While at United Bank Ltd., I mailed an unsolicited application for a position in sales or marketing to the then Australia-born Executive Director of Premier Tobacco Industries Ltd who was a nominee of Philip Morris. In my application, I briefly commented on PTI and its brands. I had already done a comparison of PTI and PTC (Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd), a subsidiary of British Imperial Tobacco Company, based on the annual reports of these companies.
I was called for interview with Director Marketing Mr. Tasleem Batlay. I submitted him the comparison. He liked it. I was eventually selected for the job. I came to know later that PTI was already on the look-out for a replacement of their current Sales Manager.
I joined PTI and was asked to occupy the room of the Marketing Manager at the Head Office, located on the upper floor of the building. Sales Dept was located on the ground floor. No formal handing-over and taking-over took place between the outgoing sales manager and me. In fact, I did not even see him. The management probably did not want me to meet him lest I was spoiled too.
After joining PTI, the chairman Mr. S. A. Samad called me to his office. He told me that they had carried out a background check on me and were satisfied with the findings. He emphatically said that they were looking for an honest man.
The job of sales manager in PTI was a very sensitive one. Anybody in that position could make or break the company. A really competent and honest person was required to head the department. Anybody could make millions by just giving more stocks to any favoured distributor and taking his cut. K-2 was the lead brand selling 700 million cigarettes a month out of the total company sales of 800 million of all its brands. It was a hot cake selling at a premium to the consumers. We could not meet the market demand due to production capacity constraints, although the company was producing it in eight factories located in different parts of the country.
Premier Tobacco Industries Ltd was established by Mr. S. A. Samad who had no previous experience of manufacturing cigarettes. He did not go to college either. He used to sell 'beri' ( a kind of cigarette with raw tobacco wrapped in tobacco leaf) in Sukkur on a small scale. He took the initiative of setting up an industry in competition with a giant Pakistan Tobacco Company with immense resources at their disposal. There is no doubt that Mr. Samad had tremendous business acumen and marketing ideas. His earlier brands could not do much business. However, K-2 was a grand success unprecedented in the cigarette industry in Pakistan. The brand was developed by hit and trial and it worked to the luck of Mr. Samad.
From the very first meeting with the sales force, I realized that all of them were highly demotivated, grumbled in no uncertain terms about the past when their performance was not recognized and nor rewarded and were reluctant to put in extra effort any longer. I asked them to give me six months and assured them of better working environment and compensation. They responded by stating that others before me had also promised the same way but nothing had happened.
The salary and perks in PTI were far behind its major competitor Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd., selling almost the same numbers in units. However, the value turnover of PTC and its profit margin were higher than those of PTI because of the former's leading position in top-of-the-line high-priced filter brands.
Working with an extremely demoralized and dissatisfied team proved to be a gigantic task for me. I could feel the inside anguish and anger the team carried against the management and their abnormal resistance to change their attitude and approach and put in extra efforts.
The first thing that I did was to go through all the files of the department for one full month without involving myself in day to day sales operations. The Assistant Sales Manager could look after the day to day operations as he had been working for the company for several years.
That exercise gave me an insight into the working of the department, distributors, and the high-ups at the Head Office.
The files as well as personal conversations and observations brought out many a surprising revelations. First, almost every department at the Head Office was highly critical of the working of the sales team and expressed their utter dissatisfaction with the sales team's performance. Second, almost every department at the Head Office lost no moment to humiliate the sales persons and accuse them of dishonesty. Third, there was a cold war going on between Director Marketing, who had joined the company lately without having any experience of the cigarette industry, and the Marketing Manager Mr. Zuberi who belonged to the camp of old-timers.
The silent war was consciously or consciously dividing the loyalties in the sales and marketing departments. I was presumed to be a member of the new-comers camp led by Mr. Batlay, though I had never met him before the interview took place. My Assistant Sales Manager was also an old-timer and an aspirant to become the Sales Manager. It was a great shock to him to have somebody from outside the cigarette industry as his superior. He belonged to the camp of Mr. Zuberi and enjoyed his encouragement and support vis-a-vis me. Mr. Zuberi had his own axe to grind as he expected to be elevated to the position of Director Marketing before Mr. Batlay joined.
