Isabel Rivero Alcorta

Eureka Forbes Ltd. is a company offering a wide range of industrial cleaning products
based in Mumbai, India. It was founded in 1982 and its main objective is to take care of the
health and safety of its customers, considering them as "friends for life". Cleaning methods in
India were more traditional. They felt that their innovative products should be presented,
demonstrated and explained to customers. That is why the company relied on direct sales, giving
rise to Eurochamps (direct salesmen). Eurochamps' motto was "to wash boys and turn them into
respectable men". Eureka Forbes believed that the main value of the company was in its workers.
These salespeople were expected to inform, provide information to consumers and, above all,
generate sales to maintain the health of EFL and its business.

One of the biggest problems EFL faced was related to the compensation of the sales
team, partly due to poor communication and management of the company. Eurochamps were
under a lot of pressure, with very long and exhausting working days. They had a constant need to
demonstrate their products, using a lot of energy, only to be rejected by potential customers on
many occasions. The first problem had to do with their lack of academic judgment. Eureka
Forbes focused on hiring based on people's personal judgments and attitudes. This caused the
company to lose efficient employees because of its subjective hiring. In addition, this led to
another problem. The workers were undertrained, making it difficult to demonstrate and present
to customers. Goklaney, the company's CEO, found that his salespeople "repeatedly overlooked
visible cues from prospects indicating their interest in buying." Added to this was another
problem, related to product quality. In numerous presentations, the products were damaged or
dirty. This led to a loss of potential customers, since a company's image is essential. It is
impossible to sell a product that conveys little reliability from the outset.

One of the best ideas Goklaney had, in my opinion, was to create the Eurochamps. If a
company is mainly dedicated to direct sales, it is very important that all salespeople have the
same training. Therefore, I recommend that employee training is key to the company's ability to
continue to expand. In addition to company values, training must include a series of mandatory
criteria that workers must meet, such as ensuring that the products to be demonstrated are
spotless. I deeply believe that company values are essential, and that they must be well defined
for the proper functioning of the company. As another possible recommendation, I believe that
they should consider different workers and not let themselves be carried away by their subjective
opinion. It is true that it is necessary to set some limits, because otherwise the selection process
would be unfeasible. However, many times, because they get carried away by subjective
opinions, they lose many valuable people along the way.

All in all, I believe that the evolution of the company, based on references and ideals, has
been a success. The workers initially started out very burned out, due to their long working hours
(reaching 6 days a week) and the unfair recognition by the company. The creation of the
EuroChamps was key to this evolution. The company must continue to train its employees and
focus on this training. The only way to continue to grow is by focusing on the EuroChamps, who
are the people who are going to get the product sold to customers. To keep customers happy,
Eureka Forbes must motivate them and make them feel valuable. In the end, EFL would be
nothing without its direct sellers.