Critically analyze and evaluate the role of Sales function in any organization.

Substantiate your
answers by applying relevant theories. Min 1500 words.

Objective:
To study the sales organization structure and its effectiveness in BPL Telecom Ltd.

Introduction:

Sales Organization
A sales organization;

 Is an organization of individuals either working together for the marketing of products and
services manufactured by an enterprise or for products that are procured by the firm for the
purpose of reselling.
 It defines the duties, roles, and the rights and responsibility of the sales people engaged in
selling activities meant for the effective execution of the sales function
 It is a structural body through which the functions of sales management are carried out
 A good sales organization always aims at achieving the sales target at the minimum cost and
with maximum efficiency.
 Objectives are to establish efficient and smooth coordination between the efforts of its
employees for achieving the desired results.
 A sales organization serves as the unified contact or relationship point with customers.

Types of Organizational Design

 Organizational Design by Line
 Organizational Design by Territory
 Organizational Design by Management Function
 Organizational Design by Product
 Organizational Design by Customer
 Combined Organizational Design

BPL Telecom
BPL Telecom is a Leading Electronics and Telecommunications Group in India. It is an established market
leader in various segments. Since from 1975, BPL Telecom Private Limited, an integral entity within the
larger Billion Dollar BPL Group of Companies, has over the years developed distinct competencies in
cutting edge technologies and diverse application domains drawn from the successful implementation
of complex projects in highly competitive global markets.
Right from the state-of-the-art Technology development facility at Palakkad to the modern
manufacturing operations that back our technology initiatives, all processes within the company are
aligned towards the highest quality standards and formally certified to ISO 9001:2008.

Sales Organizational Design of BPL Telecom

The organizational structure is a combination of a geographic and a product organization. BPL primarily
markets 3 products ; EPABX, push button telephones(PBTs) and personal computers(PCs). There are
direct and indirect channels of distribution for all the above products and hence each channel is looked
after by separate sales team.

The hierarchical responsibilities, power and command are shown below. Market Research
Executives(MREs) generates prospects and are primarily used to increase the funnel base. They are sent
with the sales engineer for a few days to get the feel of the market and to understand the customers.
They report to the sales engineer daily and to sales manager on weekends.

The sales engineer are given specific targets and are expected to build up on the prospects that are
being generated by MREs. They are expected to convert these leads and coordinate with service
department for installation and commissioning. They have to pick up payments on completion of the
deal and report to sales manager on weekends.

Sales Manager are responsible for the team target given at the beginning of every financial year and
function as team leaders. They help the sales engineer to close out on deals and remove any price
hurdles. They evolve strategies on continuous basis to increase sales. They also handle the dealers for
business of respective products and report to the branch manager on a daily basis.

Service Coordinators are responsible for the coordination in their respective fields and receives inquiries
and pass them on to sales manager, who in turn decides on the allocation of the allocation of the
inquiries. They also prepare quotation and mailers for the customers. They also receives all the
complaints, and maintains a database for the same. They then pass them on to the service managers for
further action. Finally, the sales coordinator prepares the annual maintenance contracts and spare parts
quotes. There is no formal reporting of coordinators to managers.

Service Engineers are responsible for fixing problems in the existing systems and follow targets for the
annual maintenance contracts from clients. They are responsible for low mean time between failures
and high uptime. They are expected to maintain a very good relationship with the existing clients and
report to the service manager daily.
 The Service Managers role is more of problem solving and of allocating the service calls to the
concerned engineer on a continuous basis. He gives technical trainings to the service engineer. He
passes on leads to the sales department as and when they receive it from the existing customers. The
Service Manager reports to the brand manager daily and helps the sales team to make technical
presentations to prospects.

Director
(Sales &
Services)

GM-Sales GM-Sales GM-Sales GM-Production

GM-
Services (EPABX) (PBTs) (PCs) (Factory)

Branch
Manager

Sales Coordinator

Manager Services Manager Manager

Manager
(All Products) Sales(EPABX) Sales(PBT) Sales(PCs)

Service
Coordina Dealer
tor Sales Dealers Sales
Engineer Engineer Dealer
Sales
Service Engineer
Engineer MREs MREs

MREs
The branch manager heads the entire region and has to meet the regional annual targets for all the
products. The branch manager is a profit center head and is supposed to have good sales skills, apart for
having strong financial acumen. They generally gives directions to all managers about major strategic
initiatives, solve inter-departmental problems and resolve major channel conflicts. They are the single
point of contact with the headquarters and interacts with respective General Managers on a daily basis.

The General Manager takes care of each product line in the organization and function with the dual
responsibility of a product as well as a marketing manager for the respective product. Hey decide about
the launch of new products or relaunch or products or re-positioning of products and the
discontinuance of existing products. Their performance is renewed every quarter by the Directors and
they coordinate with other General and Production managers to regularly sort out logistics and
production related issues.

The Director heads the entire organization and is the final authority on all issues. He is responsible for
the growth of the organization. He decides on the foreign collaboration and major joint ventures and
manages funds at the macro level and also looks after budget allocation. The Director reports to the
Chairman and the Managing Director of the company.