Memoirs.....Musings of a sales guy at heart.....

Episode 24...

IDV----journey continues....

As said in my earlier post, creation of the international brands division has resulted in improved focus and delivering better numbers for all our international brands both BII and BIO. We got a consistent business coming from the bonders especially from Delhi (tough nuts to crack) and also from RR and Fairmax in Chennai.....

I need to also mention here about Yusuf Shamsi who was my teams CAM (consumer activation manager)....his job was the most unenviable one as the job involves managing the marketing BTMs thru the sales team....the mktg team has certain KRAs and sometimes those are made on the desk tops without understanding the ground realities and the sales guy would resist those knowing well the difficulties involved....and CAM has to manage it well without upsetting the apple cart....we had one BM for JW portfolio and BII scotches but a difficult guy...very intelligent and good but didnt have any clue on local issues and very rude with others....dont want to name that person here...but the money bag was with him....while the ATLs were never the issues with the sales guys as it was on dotted line with the global brand team (no one can change the guidelines without written approval....) the BTL, where it involved local issues, the BM was never supportive and that created lots of stress for Yusuf....we wanted to do a proper launch of JW series in the domestic market after appointing Suntan as our single window distributor. The idea was to create awareness with the trade that they can buy JW from the local distributors appointed by Diageo, instead of buying from grey and bonders-where the quality of the product would be suspect. We cut the company's margin and also negotiated with our distributors for a lesser margins and arrived at an attractive MRP for the consumers. Also were convinced that with availability and accessibility we can get some better volumes from the domestic trade...Yusuf wanted to create a trade brochure highlighting these and also the portfolio of Diageo brands 'now available under one roof'- we went ahead and created it-a day before the Bombay launch the BM got his hands on this and decided to dump it as Yusuf didnt get his consent before going for print....just ego and nothing else....I spoke to the BM very politely not letting my anger take over, but he didnt want to listen....and I didnt personally feel there was anything wrong with the brochures....it was just a copy and paste from the global communication....period....I got so upset and shot out a mail to the BM with cc to Anupam Dutta and DR et al. It was a Friday late evening...the mails were thru Diageo server....After sending the mail and going thru the same I realised I was very aggressive on the mail and felt bad rather awful..didnt know how to stop the mails reaching the mail box of the receivers....called Rajender Rao who was heading the IT and requested him to come to the office immediately. He was an asset to us and he understood the issues and came to the office within few minutes of my call....he went to the server room and managed to delete the mail reaching the mail boxes of the recipients....great relief for me and Yusuf....on Monday I went to DR and explained the whole issue and told him that we are going ahead with the launch with the same brochure...surprisingly DR was okay with that and called the brand manager and gave him a the required coating....

I am quoting this incident here not to malign the BM but to make the readers to understand on how to manage the internal stake holders without hurting the business and also managing the timelines.....in alcohol industry its the BTL which plays a major role as the TVCs are with surrogates and many a times consumers do not even understand the messages, whereas thru the BTLs we reach the targeted consumers faster and better...these are visibility drives, loyalty programs, dealer incentives, trade push, consumer contact programs, offers at the point of consumption and trials....et al...to increase the consumption of the brands....if run well with proper communication at the POP level....I am not saying ATLs - the TVCs, cinema hall ads, hoardings, sponsorships et al - do not work....it does work wonders but you need very deep pockets to manage these....as just a few TVCs or hoardings with your surrogate would take you nowhere....it should be in the scale of what Kingfisher-Royal Stag, Blenders Pride-Imperial Blue or McD No 1 do....if you dont have this kind of money dont even bother about ATLs.....just focus on consumer and customer driven activations to get your volumes...once the traction is achieved go for the kill....we will talk about the gulf markets where BTL is the only way of promoting your brand and how it helps the brands to deliver volumes-in the next episodes....

Barring these hiccups the run was smooth as there was no volume pressure since the focus was on promotions and visibilities. 

RR, the Bombay bonder who was supplying to the local trade, was very upset as we gave the distribution of BIO to our domestic distributors and in fact he threatened me and Nandish with dire consequences-and he had a gun license too.....(!)

We managed these threats and insecurities expressed our customers by just focussing on servicing their orders at a lesser cost incurred by them earlier when they were importing directly...in fact Suntan could deliver smaller quantities to them at their doors....

Diageo PLC realised that the domestic brands in India-the Green label et al were just pulling the company down due to very thin margins and also the tough competition from the domestic players and also PRG....so 8, Henrietta Place started looking at India differently and also started looking at me as a strategist....(!) from just being a salesman....guys pl also note that whatever you do and successfully too, pl ensure that you beat your own trumpet very well and in max audio....never be modest about it....do not allow the 'sticker' to be put by your boss.....the HO should know your potential and what you are delivering...

In one of the review meeting which was headed by Ivan at our Bombay office, it was only by the leadership team-I started off my presentation by saying 'we bring cash to the table for the marketing team to blow it'.....it was a below the belt for Anupam Datta and co but I said it in a jest....there was a pin drop silence in the room for few seconds before Ivan burst in to laughter.....DR after the meeting got over, called me and patted me and said that my statement made the atmosphere quite easy as Ivan was not happy about the green label contributions. I made it a point to highlight that despite a small team how the Global divisions in India delivered the numbers and bottom line....the mantra being focussed approach....this made Ivan to go deeper in to the business model of India and paved way for declaring selling off the Green label portfolio....(shock waves, rather)....

This and more in the next blogs.....

Cheers