Melitta: adapting its field organization to evolving channels

“The sales force is there to support the company's growth and, as such, it needs an organization that reflects the company's strategy.”
Brice Mathé, National Sales Manager and E-commerce Manager, Melitta

Melitta at a glance

Melitta is a family-owned company founded in 1908 by Melitta Benz, the inventor of the coffee filter. Present worldwide with more than 5,800 employees, it markets food packaging (Albal), household bags (Handy Bag) and a whole ecosystem around coffee, from filters to espresso machines.

This testimonial comes from Brice Mathé, National Sales Manager and E-commerce Manager. The sales force covers the entire country, across several categories and several channels: grocery retail, specialist retail and e-commerce.

stat: 1908 | year founded

stat: 5,800+ | employees worldwide

The challenge: reflecting the strategy in the field organization

Channels and markets are changing, and the sales force has to keep pace. Two issues were at stake:

• Aligning the organization with the strategy: coverage, channels, customers and category priorities.
• Balancing the workload of the sales force.

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“We wanted to adapt to the way channels and markets were changing. The second point is that we really wanted to work on balancing our sales force's workload.”
Brice Mathé, National Sales Manager and E-commerce Manager, Melitta

The Datakiss solution: simulate quickly to decide better

Melitta relies on Datakiss Territory Planning, a highly analytical tool that reports on coverage, visit time and face-to-face time.

1. Analysis of existing coverage and high-potential outlets
2. Rapid simulation of multiple scenarios
   • No more waiting several days to see the result of a change in parameters.
3. Work on visit frequencies
4. Territory rebalancing and presentation of the results to the teams

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“It's a tool that lets you vary a lot of parameters and run simulations very quickly and very efficiently. You don't have to wait two or three days to see the outcome of different scenarios.”
Brice Mathé, National Sales Manager and E-commerce Manager, Melitta

Project benefits

• Objectives achieved: optimized coverage, in line with the strategy.
• More outlets covered, especially high-potential ones, with reworked visit frequencies.
• Better-balanced territories, for a fair workload across the teams.

The key to success

For Brice Mathé, the wealth of information provided makes continuous improvement possible, and the collaborative nature of the project was very well received by the teams.

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“Looking back, the feedback from the teams is very positive, thanks to the collaborative approach, the quality of the work done and the way the results were presented.”
Brice Mathé, National Sales Manager and E-commerce Manager, Melitta

In summary

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“I would highly recommend Datakiss for territory design work. It's a very rich tool, implemented by highly skilled teams who are a real pleasure to work with.”
Brice Mathé, National Sales Manager and E-commerce Manager, Melitta