Deck 11: Changing World of Sales Management

Question 1

ALLIANCE ADHESIVES PLASTICS, INC.
Background
As one of four regional sales managers for Alliance Adhesives and Plastics, Inc., you have just received summary details from a study of the company's national field salesforce. The study was done at the request of the vice president for sales and marketing and used a variety of assess­ment tools to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company's 97 salespeople located across the United States. Based on these results, the vice president for sales and marketing has assigned your four-person regional managers team the task to develop a step- by-step program that will move the company forward toward a revitalized and more effective salesforce.
In response to the company's new marketing strategy designed to "get close to the customer," the salesforce was completely reorganized a little over four years ago, moving from a strictly geographic-based territory system to a specialized selling force organized around the different served markets. As a result of the reorganization and transformation of the company's salespeople into a salesforce specialized around served markets, definite improvements were realized in account penetration and customer retention. Nevertheless, spot checks randomly made across various customers indicate that there is still much room for improvement. Customer satisfaction levels are still low, and the company has some difficulty keeping good accounts.
Current Situation
Customers give Alliance salespeople strong marks for product knowledge-probably a reflection of the existing training program, which has intensive initial and recurrent training on the wide variety of products offered. Suprisingly, while customers rate the salespeople high for their product knowledge, they also indicate that Alliance salespeople appear somewhat arrogant and self-centered. Many of the responses show that, overall, the salesforce does not care about the customer and does not attempt to pressure and persuade buyers rather than offering creative or customized product solutions.
What changes in sales management leadership would you suggest? Why?

Answer 1

Sales management leadership is a combination of sales management and sales leadership.
Sales management gives weightage to planning, implementation, and control of sales management process. However, sales leadership emphasize on those activities, that influence others, to achieve shared goals, and to develop an organization.
Following changes can be made in the Sales management leadership :
• Various styles of leadership such as transactional leadership and transformation leadership can be emphasized.
A transaction leadership gives importance to the use of rewards, and punishments, that are incorporated as per the employee's job performance.
A transformation leadership concentrates on hiring inspiring employees that engage in certain behaviors, and perform exceptionally well.
• Viewing the sales leadership carefully : Companies could focus on the relationship between the sales manager, and the salespeople. When a sales manager and the salespeople have strong relationship, it creates a positive impact on salespeople's job satisfaction, Goal commitment etc.
• Analysis of important dimensions: The important aspects of transformational leadership such as setting a vision, emerging as a role model or providing intellectual motivation could be analyzed thoroughly.

Question 2

ALLIANCE ADHESIVES PLASTICS, INC.
Background
As one of four regional sales managers for Alliance Adhesives and Plastics, Inc., you have just received summary details from a study of the company's national field salesforce. The study was done at the request of the vice president for sales and marketing and used a variety of assess­ment tools to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company's 97 salespeople located across the United States. Based on these results, the vice president for sales and marketing has assigned your four-person regional managers team the task to develop a step- by-step program that will move the company forward toward a revitalized and more effective salesforce.
In response to the company's new marketing strategy designed to "get close to the customer," the salesforce was completely reorganized a little over four years ago, moving from a strictly geographic-based territory system to a specialized selling force organized around the different served markets. As a result of the reorganization and transformation of the company's salespeople into a salesforce specialized around served markets, definite improvements were realized in account penetration and customer retention. Nevertheless, spot checks randomly made across various customers indicate that there is still much room for improvement. Customer satisfaction levels are still low, and the company has some difficulty keeping good accounts.
Current Situation
Customers give Alliance salespeople strong marks for product knowledge-probably a reflection of the existing training program, which has intensive initial and recurrent training on the wide variety of products offered. Suprisingly, while customers rate the salespeople high for their product knowledge, they also indicate that Alliance salespeople appear somewhat arrogant and self-centered. Many of the responses show that, overall, the salesforce does not care about the customer and does not attempt to pressure and persuade buyers rather than offering creative or customized product solutions.
Based on the information given, what are the major problems facing the sales organization?

