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%cSaad Mahmood Khan

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(c)': Finance and Marketing

& c*cc*c+%cSogo Group Of Companies

 %ccccc From 1stSeptember 2010 to 16thOctober 2010

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application)

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c c: 28thOctober 2010

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cccccc: Subhan Irshad

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The Sogo group of companies is an own equipment manufacturing company based in Pakistan. Sogo
started out as a family concern under the personal supervision of its founder, Mr. Umar Jafrani. From this
auspicious beginning, Sogo moved from success to success introducing different products to cater to
different target markets. For convenience of customers, distribution was initiated to retail outlets around
the city.

The company continued to grow under the management of the founder's son, Mr. AkhtarJarfrani. Mr.
Akhtar Jafrani introduced new concepts and developed a wide range of products catering specifically to
the people throughout Pakistan. His progressive outlook resulted in giving further strength to the
foundation of quality laidby his family.

Making a modest beginning over forty years ago, today Sogo has become one of the leading importers of
Pakistan. It is importing more than 1600 products from China and Thailand. Sogo Group of Companies
includes Sogo Lighting World, Sogo Home Appliances, Sogo Auto Mobiles and Sogo Household
Products. Its warehouses are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. The company is operated by
about 250 professional employees, importing various popular and high quality products that are
distributed across the length and breadth of the country through a network of distribution/institutions.

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Sogo is situated and has a sales zonal office in Karachi. Having no other functional team in this area; my
department was most importantly responsible for primary sales and business development.

Following were the functions of my department:

1. Primary Sales
2. CustomerData Management
3. Business Development
4. Increasing outlet coverage

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Primary sales are the primary function of any sales department. A structured
sales team works together mapping and achieving targets.

To explain the functioning of my department, a quick glance on the sales organogram is

necessary. On top is the sales manager who represents the entire south region. The sales
manager has two channel managers, one for East and
one for West. These channel managers will look over 9
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their respective channel incharges, which may be
around 4 to 5 under each manager as per the size of
the area.Every channel incharge works with a pair of  
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sales man and an order booker.

The process of primary sales starts from the order  
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booker who is responsible for going to designated
 
accounts and taking the order on a daily basis. We call
it designated because a number of accounts are 9
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assigned to him and he is to visit them on a daily basis.
 
The order booker compiles his daily orders and sends it
to the IT department. The IT department approves the  c

order and adds/subtracts any discount or scheme from
the final bill of an account (client). The print out of this final order is given to the fellow sales man
who loads the car as per route. The sales man will deliver the merchandise and the cycle will be

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 complete. The channel manager and in charges keeps a check on the operation and responsible
for outlet coverage discussed later.

The sales manager south will ask for fortnightly reports which will be submitted in the form of
graphs and charts. His job is to ensure targets and being met and that customer¶s are being
served. As the entire sales execution is based on good relationships, the sales manager south
can make occasion visits to big accounts to ensure good relationships and good business.

The Basic functions of the Sales manager include;

3 Recruiting and training sales staff

3 Supervising, motivating and monitoring performance
3 Allocating territories to sales managers
3 Setting budgets / targets
3 Reporting back to Regional Sales Manager
3 Occasional communicating with customers
3 Maintaining detailed knowledge of the company's products or services
3 Keeping abreast of what competitors are doing, specially in his/her area

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Data Management is integrated at Sogo, it helps them to track customer and business interactions. Sales
department which is responsibleto keep a track of everything related to the organization.Everything is
assigned anID from products, customers, sales representatives etc. Every ID is unique and can be
identified with its respective Sales representative. Apart from creating the IDs it also manages it. For e.g.
if a Retail Outlet has defaulted, the accounts department will inform Sales Department which will then
block the retail outlet. Now no matter how hard a SR (Sales Representative) tries to book the order, the
system will not generate the order for the blocked customer. In short everything and everyone that is
affiliated with Sogo has its records with the Sales Department.

