Godrej Interio (Institutional Business)

We said let’s observe a day in the salesmen’s life, and understand how he spends his time. We realized that the salesperson was spending more time in backend operations which are not the core selling operations, but operations related to quotation making, payment reconciliation, follow up for some dispatch, etc. And they were happy doing that work because they also felt that the customer wanted a Single Point of Contact (SPOC). So, we asked ourselves, “Is the customer really looking for a SPOC or is he looking for someone who could proactively respond to his needs?” So, we started a centralized cell at the corporate office that would take care of all the customers’ other needs, and release the salesmen from their activities connected with quotations making, reconciliation, etc. Now this, helped us in releasing capacity of salesmen.

First is that our own salespeople are happy that they are doing the core business. And we are also happy that we are able to use their skills and their capability in the right manner. The second is that the sales team is able to cover the market more effectively, and we see that the business is improving now. We are able to generate better enquiries, better orders. The customers are quite happy that they are getting a response to their queries faster. Faster than from salespersons, who at times they had trouble contacting.

What we found was that while we had sorted out one problem, the other problem of a long-term development in segments like MNCs, private customers, architects where more value selling is required was not really happening. And very often the sales people were trying to get into a short-term objective of trying to again go in for high discounts, or trying to sell APO (‘As per Order’) items or customized. This was leading to a vicious circle in manufacturing and the whole way of operations- with realizations not really coming, and the customers still treating us as a commodity seller rather than as someone who’s actually giving them real value.

So, we started looking at this problem. While we had released the sales person’s capacity, we had not really solved the problem to the full extent. We then decided that we should have a separate team who would be working on it. Because one aspect we discovered was that whenever the sales people were asked to develop new customers and also sell to existing customers, it was always a short-term vs long term conflict. The sales people were happy to reach their targets to a short-term solution rather than going for a long-term solution that would bring in sustainability to the business over a long period of time. So, I think that was one of the problems that we had.

So, we then decided that we would go in for a separate team to do business development. Thankfully, the capacity that we released by having the backend processes taken away from sales people, was gainfully deployed for this. We did not have to go in for additional people.