Day 1: So here I am. Standing in front of the Dabur headquarters in Calcutta at office time. This is the place where I will be spending the most of my next two months in an air-conditioned cubicle earning forty thousand per month and learning about sales from a lot of fancy graphs and figures displayed on a large screen. And as a matter of fact, it is my birthday today. Thank you God for such a wonderful birthday gift.
Day 2: It is forty degrees in Calcutta, the sun is right overhead and I am at the back of a salesman’s bicycle. The seat has literally worn off and I have to perch my bottom carefully to avoid the risk of a swollen derriere. We are going to a beat (market) in South Calcutta where I have to accompany the salesman on his rounds to the various retailers (mom-and-pop/grocery stores) and spend my time asking questions and taking inputs.
Day 5: TGIF. Or Thank God it’s Friday. And tomorrow will be Saturday – the start of the weekend. I am finally back in the office after three and half days of sweaty palms, tired feet and sore rear ends. Only to be told that I am heading for Jamshedpur the day after. And Saturday is a working day in my company.
Day 6 (morning): So here I am in Jamshedpur or Jampot as the people of my generation call it sometimes. Seems to be more of a “melting pot” - the temperature is around forty five degrees at ten in the morning. Well, at least, I can go back to an air-conditioned office after covering my beat for the day.
Day 6 (evening): A small clarification. There is no office in Jamshedpur. There are only the distributor points. And I am at one of those taking sales data from their POS system when the rest of the civilized world is letting its hair down for the weekend. For the layman’s convenience, a POS system is the glorified term for a desktop at an FMCG distributor point.
And Sunday is a working day. The nearest holiday is Tuesday when the whole of Jamshedpur shuts down for the week. Which isn’t really a problem as there is nothing much to do in terms of recreation in Jamshedpur. The best option would be to go and ogle members of the opposite sex as they pass through Jubilee Park on bicycles.
Day 13: The job is not as bad as it seemed first up. I have collected the entire sales data for Jamshedpur for the last three months and have processed it using Excel. Soon I will be able to come up with a sales forecasting system which will solve all the issues which Dabur has in Jamshedpur. After all, the sales people here use a manual forecasting system – how accurate can that be? Henceforth I will also prove that sales can be done better sitting in an office on your laptop rather than going out into the field.
Day 14: I compare my electronic forecasts with those of J.P. Sir’s – the TSM (Territory Sales Manager) - manual sales targets. Our data does not match. Twenty days later he would beat me hands down with respect to sales target achievement. So much so for my backseat driving theory.
Day 28: The last two weeks have just passed by in the batting of an eyelid. I have been out in the merciless Jamshedpur sun visiting the retailers, waiting patiently for their responses to my questionnaires and finally running their responses through SPSS (Yes, I know how to use it). I hate to say this but, even though I have lost around ten kilos, this job is kind of addictive. All the processes are working almost on clockwork but somehow that is not getting translated into sales. I have about a month to figure out how.
Day 32: What a change. I am back in the air-conditioned office in Calcutta to present my mid-term review and all I can think about is taking the last train back to Jamshedpur in the evening. Not because I find the city charming and definitely not because I find the weather to my liking. I only want to find the solution to the issue which has been bugging me for the last few days.
I present my findings to Hironmoy Sir, the General Manager and Head of Sales of the Eastern Region. He is satisfied with my findings. But then satisfactory is always a C on any grading system.
We discuss as to how I can take my work forward. Hironmoy Sir remarks casually, “So what is Reckitt doing?” This is it! My Eureka moment. Only after carrying out a competitor analysis will I figure out why and where I am stuck.
Day 33: Back in Jampot. I ring up Gaurav and Vishal the first thing in morning. They are my B-school buddies interning in Reckitt Benckiser and Britannia respectively. After a bit of coaxing and the promise of a future treat, I am able to convince them to get me the sales parameters used to track salesman efficiency in their respective companies. JP Sir’s network (which would put LinkedIn to shame) should get me through to some of the other companies. For the rest, I will have to resort to being James Bond. Or at least Agent Vinod.