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As the name suggest this is department is responsible for developing new business. This involves
locating new prospect; attracting them, making and recommending new business model for them which is
part of the actual sales pitch, followed by the negotiations. The Integral part of negotiations includes the
type of distribution and the Distributor¶s Margins. It is also responsible for managing old clients. All the
above formalities cannot take shape without research. Research is one of the core functions of Business

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Development. Sogo carries out extensive research to ensure error free results. It does not only carry out
research for its clients but it also conducts research to find new opportunities that can be tapped and
exploited.

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Last but not least, a very important function of my department was outlet coverage. Sales teams
everywhere need to manage the number of accounts they already have and increase outlets within their
territory. After the regular visits a channel in charge tends to visit new accounts and introduce Sogo
products. In this regard, he has to provide some information about the minimum amount of stock the
account has to buy on a monthly basis to stay in business with us. Sogo has to give priority to new
accounts and maintaining relationships with old accounts too as the business is dependent on
relationships.

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l Every Business Partner Satisfied

l Every Employee Committed
l Every Commitment Delivered
l Focus on Mutual Growth and Benefits

Sogo has established the following two strategic priorities:

1. Grow a diversified National business

2. Deliver more products of value

They believe these priorities will enable them to navigate the coming years successfully and retain their
position as a company able to meet customer¶s needs into the future.

Running the business in a responsible way is fundamental to Sogo¶s success and inseparable from their
strategic priorities.

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It is the responsibility of the sales department to operate in a way that reflects their values, seeks to
understand and respond to stakeholder views and connects their business decisions to ethical, social and
environmental concerns. In this way they aim to minimize the negative impacts and maximize the positive
benefits of their business.

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I did my internship in the sales and distribution department at SOGO Group of companies. Where I was
assigned the following tasks:

1. Carrying out an extensive research on the local market for Sogo products

2. Assisting in developing sales strategiesc

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Compiling a market report incorporating my findings and observations of Sogo
energy savers as compared to Philips

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This research was carried out to explore the Pakistani market with the following objectives:

3 What Margins are the Retailers working on

3 What Products are widely available in the market
3 Explore New Avenues

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I was given a list of customers which spread over the whole of Karachi. These customers were
categorized by;

3 High Frequency Customers

3 Low Frequency Customers
3 Retail Customers
3 Wholesale Customers

Below is a list attached for customers in the south regional zone of Karachi

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1. M/s AL-HAMD ELECTRIC

2. M/s AL-RAHIM ELECTRIC
3. M/s AFTAB ELECTRIC
4. M/s A.Q.S ELECTRIC
5. M/s AL-RAZA ELECTRIC
6. M/s AASHQEEN ELECTRIC
7. M/s ALAUDDIN ELECTRIC
8. M/s A.B MAJEED BHAI
9. M/s AMIN IQBAL ELECTRIC
10. M/s ASLAM AL-ABID
11. M/s BREAKER CORNER
12. M/s BURQ YAHYA
13. M/s BHAI JAN ELECTRIC
14. M/s BILAL ELECTRIC CORPORATION
15. M/s COSMOS ELECTRIC
16. M/s DATA ELECTRIC
17. M/s H.SHABBIR ELECTRIC
18. M/s HAJI AZIZ ELECTRIC
19. M/s HANIF ELECTRIC
20. M/s KHAWAJA ELECTRIC
21. M/s KIRAN ELECTRIC
22. M/s KARACHI ELECTRIC
23. M/s KAZIM BHAI
24. M/s LAKHANI ELECTRIC

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 25. M/s MASOOD ALAM ELECTRIC
26. M/s MUNEEB BHAI
27. M/s MINA ELECTRIC
28. M/s MY CHOICE ELECTRIC
29. M/s MADINA ELECTRIC
30. M/s M.Y ELECTRIC
31. M/s MOOSANI ELECTRIC
32. M/s MUNAF BHAI
33. M/s NEW SINDH ELECTRIC
34. M/s NOOR-E-NAJAM ELECTRIC
35. M/s NOBLE ELECTRIC
36. M/s NADEEM BHAI
37. M/s NITELITE
38. M/s ROSHAN ELECTRIC
39. M/s S.K ELECTRIC
40. M/s S.M ELECTRIC
41. M/s SAQIB ELECTRIC
42. M/s SONY LIGHT
43. M/s WAQAR ELECTRIC
44. M/s YOUSUF BHAI K.M.C

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45. M/s ALIM KHAN KORANGI

46. M/s SAQIB ELECTRIC LANDHI
47. M/s ZAHID ELECTRIC KORANGI

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48. M/s ATTA ELECTRIC LIAQUATABAD

49. M/s AL-HAMD ELECTRIC LIAQUATABAD
50. M/s BISMILLAH ELECTRIC LIAQUATABAD

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The research was about finding out the distribution pattern of different Sogo products and determining the
trade margins of retails for the same products.

