LAKSHMI PROJECTS: SALES STRUCTURE

DILEMMA
SYNOPSIS:

Lakshmi Projects is a company from Delhi, India which produces a material-handling equipment and sells it to its
customers. Lakshmi Projects was founded in 1997 by Naresh Nangia, an Indian engineer, who was an expert in
designing bulk material handling systems. His company experienced immediate growth from the very beginning
because of the extraordinary service that was being provided to its customers. Quality products and a good sales
team ensured increasing customer loyalty. As company got more successful, it spread out the business all over the
India, which resulted in being less efficient in its services. Larger geographical area to cover and bigger product
offering, made it harder for company to deliver extraordinary service to its customers every time. It led Lakshmi
Projects losing some customers and affecting a company’s image in the negative way. In 2014, when the case takes
place, Mr. Nangia wants to launch the new product but also has to deal with the various issues he faces within the
company.
Q1. ANALYZE THE VARIOUS ISSUES IN THE CASE.

The key issues in the case were

 Increasing burden of the sales team responsibilities
 Sales team’s difficulty to remember the technical details of complete product portfolio
 Increasing over-head costs that come with geography and product specific teams
 Interdepartmental lack of communication
 The right sales plan for the new product with company lacking growth target for current year
Q2. HOW COULD LAKSHMI PROJECTS DIVIDE ITS SALES FORCE
TO MEET ITS OBJECTIVE?

Salesforce should be divided in following ways to meet its objective:

 Build the communication gap between the different divisions.
 Don’t compromise on employee satisfaction.
 Divide the salesforce into two parts: 1. Experienced Sales Representatives 2. New Sales Representatives.
 Every region should have balanced number of experienced and new sales representatives.
 Hire different sales representatives for different product categories.
Q3. WHAT SHOULD BE THE RIGHT MIX OF THE SALES, AFTER-SALES,
QUALITY TEAMS BE, GIVEN THEIR DYNAMIC ROLES IN LAKSHMI PROJECT?

 The sales representatives reported to the regional sales managers, after-sales representatives reported to the regional after-
sales managers, quality representatives reported to the regional quality managers. These regional managers reported to the
respective heads.
 There were disproportionate number of representatives in the After-sale, Quality departments and the Sales department.
 Performance of the Quality team and the After-sales team has a great impact on the sales of the company.
 Increase in the number of Quality Representatives. Their role was to make sure that every part matched its respective
production drawing, even one defective component resulted in the assembly failure of the components at the customer site.
Increased number can help in ensuring no mistakes are made and there is timely dispatch of products to the customer.
 Increase in the number of After-sales Representatives. The department’s roles and responsibilities had a direct impact on the
sales of the company. AST representative stayed at the customer’s location to provide technical assistance, maintained
deadlines on installation and commission of assembly and also took feedback from the company’s existing customers.
Q4. WHAT SHOULD THE COMPANY’S STRATEGY BE TO REDUCE
INTERDEPARTMENTAL FRICTION (BETWEEN THE SALES AND AFTER-SALES TEAMS)?

Reducing friction between sales and after sales team

1. Moving from defined to aligned
 If the market is moving towards customization, then the sales team needs to upgrade its selling skills and knowledge
 The sales and after sales team should build a more aligned relationship and jointly add skills to their personnel

2. Encourage disciplined communication.

 Simply asking informal communication will not help and is not enough. Use of a effective channel is more important.
 Holding regular meetings between sales and after sales team.
 The discussions should be focused on action items that will resolve problems, and perhaps create opportunities
Q5. WHAT COULD BE THE COMPANY’S STRATEGY FOR THE NEW
PRODUCT?

The sales strategy for the new product:

 Hiring a new sales team for this specific product
 Quality leads by targeting builders, and qualification of them by enhancement of call effeciencies
 Training the sales representatives about the new product- Lack of complete knowledge of the products offered was
one of the major issues faced by the company. To curb that, first the company needs to train the existing sales
team about the product
 Targeting the markets, they want to introduce their low-cost product
 Creating a diversified product portfolio will help them target different markets at the same time
 Entering new markets with price competitiveness