Field organization of the sales department

Without the establishing of the field sale force of the sales department of any company can’t conduct
their selling activities properly. Sales executives or manager easily can supervise the field sales force
when the sales area is small and it has a small field sales team. On the contenary when the company
want to expand their sales in over the country, they need a huge number of field sales force for maintain
the countrywide national market. So Then it is highly required to have the field sales organization.

British American tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) has one of the strongest distribution network in
Bangladesh, which are enable to make the brand available to the customer in convenient places with
the best quality. Every morning thousand of employees who are salesman, delivery man, sdrivers,
packing man start their journey and work, with the promise to making the brand available and with the
intention of increase the sales everyday

In British American tobacco Bangladesh, Employing more than 1,500 employees directly and
approximately 50,000 indirectly as farmer, distributer, local supplier, sales man, logistic supporter. The
field sales force consist of those who work away from the corporate office in the field level, they faces
the real customers or consumers in field level. This field sales organization consist of several sales
managers and sales peoples as like divisional, regional, area, territory sales manager, sales promotion
officers, sales personal. Even the clerical employees of districts or branch offices included in field sales
organization.

Their trade marketing system relay on managing business-to-business relationships with the retailers
who sell the products. Field sales force place as strong an emphasis on being a high quality supplier to
the trade. Sales personnel are relay on the field sales organization to smoothly perform their activities
,because they support in field sales activities as like merchandizing, order taking, collection, product
delivery, customer complain

BATB’s field sale organization is the trade marketing and distribution operation. Where there are a Head
Of Marketing. Under the head of marketing there are trade and distribution executives, Regional trade
executive, Area manager, Territory manager. They execute the plan and oversee the work and daily
selling activities. But there are some other important employee in the sales force who work under the
distributitor as like the sale representative, order taker, delivery man.

What does Sales Rep work involve?

The products are delivered and sold on behalf of and for British American Tobacco Bangladesh by their
Sales Representatives, directly to a specific group of independent outlets and retail chains. At the same
time, a range of our tobacco products is also available in the wholesale channel.

The daily work of a Sales Representative involves:

 Selling and developing the distribution of well-known brands

 Building long-lasting commercial relations with retail customers (working with a readily available
customer base)
  Taking care of product merchandising
 Making deliveries and collecting receivables from customers
 Reporting on their work on an ongoing basis with the help of modern and easy-to-use tools

The advantage of such a modern sales system is also a narrowed-down area

of visits. A Sales Representative start his every day of work in a distribution centre in a particular
location and gets a ready customer base. They also value proactive attitudes and taking the initiative to
seek and acquire new customers.

Centralization VS Decentralization in sales force management

British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) extends all across Bangladesh. They have their head office
and factory located in Dhaka. There are three leaf regional offices located in Banderban, Kushtia and
Rangpur. They have six regional marketing offices all over Bangladesh. The six metro markets are Dhaka,
Khulna, Mymensingh, Bogra, Sylhet, and Chittagong. Distribution is done with the help of authorized
dealers. BAT does not take their products directly to the market. There are 52 authorized distributors
that distribute the products to 510,000 outlets approximately.

Distribution is divided into three categories. They are: Retail Store, Retail Cash and Carry, and Bazaar
Cash and Carry. The distributors use their own vehicles, covered vans, cycle vans, etc to distribute the
product. And in the passive outlets, the areas are very close to the river, where vehicles cannot go, they
supply the product through boat.

 Channel of Distribution Regional Go-down: There are five regional go-down throughout the
country to fill every regional demand just at the time of need, and to overcome various
uncertainties related to physical distribution of products, every regional go-down is directly
controlled by separate Regional Manager to face the regional physical distribution challenge.
 Carrying Contractor: They are the party engaged in the physical movement of cigarettes from
head office go-down to regional office go-down. Normally they are the truck owners who take
all the risk and responsibilities of physical movement of goods between two warehouses.
 Distribution Warehouse: All distributors have their own warehouse, where cigarette can be kept
safely while not degrading its product quality. Distributors buy the cigarette from BATB and
from that point ownership and all responsibilities of the products go under the distributors.
 Internal Carrying Agent: They are like carrying agent but carry small volume of products.
Normally they are local truck owners. They carry products from, regional go downs to distributor
warehouses. They also take all the responsibilities and risk engaged in physical movement of
products.
 Opening Stock at Distributors’ Office: A part from the warehouse, every distributor also
maintains another stock at their office. This stock is for maintaining any change in market
demand instantly. Dealers sometimes sell cigarette through their counters to face special
situation.
  Delivery Van: All the delivery vans are owned by the dealers to assure the supply of cigarette on
the door of wholesalers, cash & carries and retailers just according to their demand. There are
two types of delivery vans. One is Scooter van and another is Rickshaw van.
 Cash & Carry: They are businessmen who sell cigarette directly to consumers and at the same
time they sell cigarette to the retailers.
 Retailers: Retailers are at the end of the physical distribution system of cigarette selling products
directly to the consumer.

The distribution chain shows how the product goes from the factory to the hands of the consumers. It all
starts with the factory where the tobacco is turned into cigarette and packaged. The cigarette comes out
of the factory as a finished good and is kept in the company’s warehouse. Then the tobacco product
goes to 6 regional depots. From the depots, the authorized distributors take it to their distribution
warehouse. Then from the distribution warehouse the distributors use their own vehicles to get it to the
market.