I was confronted with a dilemma right from the beginning. It was extremely difficult to keep a balance between the old-timers and the new-comers. So deep were the conflicts of interest that no persuasion seemed to be working. So, I decided to reorganize the sales dept to make it more effective without getting myself embroiled in the cold war.
I made every effort to cultivate a good working relationship with my subordinates. I became their teacher, guide and helper to improve their understanding of their own functions and how best to use their knowledge and experience to perform better so that the bad image of the sales team would improve in the eyes of the company. I travelled with the sales persons within the city and outside, visiting retailers, wholesalers and distributors. I gave them a free hand to make out their tour programmes and passed their expense statements without questioning their honesty.
I worked harder than the sales persons. I read each and every sales report and sent back my comments. I sent good reports to the Head Office. I travelled with them in non-airconditioned wagon in hot summer, let them share the same meal with me, involved them in general conversations on the way to make them comfortable and also discussed market situation in informal ways and sought their views.
I told the sales team that they are answerable only to me and nobody at the Head Office. If any department objects to any of their actions, let it be known that he has to speak to me. I became a buffer between the sales team and the H.O. That provided a good deal of relief to the sales persons who had earlier been humiliated, criticized, and downgraded quite often from the various departments at the H.O., especially the Marketing Dept and the Finance Dept.
I undertook a long journey of 1000 miles from Karachi in Sindh to Quetta in Balochistan by a company-operated wagon. It was the hot month of August '77. The concerned sales persons responsible for their territories on theway accompanied me. We came back the same way in approximately 15 days. We visited retailers, wholesalers and distributors of every town that came our way on our journey from Karachi to Quetta. It was a great learning experience for me, too.
Within a few months, the sales team was almost completely changed in their perceptions of their own capabilities, their image in the company and how the work had to be done. It gave them a moral boost and motivated them a great deal to put in extra-ordinary efforts.
Within a year, the sales of our key filter cigarette brand Red & White more than tripled, making it the lead brand in Karachi superceding the PTC's lead brand "Wills." PTC could never image that Red and White would overtake Wills despite sustained and regular promotional campaigns. We also worked hard to revive our dying brand K-2 Filter and stabilized its sales. Our No.1, non-filter plain brand was K-2. It was always in short supply and sold at a premium to the smokers. We streamlined the supply, reallocated quota to each distributor and removed irritants to feed the markets according to their actual requirements rather than inflated orders of our distributors.
The cigarette retailers had a very strong union to protect their interests vis-a-vis cigarette manufacturers. The sales and marketing personnel in PTI were very scared of the union and its secretary-general Mr. Yusuf and the union despised the cigarette manufacturers and treated them as their enemies. No cigarette company could launch a brand, introduce a special offer or make any other major change in its policy without prior consultation with Mr. Yusuf; otherwise, the company ran the risk of its brands boycotted by the cigarette retailers. I did not know about this situation. I introduced a special offer on sales of our unstable brand K-2 Filter without prior consultation with the union through its secretary-general.
My action created a stir in the marketing dept at HO. I was called in to be told that I must recall the offer and introduce it only after its clearance by the union. I refused for I believed the offer was in the interest of the retailers and the company alike and there was no reason to let the union poke its nose into our operations.
I went ahead with the offer and it clicked. There was no negative reaction from the union and Mr. Yusuf inspite of the fact that our competitors tried their best to exploit the situation to have our brand boycotted. After a month or so, I visited Mr. Yusuf in Hyderabad, a city at a distance of 150km from Karachi. He was also a cigarette retailer. He gave me and my field officer a hearty welcome, hugged us, treated us to a drink and then a cup of tea. That was just unprecedented for Mr. Yusuf to do for the sales persons of a cigarette company. I sat with him for about half-an-hour or so and we talked about his children, their education and their career plans and other things, nothing about cigarette business. He again hugged me and my field officer again when we were leaving his shop.
