It was indeed a great day at Bangalore! We, as a team of four members, had a great opportunity to do a field project as a part of the course “Sales & Distribution Management” given by Prof. Gopakumar at ASB. After brainstorming several ideas, Louis Vuitton was our chosen company as we desired to research and understand the untold sales process of a global luxury brand. Being students of the marketing domain, we were curios to learn about Louis Vuitton’s regional sales process. In the Indian market, Louis Vuitton has established its outlets in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. “Sales is not about selling but an art of customer relationship management,” was a resonating statement given by Mr. Pavan Kumar, regional sales director of Louis Vuitton [LV], with whom we had an insightful discussion over the “sales ceremony” of Louis Vuitton with respect to how they handle customers. Customer delight is a key metric for ensuring successful “customer relationship management” which we learnt drives the growth of Louis Vuitton as a brand. Surprisingly, Louis Vuitton never adopts the “brand ambassador” practice as the CEO of Louis Vuitton himself has made the employees believe themselves as brand ambassadors for their products, which also reveals the care and respect the company gives to its employees. This we believe, would certainly help in boosting employee self-esteem and improving their morale.

As part of this field visit, we spent half a day at Louis Vuitton trying to understand the art and science of selling and how the brand does it their way. We learnt how important the entire sales process is and is totally customer-centric. Mr. Pavan Kumar shared with us how Louis Vuitton controls its distribution chain and how products are sold by creating a superior customer relationship through their sales ceremony trained according to Louis Vuitton’s practices. Amongst many key takeaways from the entire learning, we have listed down some of the most important ones as part of the course on sales and distribution.

– Sales is about customer-relationship management

– Sales is persuasion

– Louis Vuitton has their own way of selling (selling ceremony)

– Products are not sold, instead customer needs are fulfilled

– Supply chain was the biggest challenge during the covid-induced pandemic (LV leveraged upon this)

Louis Vuitton experience is something which we would not forget and shall be etched in our hearts forever, both from the personal and professional front.