Sales Planning and Operations

Sales Planning and Operations
Individual assignment
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Inoka Gunarathne and Mr.Frank Gunasekara who gave me the possibility to complete this assignment and for the guidance and support they gave in preparation of this study. Especially, I would like to give my special thanks to my parents who enabled me to complete this work. However, it would not have been possible without the kind support and help from my friends. Last but not the least I would like to thank all our peers and staff at I.C.B.T and specially Mr.Dilum our coordinator who were ready to lend a hand in whatever way they can. I am making this project not only for marks but also to increase my knowledge. Thanks again to all who helped me.
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Executive summary
ABC is a DVD importing and distributing company which runs with an amount of 10 sales representatives, located in Sri Lanka. Within a short period of time (2 years) it has covered the some of the main cities in the country. Now the management has decided to make their sales activities more efficient than the existing system, in return of better profits. The company is trying to come up with an integrated marketing plan to support selling activities. In order to their corporate strategies, the company has revised its sales strategies to restructure the sales department, and to fill in the gaps by recruiting new candidates, motivate and train the staff and introduce packages to attract them and to keep them in the company for a long period of time. Databases of the company helps to keep potential customer details, to track the consumers buying behavior, patterns, and also the marketing research data which are more important to keep a good relationship with the customers. ABC has the potential to go to the global market with a collection of movies. It can start with some neighbor countries and then gradually expand it to a larger economy by joint ventures, direct stores or by e marketing strategies.
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Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Situational Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 5 SWOT .................................................................................................................................................. 5 Task 01 .................................................................................................................................................... 6 1.1 Use of Promotional mix to support Personal selling .............................................................. 6
1.2 Buyer behavior in relation to Purchase Decisions ........................................................................ 8 1.3 Role of sales team within the Marketing Strategy........................................................................ 9 Task 02 .................................................................................................................................................. 10 2.1 Revised Sales strategies in line with Corporate Objectives ........................................................ 10 What are ABCs Sales strategies?...................................................................................................... 10 2.2 ABC recruitment and selection procedure ................................................................................. 12 2.3 ABC Motivation and Training ...................................................................................................... 13 2.4 Sales management functions ...................................................................................................... 14 2.4.1 Sales structure...................................................................................................................... 14 2.4.2 Territorial design .................................................................................................................. 14 2.4.3 Sales targets ......................................................................................................................... 15 2.4.4 Sales records ........................................................................................................................ 15 2.4.5 Methods to control sales activities ...................................................................................... 15 2.5 Use of databases in setting Effective Sales management program ............................................ 16 2.6 Opportunities for selling internationally..................................................................................... 16 Benefits of international market................................................................................................... 17 Disadvantages of international market ........................................................................................ 17 2.7 Opportunities for using exhibitions to promote movie DVDs .................................................... 18 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 19 Recommendation.................................................................................................................................. 19 Reference .............................................................................................................................................. 20
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Introduction
ABC Company is located in St. Albans place, opposite majestic city Colombo 04, which distributes and imports DVDs and movies in the Sri Lankan market for almost 2 years now. Their movie range consist of childrens movies, Animation, family movies, comedy, documentary, drama, sports, TV shows, concerts, music, action and adventures. Currently 10 sales representatives cover one main city with one sales manager in the main head office. It is understood that its a difficult task to do. This is because the ABC Company has spread their sales in different locations in a short period of time. In the current situation there is a high competition for movie productions and distribution. Data shows that the Company doesnt use formal and planed sales strategies to carry out their sales properly and also that their strategies arent clear enough. Selling tasks are not properly organized, targets are not clearly defined, staff members dont meet often since there is no schedule, etc. First of all staff should be expanded and allocated efficiently before moving to the sales strategies. This report will further discuss about the recruitment and selection of strategies, introduction of packages for the staff, new designs, field visiting schedules, sales plans for the products and further business expanding Potentials in the international markets.
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Situational Analysis
SWOT
Staff with experience captured all the main cities in the country wide range of products
poor communication No clear schedules Weak sales strategies No clear plans
Increase in demand for animation movies International economies Potential to spread to the other provinces
Competition New entries Tax increments
Figure 1 - SWOT Analysis
The diagram above shows there are a lot of weaknesses than strengths in the internal environment of the ABC Company. So we should try to maintain strengths further and to minimize the weaknesses. When we take the external environment into consideration there are more opportunities to address than threats but should be prevented from the threats.
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Task 01
1.1 Use of Promotional mix to support Personal selling
Advertising
Sales promotions
Personal Selling
Direct marketing
Public relations
Figure 2 - Promotional mix
Advertising when ABC Organization needs to inform their latest products to public they use different advertising methods. TV advertisements, radio advertisements, newspapers, children magazines as well as posters, banners etc. when they do advertising they determine to reach large, geographically scattered audiences, high frequency rate of advertising, low cost per revelation products and mention the uniqueness of their brand name.
Personal selling When the ABC Organization is doing personnel selling they look consumer preferences, convictions and actions. They get the information from them by using their representatives.
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Sales promotion In sales promotion ABC Organization is using two main ways to promote their businesses. Promote shops Promote consumers When they promote shops they offer different discounts, premiums, free goods out of stocks and provide advertising stuffs. When ABC Organization promotes consumers, they offer coupons, and contests etc.
