Transport Corporation of India (A): The Cross-selling Conundrum

Transport Corporation of India was a logistics company that provided multi-modal transport solutions to its customers. Set up in 1958, TCI had grown from a 'one man, one truck, one office' set-up to a company with revenues of $400 million in half a century. TCI's growth had been assisted by the creation of individual divisions that provided specialized services to its clients—Freight, Express, Supply Chain Solutions, Seaways and Global. In 2012, the company renewed it efforts to foster cross-selling across the divisions with the hope that this would increase customer-stickiness and foster growth. However, as the company tried to push the cross-selling agenda across its various divisions, it faced myriad issues. It needed to educate its divisional sales-staff about the services provided by divisions other than their own; to motivate them to cross-sell; and to create intra-division confidence to facilitate cross-selling. While the Joint Managing director, Vineet Agarwal, under the guidance of his father D.P. Agarwal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, TCI, and in conjunction with TCI's Executive Committee, had introduced initiatives like training across divisions, competitions on cross-selling, and tracking of cross-selling leads, he was not sure that these were enough. Were there other ways in which TCI could successfully cross-sell? Could they put in place a system that specifically incentivized cross-sales to motivate sales staff? The (A) case focuses on TCI's cross-selling efforts and the strategic decisions before it. Cases (B), (C), and (D) discuss specific situations that demonstrate issues related to the cross-selling initiative.