Sales Management

Companys Profile & Sales Organizational

Structure
Course Instructor:

Dr. Rizwan

Prepared by:
Misha Saeed
BB-13-10
BBA(Hons) 7TH Morning

Unilever Pakistan Limited

The Unilever Pakistan Limited (UPL), formerly Lever Brothers Pakistan
Limited was established in Pakistan in 1948. The town of Rahim Yar
Khan was the site chosen for setting up a vegetable oil factory.
Unilever Pakistan is the largest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)
company in Pakistan, as well as one of the largest multinationals
operating in the country. Now operating six factories at different
locations around the country. The Unilever's head office was shifted
to Karachi from the Rahim Yar Khan site in the mid 1960s.

Food and drinks

Lipton

Blue Band

Wall's

Rafhan

Pearl Dust

Knorr

Glaxose-D

Cornetto

Magnum

Brooke Bond

Fruttare

Wall's Kid's Range

Personal care

Clear - Anti-dandruff shampoo range.

Close Up - Toothpaste

Fair & Lovely - Fairness products.

Lifebuoy shampoo

Lifebuoy soap - Soap & handwash range.

Lux - Soap, hand & bodywash.

Pond's - Talcs & beauty creams.

Rexona - Deos and Anti-perspirants.

Sunsilk - Shampoo range.

Dove

Pepsodent

Toni & Guy

Home care

Comfort - fabric softeners

Rin - detergent

Surf Excel - detergent and gentle wash.

Domex

Vim

SALES ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Sales organizational design refers to the formal and coordinated task
of assigning territories and establishing flows of communication and
responsibilities of sales groups and individuals to serve customers
effectively. The developed structure helps the sales people in the
organization to identify their roles, responsibilities and command in
the organization. A proper organizational design helps in enhancing
productivity, reduces conflicts, and improves an individuals quality of
work by identifying the contents of the job, the qualifications and
experience required to undertake the job, and rewards associated with
the performance of the job. The organization of the sales department
is based on the nature and size of the organization, market coverage
strategy, complexity of the product offered, and the external condition
of the market and the level of competition.
The sales manager in the organization is the head of sales department
and is the representative of the top management in the chain of
command. Divisional, district, and branch heads are appointed to
assist the sales manager in the large organizations. They report to the
sales manager and are accountable to the sales manager for their
responsibilities. So, organizational structure is relatively fixed, formally
defined set of relationships among jobs and within the organization.
Though organization structures look rigid, they should respond to the
changes in the competitive environment and should be adaptable to
the changing situations.

TYPES OF SALES ORGANIZATION

Sales organizations adopt different kinds of structures starting from the

simple line organization to special designs based on functions, geographic
markets, products, customers, or combination of all these forms.
The various sales organization structures are
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Line organization
Organization Design by Territory
Organization Design by Management Function
Organizational design by product
Organizational Design by Customer
Combined Organizational Design

LINE ORGANIZATION
In a pure line organization, the chief executive does the decision
making and decisions flow down the line for execution. The chief
executive has all the authority over the sales function. Many small
sales firms have such a structure. In these organizations, decisions are
made faster, overhead costs are lower, and sales people need to
follow the command. These kinds of organizations are called one-man
show organizations or a typical line organization. But, this kind of
person-centric

organization

suffers

from

the daily fire fighting

operations of the executives, as they have no time to do sales

planning and are busy in achieving sales targets set at the top.
As organization grow in size, some degree of specialization occurs in
most of the organizations. Organizations are designed around
geographic areas or territories
functions, products, customers, and a combination design. The basic
objective is to increase the sales force effectiveness and enhance
productivity and allow sales people to grow as customers experts.
Specialization brings challenges of coordination, integration, and
higher expenses of sales realizations

ORGANIZATION DESIGN BY TERRITORY

The simplest method of designing an organization is on the basis
of a geographic territory, where every sales person is assigned a
specific area for making sales. Several areas are combined together
has a territory for assigning a supervisor and then a number of
territories are combined for sales manager.
This is a very distinct form of design. In this kind of design, the travel
times are limited and the sales force remains close to the customer.
The quality of customer service is better because the number of
customers to be served is limited and geographically concentrated.
The conflict is minimized among sales staff as the responsibility of
serving customer is clearly identified in each area. The new product
demand for each area can also be identified and the necessary
product modifications can be done to suit this need of each customer
in the specific territory. The varied marketing strategy can be
developed for each market as a response to the level of competition
and a comparative sales analysis is possible between territories, while
sales recruitment can be conducted as per the requirements of the
job, area, demand, and the skills and the experience of the sales
person.
But these kinds of designs are not free from problems. The sales
people, for example have to sell the entire line of the product in a
specific area to all types of customers. There is a tendency to become
mere order takers, when sales people have to sell entire range of
products in a specific area over the same period, and in the process,
brands too turn into commodities. The sales people spend too much
time with the customers for products that are easy to sell but may not
be profitable or provide high growth opportunity.

