Nusrat Khan has recently taken over as Area Sales Manager in Jharkhand but is facing several challenges in her new role. On her first day, she learns that the biggest distributor bounced a cheque, some stores are buying from unauthorized distributors, and one of the sales officers has resigned. Her top priorities should be to understand issues on the ground, resolve the commercial issues with the key distributor, and ensure the team has what they need to meet sales targets for the month. She plans to analyze problems, connect with the distributor to find the root cause, and conduct a sales enablement session to support the team. Properly guiding the team and addressing commercial issues could help Nusrat overcome the turbulence of
3. ABOUT NIVEA INDIA
INTRODUCTION
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NIVEA India Pvt Ltd was established in 2005. In the last 15 years, NIVEA has established a robust and effective
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4. CASE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
Nusrat Khan was elated to be confirmed as Area Sales Manager, Jharkhand after a very successful & enriching cross-
functional MT program of a leading FMCG company.
She landed in Ranchi with ambitions of delivering one of the best business performances & distribution expansion the state
has ever seen & was confident given her MT stint learning and strong academic pedigree.
She was replacing a manager who has already moved out of the system to an another FMCG almost a month back.
However, she was confident that a lack of direct handover shouldn’t be an issue and she will manage territory well.
Like a true FMCG sales professional she immediately started the next day with a market visit with one of her Sales Officer. By
the lunch time, she has already visited 10 stores, 3 out which told her that they no more buy from the authorized
Distributors but from various undercutters who procure all FMCG brands at cheap rates from different channels.
While waiting for the lunch order she got an email from branch commercial manager that the biggest distributor in
Jharkhand has bounced the cheque of the last month end sales and she should immediately take action to collect the
overdue amount and henceforth her distributor will be put on advance payment mode. She wondered whether the
Distributor is under stock pressure or is just a rotten link in the commercial hygiene?
As she was about to finish her market visit for the day her mobile screen glowed with a message from her RSM – “Nusrat
hope you have reached and are well settled? Jharkhand has been missing on month targets since last 6 months, hope to see
a changed JK this month under your leadership. Good luck! Regards - Pooja”
The eventful first day ended with one of her Sales officer, Meenakshi Sharma, from upcountry market sending a WhatsApp
message to inform about her decision to resign as she has a better offer from a competitor.
5. CASE STUDY
QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED
Consider yourself in the position of Nusrat and answer the below questions –
1. What will be your first month’s top priorities and how do you arrive at them?
2. How will you tackle the commercial issue at hand?
3. What steps to be immediately taken to ensure month’s business is delivered, as mandated by the RSM?
4. How will you handle the fast-approaching attrition & what steps will you take to ensure team engagement in the
future?
5. Why should Nusrat not plan a career with a consulting firm like few of her colleagues and escape the ever-present
turbulence & rigorous travel of FMCG sales?
6. SOLUTION OUTLINE
PLEASE STICK TO THE BELOW GUIDELINES WHEN SUBMITTING YOUR
SOLUTION
Team Size
• 1 member only
Important points to keep in mind when proposing solutions
• The solutions must be realistic and practical.
• Best practices from the industry can be cited with examples
• Please use reasonable assumptions if you believe some data points are missing
• It is not necessarily to stick to the elements mentioned, free to think on all elements effecting fulfillment to
consumer.
Solution Template
• The submission must not exceed 5 slides
• Slide 1: Case Overview
• Slide 2 & 3: Case Analysis & Discussion
• Slide 4 & 5: Solution Overview & Discussion
7. PROJECT TRANSISTION AND POOR PLANNING
Nusrat believed that she can handle the lack of direct handover but absence of Area manager has left
the Sales reps without guidance and lack of proper support. Sales reps on ground doesn’t have a
proper plan in place to meet their target. They are unable to identify and prioritize the tasks resulting in
gap in target. Nusrat have to formulate a plan identifying the areas to work on for supporting the sales
reps on ground and prioritize the issues at hand.
8. CONTROL ISSUE & MONITORING
3 out of 10 stores that Nusrat visted have stopped purchasing the products from authorized distributors and
started to purchase from low cutters who get the product from channels that are not authorized by company.
This is a serious problem in front of Nusrat as it hampers the brand image due to the lack of qualities in
unauthorized product or even a duplicate product could have been sold to consumers using the company’s
brand name.
9. PRIORITIES
To address the problem of bounced check from the biggest distributor in reason, Nusrat should first do a
background research on distributor by analyzing the compliance report of the distributor to check there past
behavior, take feedback about the distributor from the sales reps on ground and then get in touch with the
distributor to find out the root cause of the issue. She should also get in touch with the legal team to understand
the options available to her.
COMMERCIAL ISSUE
1. Ensuring that the stores don’t purchase from unauthorized distributors as it puts brands image at risk and can
cause long-term damage to the company.
2. Connect with the company’s biggest distributor to know the reason for bounced check and if she can reach at
a mutual understanding with the distributor. As the distributor is directly affecting the sales target, it is
important that Nusrat resolves the issue.
3. Have a session with the sales reps, identify their pain points and get a stock of areas of improvement.
10. STEPS TO ENSURE MONTH’S BUSINESS IS DELIVERED
1. Conduct sales Enablement session to set clear expectation with the team and provide them the required
support and training to achieve their goal.
2. Use software tools available in organization to analyse the rep performance, put a proper recognition
program in place to award the good work of team members, connect with underperforming reps to
understand their problems and establish a healthy work environment.
HANDLE ATTRITION
1. Nusrat should see if any common ground can be reached with their largest distributor and if yes then she
should help the distributor to remove him from advance payment system as fixing their biggest distributor
can help them to reach their target.
2. She should make sure that all the stores only buys the product from authorized distributors by enforcing the
signed contract through legal means. She should also make sure that the defaulter stores pay compensation
for their breach of contract by purchasing from undercutters, which are unauthorized.
3. Have a sales enablement session with her team , address their problems and provide a plan to identify the
priority customers by analyzing the market data.
