Indian Institute of Foreign Trade: Sales & Distribution Management
Indian Institute of Foreign Trade: Sales & Distribution Management
Indian Institute of Foreign Trade: Sales & Distribution Management
Kolkata
MBA-IB (2021-23)
SALES & DISTRIBUTION MANAGEMENT
Course Coordinator: Dr. Rajendra Prasad Sharma
email: [email protected], Ph. 9903522627
Trimester IV Credits: 2
Course Introduction
Everyone lives by selling something. It is the only function directly influencing the top and
bottom lines. With product and service differentiation eliminated, what a customer buys
mainly depends on the sales and channel member’s ability to instill trust and fulfillment. The
best way to differentiate is how B2C and B2B customers can buy and the experience they
have at the point of purchase and during the relationship. When in-person sales got
challenged during the pandemic, sales organizations felt an urgency to embrace sales
automation, social selling, and remote, hi-tech sales methods. The course addresses this
transition for preparing future-ready sales professionals.
The flexible distribution system is a crucial source of strategic power. The power has shifted
from upstream players (suppliers, manufacturers) to downstream (wholesale intermediaries,
retailers, and vertically integrated manufacturers). A strong salesforce and distribution
channel often foreclose market access to competitors. It is also most profoundly impacted by
the internet. It is also normal for firms to go to market via multiple channels. However, few
firms understand how to coordinate a multichannel system. The course also looks at the
omnichannel strategies that gained prominence during the pandemic. The course is quite
essential for B-school graduates. The senior marketing positions are offered mainly to the
people who have sales and distribution management experience. The course aims at making
the participants appreciate not just an agile and systematic sales management process and
distribution strategy that leads to enhanced organizational performance.
1
Course Objectives
Pedagogy
Pedagogy will be participant-centered learning. Students will act as co-producers of
knowledge by preparing the cases, assignments, and readings.
Evaluation Components
2
Text Book:
Still, Cundiff, Govoni & Puri: Sales and Distribution Management - Decisions,
Strategies & Cases, (2018) Pearson
Reference Books
1. Panda & Sahdev: Sales & Distribution Management, Oxford University Press, Latest Edition
2. Havaldar & Cavale: Sales & Distribution Management: Text and Cases; TMH, 2e
3. Charles Futrell: Sales Management- Teamwork, Leadership, and Technology
4. Spiro, Stanchart & Rich: Salesforce Management, 11 e, TMH
5. Ingram, Laforge, Avila, et al.: Sales Management: Analysis & decision making
6. Bert Rosenbloom: Marketing Channels- 7e, South-Western, Cengage Learning
7. Louis, Stern, Couglan & Ansary: Marketing Channels- (PHI)
8. Pingali Venugopal: Sales & Distribution Management: An Indian perspective; Sage
Publications (ISBN- 978-81-7829-848-1)
9. www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com
3
SESSION PLAN
Each session will be 90 minutes. The last session will be for two hours.
Session Topic and Subtopics Cases/Readings/ Text
1 Overview, Sales as part of marketing, Diversity of R 1-2-3-4
selling situations, Digital transformation of sales, Text: Chapter 1
SDM objectives, Pre-requisites of salespeople and
sales managers, Promotability issues in sales
2 Managing the selling process for results
How do institutional sales happen? C1: Mediquip
The transition from solution selling to insight selling
R 5-6-7-8
Product selling to selling services Text: Chapter 2-3
CEO sales orientations
3-4 Sales Planning and Forecasting C2 Cottle Taylor
Planning the size of the sales force Text: Chapter 17-18
Sales forecasting
Sales budgeting
Sales quotas and targets
5 Managing the selling effort: Sales onboarding, R9-10-11-12
deployment, sales enablement, sales compensation,
Text: Chapters 9-16, 19
Transitioning from Personal selling to virtual selling
Discussion
https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/brands/art
icle/despite-2020-being-daunting-our-resilient-team-
has-made-us-a-much-stronger-organization-than-
ever-before-marzin-shroff-eureka-
forbes/articleshow/80234623.cms
6 Exercises in salesforce sizing and territory design Assignment 1: Sizing the sales
and deployment, and debriefing force
Assignment 2: Time and territory
(Covering any content due from sessions 1-5)
game
7 Leading the sales team, Issues in International sales C3 Image International
management, Managing the sales velocity R13
4
8 Sales analysis: Evaluating the sales performance C4: Hanover Bates
R 14
Text: Chapter 16
5
Case assignment question: Evaluate the performance of districts, rank them, and compare
their performance.
Case 5: Snacko India Ltd.: Leveraging Trade promotions for competitive advantage
Case assignment question: Analyze the promotion schemes and evaluate the trade
promotion by Snacko.
Review of Readings:
6
16. The customer has escaped
17. Don’t let platforms commoditize your business.
18. Brand or availability: What took prominence during the pandemic? ET Brand Equity,
13 July 2020, Available at
https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/marketing/brand-or-
availability-what-took-prominence-during-the-pandemic/76921011