ORGANIZATION DESIGN BY MANAGEMENT FUNCTION

An organization based on the management function is also
called a line and staff function design. It is grouping of a sales task
according to their characteristics. Line authority means that people in
the management positions have formal authority to direct and control
immediate subordinates. Here, staff authority is narrower and includes
the right to advice, recommend, and counsel the staff. Firms need
special expertise for which the divide the selling activities according to
the functions to be performed like sales planning, recruitment, training
of sales personnel, supervision of sales personnel, advertising
function, sales promotion, and other functions like sales analysis and
marketing research.
This type of organizational design is used for organizations having
single product lines. It is very difficult for any single executive in
charge of sales to handle all the sales activities in large and complex
organizations. The line function runs from the head of sales force to
the company sales people, where the same sales staff report directly
to the HR head or the regional sales manager. The staff authority adds
the line managers in the planning and operation function.
This kind of organizational design helps in achieving specializations at
different levels in the organizational hierarchy. The number of
departments can be increased or decreased depending upon the
organizational requirements and business success. The line and staff
design is less expensive in comparison to other designs but the
attention needed on specific product lines is affective by this design.
The Functions across the departments slow down due to their
dependence on each other for the final delivery of customer service.
The integration of the function happens at higher level, making the job
of the higher authority more complex and rigid in nature.

Interdepartmental rivalry and non cooperation are issues that

immerged

in

such

organizations

and

the

inefficiency

in

one

department effects the functions of other department. However, such

organizations are suitable when the size of the organization is small,
there are limited products, and there is a single line of operation in the
organizational production process.

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN BY PRODUCT

Many organizations with a diversified product portfolio prefer a
design on the basis of the type of product. So, organizations are
designed on the basis of products so that one can recruit sales people
specializing on each product line. These types of organizations are
expensive because separate sales staffs are required for each product
line. Product specialization is necessary when the product are
technical and complex, more-or-less commodities, and relatively

simple but completely different from one another, when the product
lines are distributed through the entire trade channel, and when
different products are sold to similar markets. When any combination
of such factors exists for the firm, the companies follow a product
design. A General Manager (Sales) is appointed for the overall
supervision, control, and coordination of the product line.
There are advantages of such a design, which include close
attention to each product in the product portfolio. The sales person
can master all the relevant product information and gather the
required product knowledge to market complex products. The
interference by other functions is avoided but this design and it is
easier to assign responsibilities to each member in the sales
department thus making it easier to do a comparative evaluation of
sale personnel. The satisfaction level of customers in this kind of
organizational design is the highest as the customer receives
maximum attention.
There are disadvantages of such a design as there is a difficulty
in coordinating the sales function across product category. Sales
people from the same organization often make calls to the same
customer for a sale leading to the duplication of efforts and an
increase cost in surveying customers. The operational costs are higher
because of the large number of employees in the organization with
product specialization.

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN BY CUSTOMER

Organizations with several and distinct markets are designed on
the basis of customer profile. Modern sales firms are shifting from a
product-based structure to a customer-based structure because of
customer profitability analysis and varied service delivery product mix
for each customer. This is also referred to as vertical marketing. Each
sales person sells the entire product line to the same customer. This
design is more customers driven and is successful when the
customers are geographically concentrated.
This kind of design helps in building successful customer relationships
where trust and corporation are the fundamental values of business.
Sales and market planning can be developed depending upon the
customer requirements and behaviour. These kinds of organizations
are also expensive and there is also a duplication of efforts, as
controlling and coordinating sales activity across the customers is
difficult to undertake in large firms.
Sales organizations design on the basis of the customer help in buyer
and supplier integration and in co-creating products and services for
end users in a business-to-business market. This develops increased
buyer loyalty. Sales managers create multiple linkages with customers
through cross-selling, up-selling, and training the customers to use the
products or services for a longer period of time.

COMBINED ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

Many organizations those are large in size and complex in product
offering prefer a complex design that is a combination of different
levels of hierarchy in the organization. The combination can be made
on the basis of the product, function, geography, or the customer,
depending on the market coverage.

In Pakistan sales hierarchy of UNILEVER is :

Out sourced sales force:

Sales outsourcing allows companies to attract and maintain a sales
force without having to make them full or part-time employees .

ORGANIZATION OF SALES FORCE

The organization of the sales force at Unilever is Combination
Organization.
The structure of most sales forces is combination of two or more of the
types of specializations, such as combination of Product specialization
and Customer Specialization, or combination of Customer
specialization or Geography specialization. Unilever too uses a
combination of Product and Geographic specialization.

DIVISIONS IN PAKISTAN
Pakistan is divided in three geographic regions for the sales
operations; these divisions are supervised by the General Sales
Manager.
Central
South
North

REGIONS IN PAKISTAN
Unilever has 7 regions in Pakistan on where they send a direct sales
force. These seven regions include:
Karachi and Hyderabad
Lahore
Islamabad
Sukkur
Multan
Faisalabad
Jhelum
In rest of the regions, Unilever sends its outsourced sales Team which
is hired through their distributers.

CONCLUSION

The organization should be based on certain principles like the

principles of unity of direction and command.

A sales organization is a structural body through which

the functions o sales management are carried out.

A good sales organization always aims at achieving the sales

target at the minimum cost and with maximum efficiency.

Careful attention to organizational design and costs in serving
the

customer

helps

organization.
Each type of

sales

in

designing

organization

the

customer

structure

has

sales

certain

advantage and disadvantages and, so ULP use combined

structure that combine the feature of several types.

There is no one best way to structure a sales organization. The
appropriate way to organize a sales force and sales
management depends on certain characteristics of a
particular selling situation.