Sales Force Structure

The sales department of Times Now television network is organized as shown below. A National
sales manager also took care of the overall strategy and managed regional managers. These
regional managers take care of state(s) depending on the size of market each region entails. The
regional managers in turn supervise the zonal sales managers who manage zones within a state
(North, South zones split based on client concentration). The Area Sales Manager and Area Sales
executive are assigned for each territory exclusively. The segmentation of territories is mainly
based on geographies because the sales involves personal visits and sales pitches which require
the ASEs to physically commute to client locations on a regular basis. Having territories based
on geography and location of clients will reduce the hassles of commutation and improves the
efficiency of the process.















National sales manager/
Director of sales
Regional sales
manager
Regional sales
manager
Regional sales
manager
Regional sales
manager
Zonal sales
manager
Zonal sales
manager
Zonal sales
manager
Area sales
manager
Area sales
manager
Area sales
manager
Area sales
Executive
Area sales
Executive
Area sales
Executive
1. Roles and Responsibilities
National sales manager: - The head of sales also called director of sales is responsible for
analyzing the market trends and synthesizing sales and marketing strategies. The communication
channels, overall strategy and company level decisions regarding sales will go through NSM. He
has excellent communication and negotiation skills with leadership qualities.
Regional Manager: - Responsible for an assigned region which includes one or more states
depending on the size of the market. Plans for the region targets, target growth rate and passes
them on to zonal manager. Considered as head of the region he manages 2 or 3 zonal managers.
Regional offices are located in Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.
Zonal Manager: - The targets passed down from regional manager are split further by zonal
managers to be given to ASMs. Responsible for coming up with monthly evaluation sheets and
sales highlights. Also takes part in the recruiting based on the product knowledge and market
knowledge he possesses.
Area Sales Manager (ASM): - He is the field manager who plans, manages and controls the
sales executives on a day to day basis. He also acts as a liaison between them and zonal
managers. ASM also gets involved in the generating leads, prospecting part of the sales process
due to his strong client relationships. He also plays a key role in maintaining the relationship and
aids ASEs in case of any dispute with the clients. Evaluates the performance and gives feedback
based on performance metrics for ASEs
Area Sales Executive (ASE): - The Area Sales Executives fulfill the two duties of new
customer acquisition and renewing existing deals. Typically a contract with Times Now ad sales
extends from 1-1.5 years. The contract renewals bring a stable source of income where a deal is
sealed for air time long before the program is aired. Acquisition of new clients for short term
deals close to peak periods (like elections, important sports matches) are also taken care by them.
The ASEs and ASMs are formed into different teams for the five different channels that Times
television network possess. This is because the channels are of different genres and hence have
different types of audience. The clients who will be willing to advertise here will also be of
different business lines and therefore the selling skills and trainings will differ between these
teams.
Sales force management
The management of the sales force mentioned above is analyzed through the following
framework.





1. Planning
Sales force size: - The sales force sizing is done by both regional and zonal managers.
They size using a combination of activity and sales response approach. The sales targets
of the year are set and by comparing previous years data of how much an ASE has
generated in sales, the activities and time taken at each phase of the sales funnel and that
spread over five channels. Usually, for an area with a turnover of Rs.2 crores or less will
have one ASM added.
Sales territory design: - Sales offices are set up territory wise where territories are based
on geography. Regional managers look after a big state or two or more small states.
Zonal managers operate within the state. This split up of territories is mainly for ease of
commutation while converting sales presentations to sealed deals
Allocation design: - The ASM manages and allocates the sales targets to ASEs. ASMs
are allocated their targets by zonal and regional managers.
Sales budgets and targets: - The sales targets are common and not categorized by each
sales unit. The size of the deal is measured and not the number of sales units. The
commission or incentive from a deal also follows the size of a deal and not the nature or
sales unit or the number of sales units.
2. Staffing
Screening: - The staffing criteria are different across managers and sales executives. It is
preferred of a sales executive to have prowess over local language in addition to
1. Planning 2. Staffing
3. Training
4. Leading 5. Controlling
Resources Performance
communication skills and other skills expected of a sales person. Managers are usually
management degree holders or professionals with years of experience
Selection, retention and termination: - Sales experience in same/similar domain is an
important criteria for selection. This ensures less training costs and faster ramp-up
process. Prowess over the local language is also considered a plus point. The attrition
rate is high as much as 25% in this industry. This is highly problematic as the employees
after receiving training may leave and become independent sales personnel. To avoid
this, Times Now has a good incentive structure.
3. Training, controlling and leading
Training happens in two phases. The initial part is common to all sales personnel to get them
acquainted to company culture, practices and tools used. The second part is product specific
training, the product here being TV channels. Each channel will have specific marketable
programs and sales points which can be used for pitching. The teams for these different channels
are guided through these points to get them trained for the specific product and clients. After the
in-house training, an on field training is given along with experienced personnel/ASM after
which an ASE will be able to operate on his own.
Controlling and leading happens at every level of the hierarchy where ASM and experienced
ASEs will coach and mentor newly joined. When on field client issues arise, the ASM will step
in to resolve the issue.
4. Performance
Performance metrics are primarily the overall sales targets. Incentives are appraisals rate the
executives based on the % of target met. The qualitative attributes include maintaining client
relationships and attitude and behavior in workplace. Quarterly appraisal reports are given by
ASM to ASE indicating performance, areas to improve, corrective measures and suggestions.