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My first task was to plan my route as to what areas I will be visiting that day. Most of the times,
the address given in the list was incomplete. I then had to coordinate with the concerned sales
representative to get the exact location of the store. Sometimes this was not enough. I had to call
the SRs several times to get to the exact location. For instance I once went to Jodia Bazar where
it took me several hours to get to the right spot as even people who have been working there for
past several years could not point me in the right direction. This was usually the case whenever I
had to visit old city areas.

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My actual job was to visit these stores and gather the required information, tabulate it and send it
to the concerned department. The information collected was done with the help of questionnaire
and was a very time consuming task. The first couple of weeks were focused on gathering
information regarding the availability and the distribution pattern of different products. The
questionnaire included questions about the turnover of the different Sogo in different product
category and certain products are distributed as compared to competitors. As I had to visits shops
all over Karachi, I met with people of diverse backgrounds that enhanced my learning and
interpersonal skills.

One major problem that I had to face was the non compliance of the sales representative. I
always asked the sales representative to inform the store owners about my visit and the purpose.
Most of the times they failed to comply to my request. This made it extra difficult to get the
information out of the store owners.

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After I completed the survey, my next task was to physically punch in each and every hard copy
of the questionnaire and compile a soft copy of the survey. After the compilation was over I used
MS Excel, SPSS and other soft wares to analyze the data and draft the final results. When this

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 task was completed I recommended my own findings and suggestions to the concerned
department.

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The next couple of weekswere spent on gathering trade and consumer price of the products. This data
was collected in the same manner as mentioned above. As the information required was so sensitive in
nature only selected Retails shops were focused upon. Most of the retailers denied access to this
information, as it was their trade secret. If this information leaks out the stores would suffer huge losses.. I
had to visit a store several times before they would agree to participate..

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Sogo deals with many different distributors, wholesalers and retailers. For each of these there is a
different price list for different Sogo products. I was given the task to design a new price list on excel that
will cover all the products with its variants. Due to sensitive nature of the price list it cannot be shown in
this report.Not only will this sheet help to keep a track but with sufficient data analysis can be driven out
and patterns may also be established from these sheets.

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Sales strategies have more to do with achieving specific objectives that leads to the long-term growth and
vitality of the business. This may or may not involve increasing the company's bottom line sales. In some
cases, it might make more sense to realize lower sales for a time if it allows the company to break into a
new market or expand its line.

The important thing is that these strategies reflect the larger goals of the business, not the goals of this
month's bottom line expenses.

At Sogo, the sales strategy is closely linked with the marketing strategy. The sales strategies keep
changing with the market situation and market trends. In the recent past, organization focus has shifted
from bigger units to analyzing the every smallest unit possible. In the past, the sales strategy was only
concentrated on hitting and achieving the given targets. Later, the focus shifted to the productivity of each
sales rep on each shop, everyday. This meant that strategies were made such that the sales reps were
made to deepen their sales in each outlet visited. The primary focus of sales strategy is on the volume
growth.

The sales managers are mostly concerned about customer penetration. The strategy at Sogo is based on
company¶s strengths. With large sales force and better control over the distributors, the current strategy is
best suited for penetration and facing fierce market competition.The managers consider the focus of Sogo
to be shifting to overall volumes on the whole instead of each product category.

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As well as setting your salespeople targets for number of units sold, the company can also set activity
targets. These are all the individual aspects of their day-to-day duties that your sales team will carry out
as part of their jobs which should lead to sales. The theory is that if enough of these activities are carried
out, they will significantly improve the likelihood that sale is made.

