Tutorial 1 & 2
Chapter 1 Introduction to Sales Management and Its Evolving Roles
A) Essay Questions
1) According to Johnston & Marshall (2010), there are 5 variables in the internal
environment of an organization. Name and discuss these variables. (20%)
I. Goals, objectives and culture: Sales management is about managing customer
relationships. A successful customer relationship management starts with top
management’s specification of the company’s mission & objectives to create a
customer centric organization. Different mission and objectives, different
approaches in managing customer relationships and hence different corporate
culture.
ii. Human Resources
- Complex organizations + key success factors in relationship selling
=> challenging for sales organizations
- Recruiting highly qualified salespeople + lengthy training programs
to train up new salespeople => difficult to expand a sales force quick
enough to respond the changes in the market
- Outside agencies & specialies – possible?
iii. Financial resources.
- Financial strength influencing the customer relationship initiatives – how?
- Merging with other firms
iv. Production & supply chain capabilities
- Availability of these capabilities influencing the relationship selling
initiatives – how?
v. Service Capabilities
- Ability to deliver high level of service quality
- Why important?
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vi. R&D and technological capabilities
- The main determinant if the company an industry leader or follower
in both the development of value-adding products and high quality
service delivery
- Can be a major promotional appeat in the firm’s marketing and sales
program – customers are attracted to innovators and industry leaders
– how? Why?
2) Assume you are the sales manager for your college or university (at universities
sales management is often part of admissions, recruitment and development
departments). Describe existing or plausible changes in the school's external
environment including at least one possible change for each of the five categories
of external factors.
Answers will vary but should include an example of changing economic, natural,
social and cultural, technical and legal, political and ethical environmental factors.
a) Economic:
people and organizations cannot buy goods and services unless they have the
money. The total potential demand for the product depends on that country’s
economic conditions. Besides, it is also crucial for companies to evaluate the
economic conditions of the county they are venturing into. Inflation rates, exchange
rates are some of the important economic factors to consider. Another critical
economic factor to consider is the amount of competition in the industry, in terms of
the market attractiveness of these companies as well as the number of the
competitors in the industry.
b) Legal & political:
Laws governing the conduct of education institutions in the country
Misrepresentation issue
New laws requiring international students to go through agents in getting their visas
and all relevant documentations – slower down the processing – students switch to
other countries
c) Technological:
Technology influences sales strategies as well as the firm’s capability to effectively
sell. How?
Students’/staff’s portal for effective and efficient communication
Using technology to capture market share: use of technology in classroom
activities, students’ activities etc.
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d) Social & cultural
Values of the society affect marketing and sales programs. Firms developing new
products in response to trend in consumer tastes and preferences. Demographic
changes? – used to have peer influence in choosing the preferred institutions, now?
Integrity of the company – important – make and keep promises – build a reserve of
trust. It is the basis of trust so that the customers can have the trust in the quality of
education you are giving them.
e) Natural
Natural influences demand for many products. Natural disasters eg floods. Is your
campus in the flooded area?
Venturing out – natural environment impacting your decisions?
B) ETHICAL DILEMMA
You’re the sales manager for a large chemical company, and you have reason to
suspect that one of your top salespeople isn’t always playing by the rules. You know
that occasionally Jared has taken friends out to lunch and charged it to the company.
At other times, you’ve caught him conducting personal business on company time
with company resources (long-distance telephone calls and charging car mileage to
the company for personal business and pleasure). At the end of last year, you
discovered that Jared had persuaded one of his best customers to order extra product
quantities so he could make his sales quota for the year. In mid-January, that
customer returned the excess products for a full refund.
You’ve overlooked these things in the past because of the large sales volume Jared
usually generates in his sales territory. One evening, though, on your way out of the
office, you overhear a conversation between Jared and another of your salespeople.
Jared comments: “I personally think it’s okay to withhold negative information
about a product in order to make a big sale, as long as no one can get injured by
using the product. Things are getting really tough in our industry—if you’re going to
survive, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get a sale!”
Teaching Notes
Solutions provided by the instructor to ethical dilemmas such as the one above can
be readily questioned because what constitutes an unethical situation to one
individual may be an ethical issue to another. Hence, because the answer largely
depends on a person’s ethical value system, it is best to discuss the ethical dilemma
as an in-class exercise. After having students read the ethical dilemma, open it up for
class discussion. This should get the students actively involved in the learning
process.
Based on the above viewpoints, it should be noted that, although answers to the
exercise are provided, there are several approaches that can be employed to handle
an administrative/ethical issue.
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Question
As Jared’s sales manager, what would you do? Should you reprimand him, retrain
him, or fire him? Why?
Even with all the attention on corporate and sales ethics in the popular press, it may
be best to continue to adopt the policy of non-interference as long as the top
salesperson keeps his record of high performance. It would be unwise to challenge
a top salesperson with small matters such as making occasional private phone calls
or taking a friend out for lunch, especially when the salesperson is contributing
large sales volume to the company.
The job of a salesperson is selling, which by definition is a process of persuasion
communication. So it is not surprising to find that some salespeople sometimes
withhold certain information about a product in order to move customers toward
the purchase. Whether or not this is a good long-run selling strategy for a
salesperson should be the subject of discussion by the students. It is important
for the instructor to avoid being prematurely judgmental in listening to the
comments of the students. It’s far better to let fellow students point out logical or
philosophical flaws in the ethical reasoning, or lack thereof, by other students.
With diverse cultural and experience backgrounds, each student has his or her own
value system, so the value of ethical discussions is that students hear the various
perspectives on given situations or issues.
C) ASSIGNMENT QUESTION
Tutor / subject instructor discuss assignment both assignment questions with students.
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