Today’s Sales visit with Nalin to a prospective franchisee in Sikar is a prime example of the previously discussed (see my post, Foreseen Barriers, on 7/9) barriers of inefficiency for which I must compensated.

From the Sarvajal office, our journey consisted of the following:
  • 2 hour bus ride to Sikar City,
  • 30 minute wait for a van to arrive that would drive us to the rural location
  • An additional 30 minutes to wait for delivery of the van’s unique natural compressed gas it required for fuel
  • 1 hour drive in the van to the location
  • 30 minute stop in the middle of the van trip because the radiator was overheating, which eventually led in an attempted road-side repair resulting in hot engine coolant spraying everywhere and significantly burning our driver’s arm. He promptly purchase/applied some “medical soap” in a nearby village, put tap water into the radiator, and completed our trip
I have listed out the details of this 4.5 hour trip to highlight three things:
  1. The chaotic nature of India
  2. General time consumption of simple business tasks
  3. The ebb and flow of chaos in India; after speaking with my Sarvajal colleagues, they did not view the events of the day as particularly notable or absurd. As previously stated, I will avoid such delays to the greatest degree of my management abilities, but need to plan for such unexpected events nonetheless. I will also be looking into the budgetary possibilities of supplying company-owned transportation to the Sales team such as motorcycles and cars, or simply expanding the size of the team if needed.



Regardless, the site visit was successful as the prospective franchisee was properly equipped, well located, and had a business background in the area he planned to open up the franchise. We got back to the Sarvajal office at 11:30 later that night exhausted, but having completed the task at hand.