PROJECT PROPOSAL
Title
The title of the project is “To identify, study and suggest improvements on the sales and distribution strategies of FMCG products in Rural India.”

Rationale
Rural marketing and rural penetration are very key issues in FMCG companies today. With heavy penetration of all FMCG categories in urban India and with a highly fragmented market in most categories, the only way the categories can show substantial growth is through penetrating deeper and deeper into rural India. This involves creating product awareness, creating brand awareness, generating trials and facilitating repeats. In the whole process, sales and distribution of these products forms the backbone. The dynamics of selling FMCG products in rural areas is very different from urban areas, especially because media has a lower reach in these areas and Cable & Satellite penetration in these areas is quite low. Hence the sales and distribution function of a company will largely determine the fate of its products in rural areas. Therefore it will be very interesting to study what works for a category in rural areas and whether such learnings can be applied across categories to facilitate growth in rural areas.

Scope
The project would comprehensively cover S&D issues in rural India and will try to address them.
Some of these issues are:
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Channel design and channel features

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Retailer profiling and retailer management

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Operational design associated with channel management

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S&D- Reach, availability and visibility

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Selling strategy and sales force design

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Selling as an interface between marketing and distribution

Methodology
The project will employ both primary and secondary sources of data collection.
Primary Data Collection
Primary Data Collection will be done through surveys and interviews of the key stake-holders, i.e., the