Field operations management system for POSM distribution and offline surveys

The Need

JTI Bangladesh needed a comprehensive system to manage their field operations involving Point of Sale Materials (POSM) distribution, retail audits, surveys, and marketing workflows across thousands of retail locations nationwide.

Their field agents operated in areas with unreliable or no internet connectivity, making traditional cloud-dependent systems impractical. JTI required a hybrid solution combining a web portal for headquarters management with a mobile app enabling field agents to execute daily tasks offline using handheld terminals (HHTs), then synchronize results when connectivity became available.

The challenge was to create a system that could manage the complex workflows of POSM distribution—tracking which materials were delivered to which retailers, conducting compliance audits to ensure materials were displayed properly, executing marketing surveys to gather consumer insights, and monitoring field agent productivity and territory coverage.

With over 10,000 daily POSM tasks being managed and the need to reduce operational costs while maintaining data accuracy and real-time visibility, JTI needed a robust field operations platform architected specifically for the connectivity challenges of emerging markets.

The Solution

We developed a hybrid Sales360 system that revolutionized JTI's field operations, seamlessly combining web-based management tools with offline-capable mobile technology to ensure uninterrupted field operations regardless of connectivity constraints.

The system manages POSM distribution workflows end-to-end, from headquarters planning through field execution to post-distribution compliance verification. Headquarters staff use the web portal to plan POSM campaigns, allocate materials to specific retail outlets, assign distribution tasks to field agents by territory, and track campaign progress in real-time.

Field agents receive task assignments on their Android HHTs (handheld terminals), navigate to assigned retailers using integrated maps, execute distributions while capturing photos for verification, and conduct post-placement audits to ensure materials are displayed according to brand guidelines. The system tracks the complete lifecycle of every POSM item from warehouse to retail display, providing unprecedented visibility into marketing material deployment effectiveness.

The platform supports comprehensive audit and survey capabilities that enable JTI to gather critical market intelligence through their field force. Agents conduct retail audits documenting competitor activity, shelf share, pricing, and promotional compliance. Marketing surveys capture consumer preferences, brand awareness, and purchasing behaviors directly from retail environments.

All data collection occurs offline using sophisticated forms with conditional logic, photo capture, GPS verification, and digital signatures, with results automatically synchronizing to the central system when connectivity is restored.Enabled JTI's field agents to execute daily tasks offline using HHTs with full functionality—accessing task assignments, viewing retailer information, completing distribution workflows, conducting audits and surveys, and capturing verification photos—all without requiring internet connectivity.

The offline-first architecture uses Android Jetpack components including Room for local database management, Hilt for dependency injection, and ViewModel for UI state management, ensuring the mobile app performs smoothly and reliably regardless of network conditions.

When connectivity becomes available, the system automatically synchronizes collected data to the central server, resolving conflicts intelligently and providing feedback on sync status.

The web portal built using Angular 7, ASP.NET Core 3.1, and SQL Server provides headquarters with comprehensive management and reporting capabilities.

Managers can monitor field agent locations and activities in real-time, track POSM distribution progress against targets, analyze survey results and audit findings, generate performance reports by agent, territory, or retailer, and adjust task assignments dynamically based on field conditions or business priorities.

Azure-hosted, environment-agnostic deployment ensures the platform scales reliably while maintaining enterprise-grade security and performance.

The measurable impact has been substantial: the system manages 10,000+ daily POSM tasks and has contributed to a 30% reduction in operational costs through improved efficiency, better resource allocation, and elimination of manual paper-based processes.

The Challenge

The primary challenge was architecting an offline-first mobile application that could provide full functionality without connectivity while ensuring data integrity when synchronizing with the central system.

Field agents needed access to extensive reference data including retailer databases, product catalogs, POSM material specifications, and task details—all of which had to be stored locally on mobile devices. Managing local database size, ensuring efficient queries on constrained mobile hardware, and keeping reference data up-to-date required sophisticated data synchronization strategies and aggressive optimization.

