Lava goes directly to retailers to slug it out in the market

With the growing influence of Chinese mobile phone companies' over the offline distribution channel in the country, Indian handset maker Lava is adopting a 'direct to retailer' model.

The company says it is building an army of at least 700 personnel to monitor the market by directly touching some 100,000 outlets that sell Lava phones.

This sales force is to visit every retail outlet at least twice a month, checking stock levels and brand visibility. Lava says it aims to, in this way, dispose of any conflict with its retailers within 10 days. Typically, consumer companies monitor their retail operations through their