THE CHALLENGE
Management decision
Three distributors requested national exclusivity; each claimed strong reach, but their actual capabilities and conflicts differed.
CONSTRAINTS
What made the decision difficult
- Opaque end-customer access
- Competing principals
- National reach difficult to verify
- Exclusivity creates lock-in
- Technical service capability mattered
TIMELINE
8–12 weeks
Staged so management can stop, modify or increase commitment as evidence improves.
EXPECTED JOURNEY
Evidence → decision → execution
Diagnose uncertainty, validate it in India, make an explicit investment gate, then execute the approved next stage.
Solution design
- Define partner scorecard
- Build independent candidate universe
- Validate customer references
- Map competing principals/conflicts
- Assess technical/service capability
- Financial/legal diligence
- Run non-exclusive pilot with KPIs
KPIs
Verified customer references
Target-account coverage
Qualified pipeline
Response/service SLA
Conflict score
Pilot conversion
End execution plan
- Weeks 1–3: universe and evidence
- Weeks 4–6: interviews/references
- Weeks 7–8: diligence
- Weeks 9–12: pilot design and commercial terms
- 90-day pilot before any exclusivity decision
Government / regulatory / legal
- MCA/GST and corporate status checks
- Competition/agency/distributor legal terms
- Anti-bribery and sanctions screening as appropriate
- Tax/PE implications of agency arrangements
- Exclusivity, termination, IP and customer ownership reviewed
Control: applicability must be confirmed for the actual product, activity, entity, state and transaction by the appropriate qualified specialist/authority.
END RESULT
Decision state
A partner decision based on demonstrated capability and a measurable pilot
IMPACT
Why it matters
Evidence before exclusivity.