Rural Sales Force Retention: Dilemma of Accurate Adhesives

Sudeep was the sales development manager for the rural business unit of an FMCG company Accurate Adhesive Ltd. in West Bengal. The company had been plagued with a high level of attrition in its workforce. Sudeep had a big presentation coming up in the next week. He was due to present the concerns of the field sales force, benchmarking with the best practices and motivational tools needed for incremental and sustainable business practices to a team from top management. He was specially chosen for this as his immediate superior believed that Sudeep had a better insight into the field sales force. This was due to his role during his management trainee days. During the training, he experienced the life of a frontal sales force and realized the persistence and agility required of the sales force. The top management had been quite worried about the high attrition (>20%) problem in the rural areas where the company had a presence. The business loss is considerable with such a staffing gap within the field force territories. Market coverage and other business parameters such as issue resolution, product awareness & service levels also suffer. This becomes an easy breeding ground for the competition to move in. This problem of high attrition needs to be addressed at the grass root level. Can technology be the solution? Alternatively, there is a need for some other management initiatives.