Customer Profile: A leading manufacturer of food products
Problem: The organization had grown purely as a production driven organization and the sales had grown organically, purely through word of mouth, and personal interaction between the business owner and known people in the industry. There was a need to get professionally structured as a sales organization in order to drive future growth of the company.
Solution: We worked closely with the business to define the sales structure. The sales distribution was mapped into territories and routes. Each route had a mapping of the sales manager, the sales executive, and the distributor. Target setting was done at the route level and at the route level target setting was done not only accumulatively but also individual product wise. A system of daily sales reporting of the sales team was implemented to get clarity on day to day working of the team. Weekly sales data started coming in so that the target vs actual could be mapped. Monthly sales reviews were implemented by which the data from target vs actual was reviewed with every area sales manager and gaps, deficiencies, support required was discussed with the management. Specific hiring was taken up for roles where we needed action, jobs were clearly defined to help the recruiters send the right profiles. Dealers and distributors started engaging with the company with information on the secondary sales, so details of retailers who were mapped to the distributors also started coming into the system. We now have a complete clarity on the market penetration and we are able to review the progress of the work in a much more objective fashion.
Benefits: The organization now has a professional sales management structure in place. Data driven management has taken over subjective gut based decision making. Accountability with the sales team has increased, with the availability of granular data. Target setting which was not driven based on data, is now based on data because we now have a clarity of the total market potential which remains untapped.
Developing A Sales Structure