtake against them.

In 2024, we rolled out 16 Feature Upgrades via Major Releases and 43 other customer-centric enhancements, each designed to bolster our functional scalability, empower customers to execute their sales strategies effectively, and take them closer to their goals.

What’s Next?

The journey doesn’t stop here. We’re excited to continue innovating, collaborating, and delivering on our promise of technology that transforms retail and distribution. As we step into 2025, we remain steadfast in our mission to empower our customers with tools that are not just cutting-edge but also deeply practical and impactful.

Thank you for being part of the BeatRoute journey. With your support, we shall continue on our mission of making technology amplification of retail sales simple.