Kawan Food’s Journey to Smarter Field Force Management

Kawan Food Berhad is a leading Malaysian manufacturer and exporter of frozen food products, renowned for its wide range of ready-to-eat and convenience foods, including parathas, curries, buns, and snacks. With a presence in over 40 countries, Kawan Food is committed to delivering quality and innovation while maintaining operational efficiency and agility in the highly competitive FMCG landscape. 

The company distributes its products through multiple channels—including distributors, retailers, and a strong presence in modern trade, which is supported by an active field force (merchandisers) who play a key role in execution and market coverage. 

Challenges Faced 

As Kawan Food’s retail footprint expanded, managing field operations became increasingly difficult. The company encountered several key challenges:

• Limited visibility into field activities, with no real-time tracking of store visits, task completion, or merchandising execution.
  
  
• Manual reporting processes that were time-consuming, inconsistent, and often inaccurate—making it difficult to trust or act on field data.
  
  
• No structured way to evaluate field force performance, especially in terms of sales contribution or order generation. The sales team operated in silos, and there was no clear link between field visits and commercial outcomes.

These issues created operational blind spots, slowed decision-making, and limited the company’s ability to optimize its field strategy

Boostorder Solutions

To address these challenges, Kawan Food partnered with Boostorder, a digital field force automation platform. The solution provided:

1. Journey planning & call rate

• Check in / out - Merchandisers can now report their attendance seamlessly through the check In/out feature based on their planned journey. They can also attach photo proof — all within a single platform.

• Attendance data now is instantly compiled into a real-time, consolidated report, eliminating the need for manual tracking and significantly reducing reporting time for supervisors.

2. Task management

• Stock count - Merchandisers can easily perform stock counts at both the front and back of the store.

• The stock count data now instantly generates reports, enabling real-time monitoring of stock levels across all outlets and simplifying stock replenishment.

• Share of shelf  - Merchandisers can now capture the share of shelf for both Kawan Food products and competitors' as part of their routine tasks.

• This data is then analyzed through actionable dashboards, providing valuable insights to monitor current market trends and inform strategic decisions.

• Price check - Brands often run time-sensitive promotions, and it’s crucial that pricing at key retail outlets reflects these changes. With Boostorder, merchandisers can easily perform real-time price checks to ensure promotional prices are accurately displayed. 

3. Smart order proposal 

One of the most impactful features of Boostorder for Kawan Food was the Smart Order Proposal module. This tool transformed how the field team engaged with retail buyers and how their performance was measured:

• Instant PDF generation: Field reps could generate a professional, ready-to-send order proposal in PDF format during store visits. These proposals could be shared immediately with retail buyers, speeding up the ordering process and improving buyer engagement.
  
  
• Client-specific SKUs: The system automatically mapped Kawan Food’s internal product codes to each retailer’s unique SKU naming conventions. This ensured clarity, reduced friction, and increased order accuracy.
  
  

• Performance visibility: Now, Kawan Food could track field force performance based on order proposals generated, providing a direct link between field activity and commercial output. This was a major leap from the previous state of “total darkness” in performance tracking.

Business Impact 

The implementation of Boostorder delivered measurable improvements across Kawan Food’s field operations:

✅ Increase in field force productivity

Streamlined workflows and reduced manual tasks allowed merchandising teams to operate more efficiently, cover more outlets, and focus on value-adding activities.

✅ Faster, data-driven decision making

Real-time, actionable insights empowered management to respond swiftly to market dynamics and customer needs, improving overall agility and responsiveness.

✅ Improved Merchandising Compliance & Accountability 

Enhanced visibility and performance tracking ensured consistent execution at retail outlets, better brand presence, and greater accountability from field representatives.