Answer 2

The current sales organization often faces major problem. Following are mentioned below:
• It is often seen that salesperson does not take efforts, to resolve the customer's complaints. They often show lax attitude in addressing the customer's problem. For example , late delivery of products, damaged merchandise or invoice errors.
• Salesforce does not attempt or even take out time to fully explore, and understand the customer's problems or new applications, that require novel solutions.
• Salesperson attempts to pressurize and persuade buyers, rather than offering creative or customized product solutions.

Question 3

ALLIANCE ADHESIVES PLASTICS, INC.
Background
As one of four regional sales managers for Alliance Adhesives and Plastics, Inc., you have just received summary details from a study of the company's national field salesforce. The study was done at the request of the vice president for sales and marketing and used a variety of assess­ment tools to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company's 97 salespeople located across the United States. Based on these results, the vice president for sales and marketing has assigned your four-person regional managers team the task to develop a step- by-step program that will move the company forward toward a revitalized and more effective salesforce.
In response to the company's new marketing strategy designed to "get close to the customer," the salesforce was completely reorganized a little over four years ago, moving from a strictly geographic-based territory system to a specialized selling force organized around the different served markets. As a result of the reorganization and transformation of the company's salespeople into a salesforce specialized around served markets, definite improvements were realized in account penetration and customer retention. Nevertheless, spot checks randomly made across various customers indicate that there is still much room for improvement. Customer satisfaction levels are still low, and the company has some difficulty keeping good accounts.
Current Situation
Customers give Alliance salespeople strong marks for product knowledge-probably a reflection of the existing training program, which has intensive initial and recurrent training on the wide variety of products offered. Suprisingly, while customers rate the salespeople high for their product knowledge, they also indicate that Alliance salespeople appear somewhat arrogant and self-centered. Many of the responses show that, overall, the salesforce does not care about the customer and does not attempt to pressure and persuade buyers rather than offering creative or customized product solutions.
What changes in the recruiting and selection of salespeople would you suggest? Why?

Answer 3

In this day and age of competitive environment, various changes have taken place in the recruitment and selection of salespeople.
Following changes can be suggested and they are mentioned below:
• Companies can adopt internal recruitment method for hiring the salesperson. This method is quite cost-effective, and fewer resources are required to recruit the candidate. Moreover, it helps in internal growth of a company.
• Companies can focus more on attitude than a skill, while selecting the candidate. This is so because, skills can be taught but attitude can't be changed. Attitude plays a key role in sales jobs, as salespersons are the only intermediary between the company, and the customers.
• Selecting the quality candidates helps in preventing the costly turnover of staff, and increases the likeliness of high- employee morale and productivity.

Question 4

ALLIANCE ADHESIVES PLASTICS, INC.
Background
As one of four regional sales managers for Alliance Adhesives and Plastics, Inc., you have just received summary details from a study of the company's national field salesforce. The study was done at the request of the vice president for sales and marketing and used a variety of assess­ment tools to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company's 97 salespeople located across the United States. Based on these results, the vice president for sales and marketing has assigned your four-person regional managers team the task to develop a step- by-step program that will move the company forward toward a revitalized and more effective salesforce.
In response to the company's new marketing strategy designed to "get close to the customer," the salesforce was completely reorganized a little over four years ago, moving from a strictly geographic-based territory system to a specialized selling force organized around the different served markets. As a result of the reorganization and transformation of the company's salespeople into a salesforce specialized around served markets, definite improvements were realized in account penetration and customer retention. Nevertheless, spot checks randomly made across various customers indicate that there is still much room for improvement. Customer satisfaction levels are still low, and the company has some difficulty keeping good accounts.
Current Situation
Customers give Alliance salespeople strong marks for product knowledge-probably a reflection of the existing training program, which has intensive initial and recurrent training on the wide variety of products offered. Suprisingly, while customers rate the salespeople high for their product knowledge, they also indicate that Alliance salespeople appear somewhat arrogant and self-centered. Many of the responses show that, overall, the salesforce does not care about the customer and does not attempt to pressure and persuade buyers rather than offering creative or customized product solutions.
What changes in sales training would you suggest? Why?