My field officer was really in a state of utter surprise. It was my first meeting with Mr. Yusuf. He just could not figure out why Mr. Yusuf was so courteous to us. I guess Mr. Yusuf was well aware of what I was doing for his union members as sales manager of PTI, removing their grievances and meeting their genuine demands.
I always believed that a sales person had to be in the field as frequently as his position required to maintain a healthy and supportive relationship with the trade and to listen to the trade, meet their genuine requirements and remove their genuine grievances. At the same, he would also know what his own subordinates were doing in the field. Field visits were an excellent source to gain knowledge of the happenings in the market place including competitors' activities, trade expectations, suggestions from the trade and working of company's field force and distributors. Throughout my sales and marketing career, I never made a policy change without first visiting the market to obtain first-hand knowledge of what was happening in the market place.
Before my joing the company, PTI had decided to launch Black & White in the highest premium segment to compete with PTC's Gold Leaf. It turned out to be a massive failure in the market place for many a reason. Since it was the first brand launch of Mr. Batlay's tenure, it probably became a prestige point for him to make the brand successful without realizing its inherent weaknesses. He wanted Black & White to succeed, come what may. Mr. Batlay set the sales target for Black & White at 300% of its current sales, without any basis whatsoever. That became a bone of contention between him and me. I resisted the phenomenal increase and he insisted on achieving it. I just could not convince myself, the sales team and the distributors.
I was called for interview with Director Marketing Mr. Tasleem Batlay. I submitted him the comparison. He liked it. I was eventually selected for the job. I came to know later that PTI was already on the look-out for a replacement of their current Sales Manager.
I joined PTI and was asked to occupy the room of the Marketing Manager at the Head Office, located on the upper floor of the building. Sales Dept was located on the ground floor. No formal handing-over and taking-over took place between the outgoing sales manager and me. In fact, I did not even see him. The management probably did not want me to meet him lest I was spoiled too.
After joining PTI, the chairman Mr. S. A. Samad called me to his office. He told me that they had carried out a background check on me and were satisfied with the findings. He emphatically said that they were looking for an honest man.
The job of sales manager in PTI was a very sensitive one. Anybody in that position could make or break the company. A really competent and honest person was required to head the department. Anybody could make millions by just giving more stocks to any favoured distributor and taking his cut. K-2 was the lead brand selling 700 million cigarettes a month out of the total company sales of 800 million of all its brands. It was a hot cake selling at a premium to the consumers. We could not meet the market demand due to production capacity constraints, although the company was producing it in eight factories located in different parts of the country.
Premier Tobacco Industries Ltd was established by Mr. S. A. Samad who had no previous experience of manufacturing cigarettes. He did not go to college either. He used to sell 'beri' ( a kind of cigarette with raw tobacco wrapped in tobacco leaf) in Sukkur on a small scale. He took the initiative of setting up an industry in competition with a giant Pakistan Tobacco Company with immense resources at their disposal. There is no doubt that Mr. Samad had tremendous business acumen and marketing ideas. His earlier brands could not do much business. However, K-2 was a grand success unprecedented in the cigarette industry in Pakistan. The brand was developed by hit and trial and it worked to the luck of Mr. Samad.
From the very first meeting with the sales force, I realized that all of them were highly demotivated, grumbled in no uncertain terms about the past when their performance was not recognized and nor rewarded and were reluctant to put in extra effort any longer. I asked them to give me six months and assured them of better working environment and compensation. They responded by stating that others before me had also promised the same way but nothing had happened.
The salary and perks in PTI were far behind its major competitor Pakistan Tobacco Company Ltd., selling almost the same numbers in units. However, the value turnover of PTC and its profit margin were higher than those of PTI because of the former's leading position in top-of-the-line high-priced filter brands.
