Customer Focus Program (CFP) in a Regulation-Constrained Category: A Field-Based Qualitative Study of Distribution and Merchandising Execution in India's Organized Cigarette Trade

Purpose: In categories where mass advertising and open promotion are legally prohibited, the sales and distribution system becomes the main route through which a firm can express customer orientation. This paper examines how a Customer Focus Program (CFC) operates at the point of sale in the cigarette sales and distribution network of a large Indian fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) organisation. Design/methodology/approach: The study is a descriptive, qualitative, field-observation-based case study conducted over a two-month period (15 May to 15 July 2026) in the Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) territory of Maharashtra. Observations were recorded during accompanied market visits across convenience, grocery, wholesale, sub-wholesale, stockist, moped and van direct-selling channels, using a four-field recording format (objective, activity observed, practical observation, relevance to customer focus). Observations were mapped to an Availability–Visibility–Freshness (AVF) framework and to an eight-step CFC field-execution flow. Findings: Four findings emerge. (1) Availability is produced by layered, complementary coverage formats rather than by any single actor. (2) Effective execution must be segment-aware and margin-aware, because retailers' stocking and promotion choices respond jointly to product segment and trade pricing structure. (3) Merchandising and planogram discipline is the primary visibility lever when above-the-line promotion is unavailable. (4) The salesman–retailer relationship is the mechanism that sustains the program. Originality/value: The paper offers a field-grounded account of customer orientation as enacted at the last mile in a heavily regulated category, an area where the marketing-channels and customer-orientation literatures rarely meet. It proposes a conceptual framework linking channel layering, segment-and-margin awareness, compliant merchandising and relationship quality to retailer-level and consumer-level outcomes, and sets out testable propositions. Research limitations: Single territory, short observation window, no survey or proprietary performance data; findings are analytically transferable, not statistically generalisable. Keywords: customer focus; trade marketing; sales and distribution; retail execution; merchandising; regulated categories; FMCG; India