This is regarding my experience in whirlpool of India Ltd as a Material Engineer in Product Development center, Pune. I was working under Regional Technology Leader Materials for Whirlpool Asia. It was a great learning experience. We used to work on new developments in materials related to refrigerator. Our work was divided into two types of projects: Cost cutting and Innovations.
In both cases we were dependent on mostly our suppliers. Being a Multinational company and buying power, our suppliers used to come prepared with their innovative sales pitch, Many times General Manager and above level people used to come to present their products. CEO and Directors of small company too used to come to meet us.
During our meeting, we actually used to check their presales preparation, though at that time, I was not knowing these terminologies, but we used to check their knowledge about industry, competition etc. In technology related issues also we used to check for their technical knowledge, People who used to say that next time we will bring technical person with us, we don’t know about these details now, used to hardly get chance to represent themselves again soon. Many times sales people used to promise that they will send sample material in 10 days etc and then actually used send after a month or so, we also used to delay our trials and keep them waiting for a long time. Excuses like it’s in shipping or some problem with scheduling etc always used to ridicule upon.
On the other hand people who used to come on time and present themselves well and handled problems and questions well always gets more preference for business. We also used to consult those suppliers regarding different material related problems. We even used to contact these sales people who had came to sell their product but couldn’t closed the sale for our technical helps etc and they also used to help as much as possible as for them we were prospects.
Sometimes sales pitch used to take place in some so called conference in 5 star hotels followed by dinner but we used to look at it as an entertainment only and hardly gave preference to them in work. Though we used to enjoy the party, I don’t think this type of product selling will fetch more customers to company. We also used to visit various expo’s etc and that time one can get real sales pitching as everyone in a same industry are there, representing their products.
Actually it was a great experience out there but I was on the other side: being buyer, now after learning sales in a b school, I think we were not cruel at that time; it’s just the way people behave with sales people. So Happy journey!
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