Day 40: I am proven wrong yet again. The world is a small place and Jamshedpur is even smaller. Everyone or at least those in sales know who you are and why you are what you are. And you do not have to be a spy to extract the information you need. As long as you mention that you are an intern and this is a part of a project that you are working on, almost no one refuses to entertain you. In fact, you could even be offered the rare glass of lassi or a plateful of fresh pumpkin. In sales, there are no enemies, only competitors. And the fun of competition lies in the fact knowing that everyone knows everything. In Sardar Khan’s words, “keh ke loonga”.
Day 50: I love this job. No fixed working hours. No need to dress up in formals every day in the morning to go to office. And no need to wake up early in the morning too.
Yeah, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon and I woke up just now after an elaborate night long stint where I finished the complete benchmarking process of the competitors’ data. You just need to stick to the deadlines for your submissions/targets and you are done. Sad that I have only ten days left. Would take this any day over morning classes at 8:30.
Day 57: Things seem to be falling in place. It was a good thing that I went out of my comfort zone and put in the extra effort to get the details of twelve competitor FMCG companies. Each company seems to have at least one unique parameter.
Day 59: My last day in Jampot. I add my fifty four day field expertise to my technical prowess to predict next month’s target. There is a ninety per cent match with JP Sir’s data this time. Time will tell the results. Right now, time tells me that I will miss my train if I do not get an auto in the next five minutes.
Day 60: You know that feeling when you are really stressed out and you need to take a leak every two minutes? Well, I am getting that feeling now. In fifteen minutes, I will be presenting to Angelo Sir who is the national Director of Sales. And I get only fifteen minutes to prove my worth.
The thing I am most worried about in my report is the Dabur Sales League. It is that extraordinary, radical, ingenious idea you get once in a while. I am expecting an earful for trying to be “too creative”.
Day 60 (an hour later): The presentation was good. It is really hard to gauge the other person’s response in a video conference. Angelo Sir did not let on what was going through his mind but personally I think I did all right. A month long holiday before I go back to college.
Thirty one days later: I call up JP Sir for a favour related to a college project. He lets me know that he has won the battle of the predictors for the last month. But only just. I am getting better at it each time. Third time lucky, anyone?
Fifty two days later: Supply Chain Management classes. Somehow academics makes more sense to me now. Demand forecasting seems a cinch now while most of the rest of the class are struggling with it. Couple that with Monte Carlo simulation and RFM analysis and I am ready to beat J.P. Sir hollow at his own game in his own backyard.
Day 2: It is forty degrees in Calcutta, the sun is right overhead and I am at the back of a salesman’s bicycle. The seat has literally worn off and I have to perch my bottom carefully to avoid the risk of a swollen derriere. We are going to a beat (market) in South Calcutta where I have to accompany the salesman on his rounds to the various retailers (mom-and-pop/grocery stores) and spend my time asking questions and taking inputs.
Day 5: TGIF. Or Thank God it’s Friday. And tomorrow will be Saturday – the start of the weekend. I am finally back in the office after three and half days of sweaty palms, tired feet and sore rear ends. Only to be told that I am heading for Jamshedpur the day after. And Saturday is a working day in my company.
Day 6 (morning): So here I am in Jamshedpur or Jampot as the people of my generation call it sometimes. Seems to be more of a “melting pot” - the temperature is around forty five degrees at ten in the morning. Well, at least, I can go back to an air-conditioned office after covering my beat for the day.
Day 6 (evening): A small clarification. There is no office in Jamshedpur. There are only the distributor points. And I am at one of those taking sales data from their POS system when the rest of the civilized world is letting its hair down for the weekend. For the layman’s convenience, a POS system is the glorified term for a desktop at an FMCG distributor point.
And Sunday is a working day. The nearest holiday is Tuesday when the whole of Jamshedpur shuts down for the week. Which isn’t really a problem as there is nothing much to do in terms of recreation in Jamshedpur. The best option would be to go and ogle members of the opposite sex as they pass through Jubilee Park on bicycles.
Day 13: The job is not as bad as it seemed first up. I have collected the entire sales data for Jamshedpur for the last three months and have processed it using Excel. Soon I will be able to come up with a sales forecasting system which will solve all the issues which Dabur has in Jamshedpur. After all, the sales people here use a manual forecasting system – how accurate can that be? Henceforth I will also prove that sales can be done better sitting in an office on your laptop rather than going out into the field.
