Beat plan vs PJP: the distinction that matters
The two terms get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing.
A beat plan is the route. It answers which outlets are grouped together, in what sequence, and how long the day should take. It flexes — outlets open and close, classes change, and the grouping should change with them.
A PJP, or Permanent Journey Plan, is the calendar. It answers which beat is covered on which day, and it is deliberately stable, typically fixed for three to six months. A Britannia salesman's PJP might assign Monday to one locality beat of 32 outlets and Tuesday to an adjacent beat of 28, unchanged for two quarters.
The stability is the point. When a retailer knows their salesman comes every Tuesday, they hold their order for Tuesday. Break the PJP and you do not just lose a visit — you lose the ordering rhythm the retailer had built around it.
How to design a beat plan
Seven steps, in order. Skipping the first one is why most beat plans quietly stop reflecting the territory.
01Build a clean outlet universe
List every outlet in the territory, geo-tagged, with category and class.
Everything downstream depends on this. If the master is stale, coverage percentages are fiction and the beat plan optimises against a territory that no longer exists. This is the step most distributors skip and most regret.
02Classify outlets by value
Sort into A, B and C classes by monthly offtake, not by how friendly the owner is.
Class drives visit frequency. An A-class outlet doing ₹40,000 a month justifies two visits a week; a C-class outlet doing ₹3,000 does not justify one. Classification by revenue rather than habit is where most coverage gains come from.
03Set call frequency per class
Decide how often each class is visited in a cycle.
Typical Indian FMCG: A-class twice weekly, B-class weekly, C-class fortnightly or monthly. Perishables compress everything — a milk or bread beat may be daily regardless of class, because the product forces the rhythm.
04Group outlets geographically
Cluster by locality so a day's visits sit within a walkable or short-ride radius.
Travel time is dead time. A beat that zigzags across a city loses two productive hours a day. Grouping tightly is the single biggest lever on productive selling time.
05Size the day
Fix how many outlets one salesman covers per day.
Category decides this. Daily beats for bread and milk run 80–150 outlets because each call is a two-minute replenishment. Weekly beats for personal and home care run 50–100. Fortnightly beats run 40–80, with longer, more consultative calls.
06Sequence the route
Order the day's outlets to minimise backtracking.
Sequencing matters as much as grouping. A well-ordered beat of 60 outlets finishes an hour earlier than a badly ordered one covering the same shops, which is an hour available for the next beat or for collections.
07Fix it, then measure adherence
Lock the plan for a cycle and track what actually happened against it.
A beat plan nobody measures is a suggestion. Beat adherence — the share of planned outlets actually visited — is the number that tells you whether the plan is real. Healthy operations run 95%+.
How many outlets per day?
Category decides this, not ambition. The wrong answer shows up as a dropped tail on the beat rather than as a complaint.
| Category | Cycle | Outlets / day | Call length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milk, bread, fresh | Daily | 80–150 | 1–3 min |
| Beverages, ambient snacks | Twice weekly to weekly | 60–100 | 3–6 min |
| Personal care, home care | Weekly | 50–100 | 5–10 min |
| Packaged foods, staples | Weekly to fortnightly | 40–80 | 6–12 min |
Milk, bread, fresh: Replenishment-driven. The product's shelf life sets the rhythm, not the outlet's value.
Beverages, ambient snacks: Seasonal swings are sharp; summer beats often need resizing.
Personal care, home care: Deeper range means more time per call and more emphasis on lines per call.
Packaged foods, staples: Larger order values, so a productive call matters more than call volume.
Ranges are indicative for Indian general trade and vary with outlet density. A dense urban bazaar supports the top of each range; a spread-out semi-urban beat the bottom.
The six metrics that tell you if the plan is real
A beat plan nobody measures is a suggestion. These six, in this order, are what turn it into an operating system.
01Beat adherence
95%+Tells you whether the plan is being followed at all. Anything below 85% means the plan is fiction and every number derived from it is unreliable.
Beat Adherence →02Beat coverage
Rising cycle on cycleDistinguishes 'we followed the plan' from 'the plan reaches the market'. High adherence on a plan covering half the territory is not a success.
Beat Coverage →03Productive calls
60–80%A visit without an order is cost without revenue. Persistently low productivity usually means wrong call frequency, not a weak salesman.
Productive Call →04Lines per call
Category-dependent, track the trendThe clearest measure of range selling. Rising lines per call is worth more than rising call count, because it costs nothing extra to serve.
Lines Per Call →05Value per call
Track by beat and by salesmanShows which beats are worth the travel. Two beats with identical call counts can differ threefold in value.
Value Per Call →06Call frequency
Matched to outlet classUnder-visiting A-class outlets loses volume; over-visiting C-class outlets burns the day. Most territories have both problems at once.