Building survey and audit workflows that were flexible enough to accommodate diverse data collection requirements—from simple multiple-choice questions to complex conditional logic, photo capture, GPS verification, and signature collection—while maintaining usability for field agents working in challenging conditions required extensive UX research and iterative design.

The mobile interface needed to work reliably on various Android devices with different screen sizes and hardware capabilities.

Implementing robust offline data synchronization that could handle conflicts when multiple agents collected data offline and later synchronized required careful conflict resolution logic.

The system needed to detect conflicts (like two agents visiting the same retailer within a short timeframe), apply business rules to resolve them automatically where possible, and flag edge cases for manual review—all while ensuring no data was lost and audit trails remained complete.

Integrating the mobile app with HHTs (handheld terminals) that field agents used required supporting specific hardware features like built-in barcode scanners, ruggedized touchscreens, and extended battery life considerations.

The app needed to be optimized for devices designed for field use rather than consumer smartphones, with UI patterns appropriate for outdoor visibility and gloved operation.

Building a web portal that could manage 10,000+ daily tasks across hundreds of field agents while providing real-time visibility into field operations required scalable backend architecture, efficient database design, and carefully optimized queries.

The reporting and analytics capabilities needed to process large volumes of field data to deliver actionable insights without overwhelming users with complexity.

The Partnership

Our collaboration with JTI Bangladesh was driven by understanding both their business objectives around POSM effectiveness and the operational realities of managing field forces in connectivity-challenged environments.

We worked closely with their sales, marketing, and field operations teams to understand existing workflows, pain points in manual processes, and the specific requirements of field agents working across urban and rural territories.

The partnership involved extensive field engagement, observing field agents during POSM distributions, audits, and surveys to understand real-world workflows, device usage patterns, and connectivity constraints.

This ground-level research informed critical architecture decisions around offline-first design, data synchronization strategies, and mobile UI patterns optimized for field conditions.

We delivered comprehensive services including full-cycle development of both the Android mobile app and web portal, SQA (Software Quality Assurance) and UAT (User Acceptance Testing) conducted with actual field agents to ensure usability under real-world conditions, and deployment support in field locations including training for agents on using HHTs and mobile workflows.

Our team built the complete technology stack—Android app using Jetpack components (Room, Hilt, ViewModel) with offline-first architecture, and web portal using Angular 7, ASP.NET Core 3.1, and SQL Server with Azure-hosted deployment.

We designed data synchronization protocols that ensure reliability even with intermittent connectivity and implemented the complex business logic for POSM workflow management, audit compliance, and survey data processing.

The measurable success—managing 10,000+ daily POSM tasks and achieving 30% cost reduction—demonstrates how this collaborative approach created a field operations platform that genuinely improved JTI's marketing execution effectiveness while reducing operational overhead.

The Tech Stack

We built the Android mobile app using Jetpack components including Room for local database management, Hilt for dependency injection, and ViewModel for UI state handling, with offline-first architecture ensuring full functionality without connectivity.

Room provides the local SQLite database that stores reference data, task assignments, and collected survey/audit results on the device. Hilt manages dependency injection for clean, testable code architecture. ViewModel handles UI state management ensuring data survives configuration changes.

The offline-first design enables field agents to execute all daily tasks—POSM distributions, audits, surveys—without internet, with automatic synchronization when connectivity is restored.

The web portal is built using Angular 7 for the dynamic, responsive frontend, ASP.NET Core 3.1 for the scalable backend API, and SQL Server for robust data management of POSM inventory, retailer databases, field agent activities, and collected survey/audit data. Azure-hosted, environment-agnostic deployment ensures reliable scaling and enterprise security.

The platform delivers comprehensive services including full-cycle development of both mobile and web components, SQA and UAT ensuring reliability under real-world field conditions, and deployment support in field locations—all working together to manage POSM distribution workflows, enable offline audits and surveys, provide real-time field operations visibility, and deliver the analytics that help JTI optimize marketing execution while achieving 30% operational cost reduction.