BioCell – Losing a Loyal Customer
"What? We lost the BioCell order! I can’t believe they don’t want to buy from us! All our products are performing to their satisfaction and they have awarded our services last year!" said K. Unni (Unni) to Kannan, his Product Manager, who had given the news. "Get me Sumant on line," he shouted out to his secretary. Unni, the Founder and Head of Thermochem Corporation (Thermochem), couldn’t quite come to terms with this news. His secretary tried calling Sumant Bharadwaj (Sumant), Senior Sales Engineer at Thermochem and the account manager for BioCell.
Unni had successfully led the company to become a star channel partner of Thermax Limited (Thermax), India’s leading manufacturer of industrial boilers, water and sewage treatment equipment, founded in Pune in the year 1966. Based in Bangalore, Thermochem was doing a business of over INR50 million for Thermax. Thermochem has a team of twelve sales engineers and two product managers, who had helped Thermax’s market share to grow to nearly 50% in small industrial boilers and 40% in water treatment equipment, in Karnataka, in a short span of ten years.
Losing the BioCell order was unexpected for Unni. Thermochem was bidding for an order of 12 units of US-18 Water filter softener (Annexure I), which amounted to INR1.86 million. While this was not a large order, BioCell was a prestigious account for Thermax and a loyal customer since 2011. Moreover, BioCell was a good reference in securing orders with biotech and pharmaceutical customers. Losing this order could set a precedent at BioCell to look for cheaper alternatives to Thermax products...........
Assignment Questions
I. What are the various product categories in the B2B segment? Discuss about the Purchase Orientation of the product presented in the caselet. What was the Buy Class?
II...................
Exhibit
Exhibit I: Laboratory Glassware
Annexure
Annexure I: Water Filters and Softeners