Bricks or clicks? Marketing dilemmas at Dawlance

Hasan Jameel, chief marketing officer at Dawlance, faced a strategic dilemma during the Covid pandemic. Founded in 1980, Dawlance was the leading home appliances company in Pakistan. Its products were distributed mainly through the dealer network to the end customers. The coronavirus pandemic led to lockdowns and disruption in the availability of goods. Jamil knew that this was the right time to go digital with their high-ticket appliances business. However, that move may create a backlash from the existing 1800 distributor spread all across the country. Covid was at its peak and he had to find a solution for the stagnant sales. Should he create an e-commerce platform or should he utilize the traffic of the biggest marketplace, Daraz, or should he use a combination of channels? His core target group included married couples in the urban and semi-urban centers. Would channel additions help him retain customers who were having issues during the pandemic? His team was unwilling to add the online channel option as they believed it would lead to a dealer backlash. He had 3 months and five million rupees to get the sales back on track.