In August 2021, the director of sales at Castrol India Limited (Castrol), headquartered in Mumbai, was concerned about how best to prepare the company for the future. Through the company’s strong distribution network and digitized tech stack, he and his sales team had ensured efficient dealings with its trade partners of distributors, retailers, and mechanics. After meeting with Castrol distributors, distributor sales representatives, distributor field marketing representatives, and key account executives, he was aware that the distributors’ return on investment was declining due to increasing costs and lower margins. He wondered whether these three frontline sales teams were working synergistically and leveraging each other’s strengths, and he was aware that the next decade would see immense changes in the basic structure of the Indian automotive lubricant market. While Castrol was a leader in this market, with about 20 per cent of the market share, this share had not increased in accordance with the company’s ambitions, and the company now faced competition from existing and new industry players. The sales director was considering three options to transform Castrol’s distribution model: (1) making incremental changes that could bring in efficiency in the existing system, but might require effort and increase in distributor margins; (2) appointing an independent task force to suggest and experiment with new, innovative distribution models; or (3) implementing a managed salesforce route-to-market model, which would involve hiring a specialized third-party sales solution provider and outsourcing distribution differently. Each option had its complications, risks, and rewards. Which one should he implement?
In March 2023, Campbell Wilson, managing director and CEO of Air India, announced that the owners of the airline, the Tata group, planned to consolidate their airline portfolio. On the one hand, the group’s two full-service carriers (FSCs), Air India and Vistara, would be merged to form a single brand; on the other hand, so would the group’s two low-cost carriers (LCCs), Air India Express and Air Asia India. Wilson had joined Air India in June 2022, only a few months after the Tata group had taken over the debt-ridden airline from the government of India. Although it was clear that the Tata group wanted to consolidate its airline portfolio into one FSC brand and one LCC brand, some industry experts had expressed doubts about the Air India–Vistara merger, given their very different brand associations and heritage. Deciding whether to consolidate the brands was not easy. Would doing so be the right decision strategically, or should other options be explored?
Captain Fresh, a tech-enabled business-to-business (B2B) seafood marketplace based out of Bengaluru, India, had been enjoying phenomenal success. Founder Utham Gowda set out to simplify the seafood supply chain in a fragmented, unstructured, and complex market. He was sure that going forward, technology would play a major role in building high-quality distribution infrastructure that would take fish from sea to plate. In January 2022, having achieved revenue growth of more than 700 per cent from September 2020 to September 2021, Gowda was faced with three equally compelling options for growth. In January 2022, he was faced with three equally compelling options for growth. The first was to set up Captain Fresh’s own business-to-consumer brand; the second was to add mutton and chicken to his product offerings; and the third option was a bold proposal to go international by expanding to the United States. Another exciting strategy was expanding Fishgram, the unique proprietary marine supply-chain technology platform Gowda had built to help fishers connect directly to buyers across various geographies. There was an opportunity to monetize the platform by offering it to non-competing fishers as a software as a service. Which of three options should he choose while maintaining his original goal of easing problems in the country’s fish and seafood supply chain? Should he offer Fishgram to fishers and other businesses?
Two women entrepreneurs co-founded a profitable direct-to-consumer apparel brand called Suta. In June 2021, as the business owners were planning to increase advertising expenditure and scale up operations, they were confronted with a declining return on advertising spend on social commerce and other digital platforms. The co-founders needed to make use of marketing analytics to examine the effectiveness of their online store in converting visitors into customers and decide whether adopting a conversion rate optimization strategy could help improve performance.
In January 2020, two social entrepreneurs were looking back at the first five years of operation of their venture JioVio Healthcare. The entrpreneurs had designed, developed, and implemented their cloud-based Internet of Things software Savemom. Using feedback from key stakeholders, Savemom assisted in the early detection of preventable complications during pregnancy and safe delivery, especially for expectant mothers in rural India, with a goal to reduce India’s maternal mortality ratio (MMR). Using an iterative process, Senthilkumar collaborated with various stakeholders in central and southern parts of rural India to enhance and implement the Savemom software. To achieve the socially-conscious goal behind the Savemom software, the team developed a wearable device for use by each expectant mother, as well as a medical measurement device and an online platform for healthcare providers to access the health information of patients. After several iterations of prototypes based on process outcomes and feedback from stakeholders, the Savemom software, devices, and process seemed to have achieved its ultimate goal. But when one of the entrepreneurs visited doctors to get their feedback, they expressed great dissatisfaction with the vast amount of patient information to check each day on the portal, which was increasing their workload almost ten times. The two social entrepreneurs had to find a way to address the genuine issues the doctors had raised.
In September of 2017, CavinKare Private Limited was faced with a tough decision about how to continue its growth in the personal care products industry. The company had been successful in the hair colour market in India, particularly in the southern regions of the country. CavinKare’s success was largely due to their focus on research and development and innovation. The hair colour market showed room for growth, and CavinKare wanted to make sure that they capitalized on its potential. There were three options before the company: stay with their existing products and markets, expand their existing products into new markets, or create innovative new products. To make the decision, CavinKare had to consider many factors, including consumer behaviour, new product development, marketing strategies, and trade partnerships. Only by considering all of these things together would the company have an answer to its question: what was the best option for growth?
In January 2006, the general manager of sales at Castrol India Limited was concerned. Sales of Castrol motorcycle oil for four-stroke engines was far less than it should be, especially when considering the five million motorcycles being added to Indian roads each year. Most motorcycle oil changes took place in franchised workshops during the warranty period and in non-franchised workshops after the warranty period. The general manager wanted to increase the sales of Castrol oil in the spare parts shops and non-franchised workshops that serviced India’s growing after-market. Castrol India’s existing distributors were reluctant to sell to those segments, which they viewed as low-volume, high-cost, and risky distribution channels. The general manager needed a distribution strategy that would appeal to the existing distributors and boost Castrol Oil India’s sales without increasing costs to the company.
The co-founders of Evoe Spring Spa need to decide on the positioning of their business in the nascent Indian spa market. Indian consumers perceive spas as an expensive indulgence for the rich, and some spa services are seen as socially and culturally unacceptable. As a result, the co-founders need to build this category by changing consumer attitudes toward spa services. To identify the target segment and the best positioning for Evoe, the co-founders study the market and their competitors and conduct qualitative consumer research. In the end, they must choose from three viable positioning concepts.
In June 2012, an area sales manager at NutriPack India, a multinational company dealing with fast-moving consumer goods, had to find a way to match the success of his predecessor in increasing retail outlet coverage in central Maharashtra. He studied the territory data and identified the Jalgaon region as having the potential for high growth. However, the single distributor for Jalgaon was upset because he had already increased his operations the previous year and was unconvinced that this had been profitable. The area sales manager needed to convince this distributor of the benefits of his past investments, and also convince him to make further investments (e.g., hire more salespersons). <br><br><br><br>This case illustrates the challenges that young area sales managers face when they have to deal with experienced distributors in the Indian retail trade, especially in smaller towns where relationships can greatly affect business. Students will gain an understanding of the key performance indicators required to focus on developmental issues in a territory. They will appreciate financial considerations as a major tool in dealing with intermediaries, such as distributors, and will gain practical knowledge in how to convince a distributor of his past investments and profitability, and pave the way for further investment for retail expansion.