Pai’s Bakery: Reassigning Sales Territories

Pai’s Bakery was a 30-year-old family business based in Belagavi, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The owner was working on a sales territory realignment plan in response to complaints from the company’s sales team. Sales representatives claimed that their wages were not proportionate to their efforts and that productivity was hampered by poor territory planning and restrictive business policies. The Pai’s Bakery owner wanted to address the sales representatives’ concerns and improve the company’s relationship with all retail outlets to achieve key business objectives. Based on these priorities, she prepared a realignment plan for the sales territories. However, she was surprised by the negative reaction by the sales representatives, who opposed the new plan. Pai’s Bakery had to find a mutually beneficial path forward immediately to avoid serious damage to the company’s business operations.