India is the 2nd largest smoking market in the world consuming 950 billions sticks per year. e.g.

biddies, cigarettes, cigar etc.

India consume 102 billions cigarettes per year .

The cigarettes industry in India is growing at the rate of 3.5% per year.

NTC has a sales turnover of INR 50,000 million & 50% market share. In India, four major producer of cigarette , marketing over 160 brands across the countries , 45 brands come from NTC. NTC provide wide product spectrum offering varied prices, quality & sophistication to suit the different taste and income level. NTC mainly focus on brand management supported by an effective, efficient and innovative distribution chain.

The management of NTC has identified three different goals for the distribution of supply chain:

To make available 45 SKUs at the 1 million outlets to search 50 million smokers. To ensure freshness of stocks- product shelf life 2 months. Operating a cost-effective logistic supply chain.

Manufacturing Plant

Contract Manufacturers

C & F Godowns

Dealers

Wholesalers

Retailers

Consumers

The dealers place the order on branch office. The Branch Office consolidates the dealers requirement, which is conveyed to Marketing HO and the branch office draws the requirement from the factory.
Branch Stock requirements Orders on factories

Dealer

Marketing HO Consolidate Requirement Manufacturing Programme

Factories

Materials

Yes, agreed with the proposals. Increase the no. of transportation medium. Recruit more people for collection of payments. Holding the inventory for less time, maximum for 6 days.

For maintaining the right balance between high and low inventory to minimize cost.

Planning on what inventory to stock and how to acquire it

Forecasting parts/product demand

Controlling inventory levels

Feedback measurement to revised plans and forecasts

No, because they have a good supply chain of their own. The total process is under their own control. Third party service provider may lead to increase the cost and damages.

In order to meet the requirement of the channel members we should implement proper:
Distribution system Transportation medium More capacity of godowns

We pointed out the following limitations:

Dealer can provide manipulated information to the company. There is no direct link between wholesales and company, therefore the wholesalers are not aware of the company policies.