Catalyst recently has started work on a training project with one among the top 5 global retailers and one of the largest Cash and Carry retailers in India. Our client has been operating in India for the past 2 years and has 4 Cash and Carry outlets and aggressive expansion plan underway. Apart from store sales, the client relies heavily on cash-on-delivery (COD) sales against orders booked. A separate team of dedicated consultants work on the field and secure bookings from retailers and wholesalers which are then serviced by the delivery team in the store. Catalyst was entrusted the task of conducting a deep dive study of the cash-on-delivery team and create meaningful training interventions to boost business numbers.

The project was implemented in 3 key phases

Phase 1: Deep- dive understanding of the client’s COD processes and the business context

A detailed study of the client’s internal COD team was carried out under the following 5 criteria

1. Pre-sales planning – “Is the COD team working with a concrete plan on the field?”
2. Sales tools – “Does the COD team have the right set of sales tools to execute the plan on the field?”
3. Selling process – “Does the COD team use a structured sales process to ensure standardisation of sales methods?”
4. Post sales review – “Is there a structured system of sales review that is broad based?”
5. Building market relationships – “Are methods and processes including people mind-sets oriented towards building and leveraging relationships in the market?”

The study was based on the following

1. Detailed market working with COD consultants and sales managers across 2 locations (Jaipur and Delhi)
2. Retailer/ wholesaler interactions to align expectations with reality
3. Interaction with internal operations and procurement team to create a seamless sales strategy in-line with other functions in the organization

Phase 2: Creation and delivery of customised training modules for the client

During this phase, Catalyst assimilated learnings from phase 1 to create customised training modules for the client. There was a huge emphasis on linking each element of the training to practical life and thus take it to action. The training was divided into two parts –

1. Classroom training – where there was a huge stress on videos, role plays and mock calls as well as on actual solving of live business challenges through proper analysis and planning.
2. On-field training – Learnings from the classroom program got implemented on the field through actual demonstration. This created huge buy-in and motivation amongst participants and helped remove barriers and change mind-sets.

Phase 3: Supporting the program and measuring impact

During this phase, Catalyst, in partnership with the client helped roll-out many new systems to support on-field implementation of the learnings from the program. Changing of delivery plans and creating a review scoreboard for salesmen are some of these support initiatives that got launched and helped support the learnings from the program in the long run. For instance, one of the learning outcomes of the program was a focus on range selling. To make this learning sticky, incentive roll-outs to the consultants was linked to the no. of lines sold per bill. The sales impact of the initiative got studied over a period of 40 days. The client reported an overall significant increase in sales from the COD team. The success of the initiative has led to the roll out of the same to the rest of the stores.