AI can help general trade, boost annual revenues up to 20%: BCG research

Study highlights how AI-driven sales planning, execution and backend automation can transform general trade channels and unlock significant revenue growth

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help companies transform the general trade channel, helping them unlock a 15–20 per cent growth in annualised revenue, a new study by Boston Consulting Group pointed out.

 

The research highlights that companies can integrate AI across functions such as sales planning, frontline execution, and back-end operations to drive efficiency.

 

“AI can integrate structured data such as billing records and loyalty data with unstructured inputs, including store images, handwritten notes and sales conversations. By analysing these inputs together, organisations can generate insights and recommendations that support sales planning, store-level execution and operational decision-making,” the research stated.

 

These functions include smarter planning, where AI can analyse location data, footfall patterns, and store profiles to identify high-potential micro-markets, prioritise the right outlets, and tailor product mix and trade decisions for each individual store.

 

Meanwhile, an AI-powered sales companion, such as a smartphone-based assistant, can help salespeople plan their daily routes, pull up summaries of past retailer conversations, and recommend what to pitch at each store. A round-the-clock AI-led digital sales agent can help engage retailers throughout the day — capturing orders through voice calls in local languages, resolving queries, and sending payment reminders.

 

Further, on the back end, AI can take over billing, scheme settlement, financial reconciliation, and query resolution — freeing up capacity across the organisation for more strategic work, the research pointed out.

 

“AI allows companies to leapfrog stages of go-to-market maturity altogether. A business still relying on manual route plans and one-size-fits-all pitches can move directly to an AI-enabled model. For companies looking to transform their sales operations, the window to act is now,” said Parul Bajaj, India leader — marketing, sales and pricing practice at BCG.

 

According to the consulting firm, early deployments have demonstrated measurable impact in the general trade environment.

 

A mid-size homecare brand achieved more than 10 per cent sales uplift within one month after deploying an AI companion with order recommendations and lost-sales recovery reminders.

 

“A multinational consumer goods company reported a 20 per cent increase in customer-facing time after deploying a companion with dynamic route optimisation and personalised nudges. A leading FMCG company also deployed an AI voice agent for retailer order collection in local languages, enabling 5 to 10 per cent of orders to be captured directly through the agent,” it added.