Managing Sales Team at Balram Beverages

Abstract

Shyam Sundar, General Manager (Sales and Marketing) at Balram Beverages Pvt. Limited (BBPL), was pondering over the final decision regarding whom to offer the post of Deputy General Manager - Sales. Choice was between Sandeep, Arun and Vimal. Sandeep was an ex-employee of BBPL and had worked with Shyam from 2006 to 2015 as a Sales Manager - Route to Market. Arun Mohan was from a very reputed Indian fast moving consumer goods company, which operated through an entirely different channel than BBPL, and dominated the packaged fruit juice market in India.

Shyam expected the sales figures of Coca Cola and BBPL would increase considerably over the next few years due to the natural growth in the market and the planned increase in the product portfolio. The key to harnessing the growth and profitability would be essentially by expanding the distribution channel to include the fruit juice / milk product specific retail outlets, and by driving execution excellence and productivity of the sales force. He wondered how important would be the stability of the sales force as compared to the need to infuse new talent and knowhow about new channels in the sales team. It was further complicated by the resignation of Vimal Dhingra, one of his best performing and trusted Market Expansion Managers, who was tasked with growing the untapped and small rural markets. Vimal however shared that only if he were offered the position of DGM - Sales by BBPL, he would be ready to take back his resignation. How much risk he could take in recruiting someone in senior level of the sales team was a debate for him, also the likely signal that his choice would give to the entire 200 strong field force was unknown.