Working with an extremely demoralized and dissatisfied team proved to be a gigantic task for me. I could feel the inside anguish and anger the team carried against the management and their abnormal resistance to change their attitude and approach and put in extra efforts.
The first thing that I did was to go through all the files of the department for one full month without involving myself in day to day sales operations. The Assistant Sales Manager could look after the day to day operations as he had been working for the company for several years.
That exercise gave me an insight into the working of the department, distributors, and the high-ups at the Head Office.
The files as well as personal conversations and observations brought out many a surprising revelations. First, almost every department at the Head Office was highly critical of the working of the sales team and expressed their utter dissatisfaction with the sales team's performance. Second, almost every department at the Head Office lost no moment to humiliate the sales persons and accuse them of dishonesty. Third, there was a cold war going on between Director Marketing, who had joined the company lately without having any experience of the cigarette industry, and the Marketing Manager Mr. Zuberi who belonged to the camp of old-timers.
The silent war was consciously or consciously dividing the loyalties in the sales and marketing departments. I was presumed to be a member of the new-comers camp led by Mr. Batlay, though I had never met him before the interview took place. My Assistant Sales Manager was also an old-timer and an aspirant to become the Sales Manager. It was a great shock to him to have somebody from outside the cigarette industry as his superior. He belonged to the camp of Mr. Zuberi and enjoyed his encouragement and support vis-a-vis me. Mr. Zuberi had his own axe to grind as he expected to be elevated to the position of Director Marketing before Mr. Batlay joined.
I was confronted with a dilemma right from the beginning. It was extremely difficult to keep a balance between the old-timers and the new-comers. So deep were the conflicts of interest that no persuasion seemed to be working. So, I decided to reorganize the sales dept to make it more effective without getting myself embroiled in the cold war.
I made every effort to cultivate a good working relationship with my subordinates. I became their teacher, guide and helper to improve their understanding of their own functions and how best to use their knowledge and experience to perform better so that the bad image of the sales team would improve in the eyes of the company. I travelled with the sales persons within the city and outside, visiting retailers, wholesalers and distributors. I gave them a free hand to make out their tour programmes and passed their expense statements without questioning their honesty.
I worked harder than the sales persons. I read each and every sales report and sent back my comments. I sent good reports to the Head Office. I travelled with them in non-airconditioned wagon in hot summer, let them share the same meal with me, involved them in general conversations on the way to make them comfortable and also discussed market situation in informal ways and sought their views.
I told the sales team that they are answerable only to me and nobody at the Head Office. If any department objects to any of their actions, let it be known that he has to speak to me. I became a buffer between the sales team and the H.O. That provided a good deal of relief to the sales persons who had earlier been humiliated, criticized, and downgraded quite often from the various departments at the H.O., especially the Marketing Dept and the Finance Dept.
I undertook a long journey of 1000 miles from Karachi in Sindh to Quetta in Balochistan by a company-operated wagon. It was the hot month of August '77. The concerned sales persons responsible for their territories on theway accompanied me. We came back the same way in approximately 15 days. We visited retailers, wholesalers and distributors of every town that came our way on our journey from Karachi to Quetta. It was a great learning experience for me, too.
Within a few months, the sales team was almost completely changed in their perceptions of their own capabilities, their image in the company and how the work had to be done. It gave them a moral boost and motivated them a great deal to put in extra-ordinary efforts.
Within a year, the sales of our key filter cigarette brand Red & White more than tripled, making it the lead brand in Karachi superceding the PTC's lead brand "Wills." PTC could never image that Red and White would overtake Wills despite sustained and regular promotional campaigns. We also worked hard to revive our dying brand K-2 Filter and stabilized its sales. Our No.1, non-filter plain brand was K-2. It was always in short supply and sold at a premium to the smokers. We streamlined the supply, reallocated quota to each distributor and removed irritants to feed the markets according to their actual requirements rather than inflated orders of our distributors.