Day 14: I compare my electronic forecasts with those of J.P. Sir’s – the TSM (Territory Sales Manager) - manual sales targets. Our data does not match. Twenty days later he would beat me hands down with respect to sales target achievement. So much so for my backseat driving theory.
Day 28: The last two weeks have just passed by in the batting of an eyelid. I have been out in the merciless Jamshedpur sun visiting the retailers, waiting patiently for their responses to my questionnaires and finally running their responses through SPSS (Yes, I know how to use it). I hate to say this but, even though I have lost around ten kilos, this job is kind of addictive. All the processes are working almost on clockwork but somehow that is not getting translated into sales. I have about a month to figure out how.
Day 32: What a change. I am back in the air-conditioned office in Calcutta to present my mid-term review and all I can think about is taking the last train back to Jamshedpur in the evening. Not because I find the city charming and definitely not because I find the weather to my liking. I only want to find the solution to the issue which has been bugging me for the last few days.
I present my findings to Hironmoy Sir, the General Manager and Head of Sales of the Eastern Region. He is satisfied with my findings. But then satisfactory is always a C on any grading system.
We discuss as to how I can take my work forward. Hironmoy Sir remarks casually, “So what is Reckitt doing?” This is it! My Eureka moment. Only after carrying out a competitor analysis will I figure out why and where I am stuck.
Day 33: Back in Jampot. I ring up Gaurav and Vishal the first thing in morning. They are my B-school buddies interning in Reckitt Benckiser and Britannia respectively. After a bit of coaxing and the promise of a future treat, I am able to convince them to get me the sales parameters used to track salesman efficiency in their respective companies. JP Sir’s network (which would put LinkedIn to shame) should get me through to some of the other companies. For the rest, I will have to resort to being James Bond. Or at least Agent Vinod.
Day 40: I am proven wrong yet again. The world is a small place and Jamshedpur is even smaller. Everyone or at least those in sales know who you are and why you are what you are. And you do not have to be a spy to extract the information you need. As long as you mention that you are an intern and this is a part of a project that you are working on, almost no one refuses to entertain you. In fact, you could even be offered the rare glass of lassi or a plateful of fresh pumpkin. In sales, there are no enemies, only competitors. And the fun of competition lies in the fact knowing that everyone knows everything. In Sardar Khan’s words, “keh ke loonga”.
Day 50: I love this job. No fixed working hours. No need to dress up in formals every day in the morning to go to office. And no need to wake up early in the morning too.
Yeah, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon and I woke up just now after an elaborate night long stint where I finished the complete benchmarking process of the competitors’ data. You just need to stick to the deadlines for your submissions/targets and you are done. Sad that I have only ten days left. Would take this any day over morning classes at 8:30.
Day 57: Things seem to be falling in place. It was a good thing that I went out of my comfort zone and put in the extra effort to get the details of twelve competitor FMCG companies. Each company seems to have at least one unique parameter.
Day 59: My last day in Jampot. I add my fifty four day field expertise to my technical prowess to predict next month’s target. There is a ninety per cent match with JP Sir’s data this time. Time will tell the results. Right now, time tells me that I will miss my train if I do not get an auto in the next five minutes.
Day 60: You know that feeling when you are really stressed out and you need to take a leak every two minutes? Well, I am getting that feeling now. In fifteen minutes, I will be presenting to Angelo Sir who is the national Director of Sales. And I get only fifteen minutes to prove my worth.
The thing I am most worried about in my report is the Dabur Sales League. It is that extraordinary, radical, ingenious idea you get once in a while. I am expecting an earful for trying to be “too creative”.
Day 60 (an hour later): The presentation was good. It is really hard to gauge the other person’s response in a video conference. Angelo Sir did not let on what was going through his mind but personally I think I did all right. A month long holiday before I go back to college.
Thirty one days later: I call up JP Sir for a favour related to a college project. He lets me know that he has won the battle of the predictors for the last month. But only just. I am getting better at it each time. Third time lucky, anyone?
Fifty two days later: Supply Chain Management classes. Somehow academics makes more sense to me now. Demand forecasting seems a cinch now while most of the rest of the class are struggling with it. Couple that with Monte Carlo simulation and RFM analysis and I am ready to beat J.P. Sir hollow at his own game in his own backyard.