At Sogo, the sales target setting is a comprehensive job conducted at the top management level. The
annual targets are given to the area managers from the head office; later the area manager distributes
these targets into different territories under his area. The area manager also has to divide the same on

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quarterly basis. This division not only gives a medium term approach to the territory managers but also
provides marketers the opportunity to analyze the changing trends and buying behaviors.

At Sogo sales strategy designinginvolves intelligently balancing territories and creating maps and reports
that sales people can use in the field. This saves business money on lost productivity and ultimately
increases revenues per sales person.
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1- As an undeveloped market segment being served by stockiest. The stockiest were doing
business in their own way.

2- As (a professional distributor) entered in this business they (Sogo stockiest) feel future hurt for
their business, they started un-ethical practices i.e. start selling on further low rates and maximum
credit days.

3- They start replacing damage stocks in any conditions and with any expiry date, they are also
replacing bulbs in any conditions even if the outer of saver is not available.

4- Philips distributors (selling market leader) are already doing same practices; their expiry starts
since the day when retailer sells to consumer.

5- Philips replaces bulbs as well.

6- As per my knowledge Philips distributor sells 50,000 savers in defence area and 100% on credit,
same situation is in Old Karachi area. His sale is of Rs: 3,000,000/- per month and having 1.8 to 2
millions of credit bills in hand.

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1- We need to set the market price for Sogo products by the consent of management (Sogo
Management) permanently or offer a T.P.A (Temporary Price Adjustment) to support our sales
team to grip the market.

2- Need to review the replacement policy to build the shop owners trust on Sogo. Especially the
expiry of savers and replacement of bulbs.

/ c We need to ask Sogo Management to rationalize the stockiest policy which will help distributor to
distribute the brand in the masses in a respectable manner. Or hand over the whole city to
distributor including stockiestc

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SOGO was a great learning opportunity for me and I made the most of it! During the course of my
internship I had to apply a lot of theories/concepts learnt in college.

Discussed below is the list of concepts/theories that I saw being applied:

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Ethical Marketing Procedures Business Ethics

MS PowerPoint, MS Word, MS Excel Computer Applications I

Market research Methods in Business Research

Time Management Personal Management

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Business ethics taught us the concept of ethical marketing which included marketing the good aspects of
the product and at the same time highlighting its side-effects. At SOGO they aim to make their sales as
safe as they can. The relations maintained with each account and the way each Sogo employee acts with
their client¶s comes under the ethical marketing procedures.c

The Marketing practices of sales representatives are thoroughly monitored by the channel in charges to
ensure that they do not indulge in unethical marketing practices.

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Computer Applications I taught me how to use Microsoft Office. During my internship period there was
excessive use of Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel. Presentation making skills are of vital
importance in a work-place these days.c

The course taught me how to make presentations, format word documents and how to make worksheets
on excel. At SOGO all the reporting was done on the computers. The weekly report updates that I made
were professional excel sheets. They had formulas and formats that I learnt in class and was able to
execute all actions on time.

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Personal Management was also a very important course for me. This course taught me the importance of
planning your work, making priorities and working efficiently are some of the things I learnt in this course.c

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Methods in Business research taught me how to carry out an extensive research effectively and as the
core part of my internship was to conduct research and report writing this course proved very helpful for
me

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Primary Data is that data that is assembled specifically for the research project at hand. Secondary Data
is that data that have been previously collected for some project other than the project at hand. This was
learned in Method of Business Research. For this research both data were used. Primary Data was
collected with the help of the Secondary Data. Secondary Data was the addresses of the shop that was
already available with the company.

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Survey is the most common method of Business Research of generating Primary Data. Questionnaires
were used to aid the research at hand. This helps in keeping the surveyor on track. This was also learned
in Methods of Business Research.

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As it is expensive and time consuming to carry out the survey of the whole population. A sample is taken
to make the matters easy. To select a sample that represents the population, screening needs to be
done. This process helps to select the right sample. At SOGO screening was performed where only those
retailers/stores were selected which had done business with them of a certain amount and for a certain
period of time. The same was learned in Methods in Business Research.

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