Yakult mobile mareting strategy

Will Chen
Marketing in the Age of Digital
3 min readApr 3, 2022

Since its creation in 1935, Yakult has been the world’s top probiotic beverage. Many nations and areas throughout the globe now sell Yakult products, including consumer, cosmetic, and medicinal items are among our company. Yakult is widely available in supermarkets and convenience stores around the country.

EPOS data was transferred into paper-based reports by sales executives after each visit to the shop. These reports were re-keyed into a centralized database to track Yakult’s sales across all shops. According to this investigation, problems with product availability, delayed stock turnover, shelf-life wastage, and incorrect merchandising standards were shown to have a negative influence on sales. It was impossible to fix the issues promptly since they could not be identified and notified in real-time.

In 2006, Yakult decided to assess its field sales activities in the UK and Ireland to boost visibility, optimize productivity, and drive efficiencies. With this assessment, it was hoped to make sure sales reps were using their time efficiently to focus on providing value to the company and boosting profits. Because of Yakult’s lack of adaptability, issues like as overstocking and poor marketing might go unnoticed for too long. That and the absence of real-time data hindered visibility and analysis and fostered inefficiencies in the workplace.

After realizing the company’s problems in terms of its sales, the company then decided to take new marketing strategies to help grow and market its brands more. The first strategy was to restructure its field sales and marketing model. The conventional territory model was rendered obsolete, and virtual regions were established to provide a responsive approach that was more flexible and enabled the company to account for administration. This methodology allowed shops to be visited only when a problem was reported. As a result, problems might be rectified swiftly and inefficiencies reduced. Secondly, The Company was looking for a solution to address the already existing problem.

The solution then helped to equip salespeople with mobile devices so that they may download and upload critical sales information, streamlining the flow of all sales data. In the end, Yakult decided on products from “O4 and CACI” after a thorough market investigation. Yakult used CACI’s Insite & Callsmart technology to optimize field resources and develop region structures and call plans for each sales representative. Mobile execution solution O4 was chosen because of its ability to provide and report data back to the central management suite, which is why it was chosen. Yakult’s current systems and the CACI solution were integrated into O4, resulting in a speedy installation and a successful go-live.” Both systems went operational in “July 2008” after a five-month installation period.

Yakult now can identify shops that need care using the integrated O4 and CACI solutions instead of waiting for a standard inspection that was previously arranged many months in advance. Yakult can also examine available resources and divide tasks correctly thanks to the solutions. We saved around 45% in field sales force time by adopting O4 and CACI, which equals 45% more resources that can be channeled back into strategy, development, and marketing. Through such mobile marketing strategies, the corporation can now save time on paper and administrative work. Additionally, it allows the organization to receive information at hand and allows the team to be more proactive and well-informed when they visit the store. The new technology has also ensured a return on investment, and the company does not regret implementing it.

In conclusion, the speed and accuracy of information provided by the mobile marketing strategy at Yakult enable them to access critical information that has enabled them to move the company forward and ensure return on investment. The company’s mobile marketing has provided more product field sales force, driving immeasurable benefits for the company from the bottom line.

--

--