The cigarette retailers had a very strong union to protect their interests vis-a-vis cigarette manufacturers. The sales and marketing personnel in PTI were very scared of the union and its secretary-general Mr. Yusuf and the union despised the cigarette manufacturers and treated them as their enemies. No cigarette company could launch a brand, introduce a special offer or make any other major change in its policy without prior consultation with Mr. Yusuf; otherwise, the company ran the risk of its brands boycotted by the cigarette retailers. I did not know about this situation. I introduced a special offer on sales of our unstable brand K-2 Filter without prior consultation with the union through its secretary-general.
My action created a stir in the marketing dept at HO. I was called in to be told that I must recall the offer and introduce it only after its clearance by the union. I refused for I believed the offer was in the interest of the retailers and the company alike and there was no reason to let the union poke its nose into our operations.
I went ahead with the offer and it clicked. There was no negative reaction from the union and Mr. Yusuf inspite of the fact that our competitors tried their best to exploit the situation to have our brand boycotted. After a month or so, I visited Mr. Yusuf in Hyderabad, a city at a distance of 150km from Karachi. He was also a cigarette retailer. He gave me and my field officer a hearty welcome, hugged us, treated us to a drink and then a cup of tea. That was just unprecedented for Mr. Yusuf to do for the sales persons of a cigarette company. I sat with him for about half-an-hour or so and we talked about his children, their education and their career plans and other things, nothing about cigarette business. He again hugged me and my field officer again when we were leaving his shop.
My field officer was really in a state of utter surprise. It was my first meeting with Mr. Yusuf. He just could not figure out why Mr. Yusuf was so courteous to us. I guess Mr. Yusuf was well aware of what I was doing for his union members as sales manager of PTI, removing their grievances and meeting their genuine demands.
I always believed that a sales person had to be in the field as frequently as his position required to maintain a healthy and supportive relationship with the trade and to listen to the trade, meet their genuine requirements and remove their genuine grievances. At the same, he would also know what his own subordinates were doing in the field. Field visits were an excellent source to gain knowledge of the happenings in the market place including competitors' activities, trade expectations, suggestions from the trade and working of company's field force and distributors. Throughout my sales and marketing career, I never made a policy change without first visiting the market to obtain first-hand knowledge of what was happening in the market place.
Before my joing the company, PTI had decided to launch Black & White in the highest premium segment to compete with PTC's Gold Leaf. It turned out to be a massive failure in the market place for many a reason. Since it was the first brand launch of Mr. Batlay's tenure, it probably became a prestige point for him to make the brand successful without realizing its inherent weaknesses. He wanted Black & White to succeed, come what may. Mr. Batlay set the sales target for Black & White at 300% of its current sales, without any basis whatsoever. That became a bone of contention between him and me. I resisted the phenomenal increase and he insisted on achieving it. I just could not convince myself, the sales team and the distributors.
The consumers are often very taste conscious of taste products such as cigarettes, teas, cold drinks. You may have a consumer try your brand but there is no way to bring him to your fold if the taste does not click with him. We did a lot of test trials of taste of Black & White but the taste could not match that of the competitor's brand. In my opinion, it would have been a futile exercise to increase sales by simply pushing the brand at the retail outlets. It was a top of the line brand and consumers of such brands cannot be forced to buy such a brand by salesmanship.
Ultimately, I decided to resign in 1979 without having an alternate job elsewhere. Black & White proved to be a big liability for the company and adversely affected its finances due to heavy promotional expenses. The brand was discontinued and Mr. Batlay was transferred to become Director Corporate Affairs. He was replaced by a sales person hired from Pakistan Tobacco Company.
Ultimately, I decided to resign in 1979 without having an alternate job elsewhere. Black & White proved to be a big liability for the company and adversely affected its finances due to heavy promotional expenses. The brand was discontinued and Mr. Batlay was transferred to become Director Corporate Affairs. He was replaced by a sales person hired from Pakistan Tobacco Company.
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http://livethylife10.blogspot.com/
Topics: Religion & Spiritualism, Life, Community, Global Issues, General Topics, Governance, Judicial Activism, Media, Politics, International Relations and Professional Services