Call Frequency →Six ways beat plans quietly fail
None of these announce themselves. They show up as a territory that stops growing for reasons nobody can name.
The plan was built once and never revisited
Symptom: Coverage looks fine but new outlets in the territory have never been visited.
Fix: Re-run classification every quarter. Outlets open, close and change class constantly.
Frequency set by relationship, not value
Symptom: The salesman visits the same friendly shops daily and the far ones monthly, whatever the plan says.
Fix: Classify by offtake and enforce frequency in the system rather than on paper.
Beats sized for the best salesman
Symptom: One person finishes early, everyone else runs out of day and drops the tail of the beat.
Fix: Size to the median, then let strong performers take an extended beat.
No proof of visit
Symptom: Adherence is self-reported at 100% and coverage never improves.
Fix: GPS-stamped visit capture. Self-reported adherence is the number most likely to be wrong.
Travel time never measured
Symptom: Salesmen are in the market all day but productive calls stay low.
Fix: Measure time between first and last call against calls made. Poor sequencing hides here.
The tail of the beat is always dropped
Symptom: The same outlets at the end of the route are missed week after week.
Fix: Rotate the start point of the beat so the tail changes each cycle.
What Excel can and cannot do here
Excel can group outlets into beats and hold a PJP calendar. Plenty of good distributors have run that way for years, and for a single beat with one salesman it is genuinely adequate.
What it cannot do is verify the visit happened. Without GPS-stamped capture at the outlet, beat adherence is self-reported — and self-reported adherence is the number most likely to be wrong in any distribution business. It is reported at or near 100% almost everywhere, including in territories where coverage is visibly falling.
The second thing it cannot do is re-sequence. Territories change continuously as outlets open, close and shift class, and re-optimising sixty outlets by hand every quarter is work nobody actually does. So the plan ages, quietly, until it is describing a market that no longer exists.
Optimised, maintained plans improve coverage by 30–40% over manual scheduling — most of which comes from cutting travel waste and correcting call frequency that had been set by habit. See route optimisation and GPS attendance and visit compliance.
Frequently asked
What is a beat plan in FMCG?
A beat plan divides a sales territory into routes, or beats, that a salesman follows on scheduled days to visit retail outlets. It sets which outlets are visited, on which day, and how often, so coverage is systematic rather than dependent on which shops a salesman feels like visiting.
What is the full form of PJP in sales?
PJP stands for Permanent Journey Plan. It is the fixed, longer-term schedule that assigns each day of a salesman's cycle to a specific beat, typically locked for three to six months so that retailers know which day their salesman arrives.
What is the difference between PJP and a beat plan?
A beat plan is the route — which outlets are grouped together and in what sequence. A PJP is the calendar — which beat is covered on which day, fixed over a longer horizon. The beat plan can flex week to week as outlets are added; the PJP is deliberately stable so retailers can rely on a predictable visit day.
How many outlets should a salesman cover per day?
It depends entirely on category. Daily beats for milk and bread run 80–150 outlets because each call is a one-to-three minute replenishment. Weekly beats for personal and home care run 50–100. Fortnightly beats for packaged foods run 40–80 with longer, more consultative calls.
How often should each outlet be visited?
Match frequency to outlet class rather than to relationship. A common Indian FMCG pattern is A-class outlets twice weekly, B-class weekly, and C-class fortnightly or monthly. Perishable categories override this — a milk beat may be daily regardless of class because shelf life sets the rhythm.
What is beat adherence and what is a good level?
Beat adherence is the share of planned outlets a salesman actually visits, calculated as outlets visited divided by outlets planned. Healthy operations run 95% or above. Below 85% the plan is not being followed and every metric derived from it becomes unreliable.
How much does beat planning improve coverage?
Optimised beat plans typically improve outlet coverage by 30–40% compared with manual scheduling, mainly by cutting travel waste and correcting call frequency that was set by habit rather than by outlet value.
Why do salesmen drop the end of the beat?
Because the beat was sized for a best-case day and the tail runs past the working hours. The same outlets get missed week after week, which is why some parts of a territory never grow. Rotating the start point of the beat each cycle distributes the loss instead of concentrating it.
Can beat planning be done in Excel?
Route grouping can. What Excel cannot do is verify that the visits happened. Without GPS-stamped visit capture, adherence is self-reported, and self-reported adherence is the single number most likely to be wrong in a distribution business.
What is the difference between beat coverage and market coverage?
Beat coverage measures how much of your planned beat you actually reached. Market coverage measures how much of the total outlet universe in the territory you serve at all. You can have excellent beat coverage on a plan that ignores half the market, which is why both need tracking.