Public relations ABC Organization is doing many advertising campaigns to maximize and close to public relations. ABC Company is doing different events and contests to reach the customer satisfaction and public relations. This report is mentioned about public relations for further in next sub-topics.
Direct marketing ABC Organization generally use this system. They always try to increase market sales by selling their products directly to the customer.
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Sales Planning and Operations 1.2 Buyer behavior in relation to Purchase Decisions
As a competitive business Organization, ABC Organization has to understand their customers day to day preferences. So ABC Organization is using different techniques and strategies to understand their buyers behavior. Collecting details directly from customers. Collecting details from businesses (book shops, shop owners). By maintaining and using a customer care center. By keeping a long term customer database (as well as keeping financial records, shop details). Understanding the buyer behaviour is being used by ABC Organization sales force to increase the sales persuasion.
Children and family Geographic Region Size of city Demographic Age Kids and parents Sri Lanka Rural/Town
Documentary Sri Lanka Rural/Town
Gender Income
male/female All the income levels
Students, professionals (18 and above) male/female All the income levels Every types of social classes
Social class Behavioral Brand loyalty
Every types of social classes Existing and new customers last consumption
Existing and new customers last consumption
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Sales Planning and Operations 1.3 Role of sales team within the Marketing Strategy
To exist in this competitive market every organization has to do their task up to their best level. According to ABC Organization, there are few ways that they use to understand the customer buying behavior.
Training period for the employees. Send them for workshops. Conducting lectures to give a better knowledge of actually what they have to do.
ABC Organization uses these things to maximize their profits by selling their products as much they can. They use above mentioned tools to achieve their goals. Through the training method employees get to know how to react according to the customer. Customers are different from person to person. So the employees cant assume this customer would be like this and so. Employees should always fulfill their customers needs. Workshops are always giving them practical knowledge for their job. Everything cant get done by theoretical knowledge. Practical knowledge always gives the best result of the particular job. For an example sales persons should have better speaking ability to talk to customers. He/she needs to make the customer to buy the product. These kinds of things can be improved through workshops.
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Task 02
2.1 Revised Sales strategies in line with Corporate Objectives In today's economy, big and small businesses are seeking every occasion to win sales through competitive advantages. Qualified owners of businesses know a sales strategy can create a competitive advantage. Generally ABC Organization sets sales strategies from the advices of senior management and according to the corporate objectives as well as according to the position of product life cycle where they are in. Before explaining the sales and strategies, have to mention where ABC is in the product life cycle.
ABC Organization is representing a maturity level. In this level organizations need to avoid decline level as much as possible. So the organizations use different kind of strategies to exist in the market. What are ABCs Sales strategies? Putting a shopping cart in their website. Hiring top sales people. Collecting information and maintaining a database. Build relationship with their consumers.
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In an organization corporate objective is divided into three such as production objectives, marketing objectives, and HR objectives. According to the ABC corporate objectives above strategies are also divided into three.
Corporate Objectives
HR Objectives
*Hiring people. only top sales
Product objectivs
* by preserving a fixed price with suppliers.
Marketing objectives
*Putting a shopping cart in website. *collecting information and hiring people. *Build relationships with buyers.
ABC sales strategies should be revised according to the day to day situations, corporate objectives and also according to the position that they reach in product life cycle. ABC has to change their product objective strategies when the product objective changes such as fluctuation of material costs, fluctuations of supply and demand etc. Their Marketing objective strategies change when the marketing objectives change such as if they willing to go to the new market, if they want to increase the market share and also if they want to increase the sales volume etc. Their HR objective strategies change when the HR objectives change such as when increase the wages or decrease, when cutting head counts or recruit people and also when new opportunity arises etc. As I mention above ABC is using different sales strategies. Excluding those strategies they use TV advertisements, radio advertisements, newspaper advertisements etc. And also they export products and import materials. Through that they try to get absolute advantage and comparative advantage rather than the other organizations.
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Sales Planning and Operations 2.2 ABC recruitment and selection procedure ABC uses different ways to approach recruitment and selection.
Human resource planning first ABC plan their human resource to plan the future expectations. Job analysis ABC Organization analyses their jobs before identify job descriptions. They identify the initial requirements, duties and responsibilities etc. Identify job vacancies then ABC tries to find scant job vacancies. Evaluation of the sources of labour ABC evaluates how many labours are scared for the new posts and try to find where they can get the qualified labours. Advertising When the ABC needs to recruit more employees they use different strategies. They mainly use newspaper advertisements, TV advertisements, and radio advertisements. They use This methods because, Frequency rate is high. The type and number of readers high.
Processing applications then ABC process applications which are suitable for posts. Notifying applicants after notifying applicants ABC prepare to select them according to their different skills which are suitable to different posts. ABC uses two main selection methods. Application forms. The selection interviews.
Success of the sales force is the selection of the effective representatives and it is a great waste if hired the wrong people.
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Sales Planning and Operations 2.3 ABC Motivation and Training
Employees can be motivated through satisfying their needs. That doesnt mean we have give whatever they request. But up to some extent we have to fulfill their needs. According to the ABC Organization they use few strategies to motivate their subordinates.
Overtime bonuses. Bonuses for New Year season and Christmas season. Allowances for each and every employee after one year. Giving allowance for their effort.
Employees are getting motivated above stated reasons. For an example if one employee has done his job than we expected. So that makes our productivity high and we are giving an allowance for his effort and to appreciate his work. So the employees automatically will motivate. Remuneration and training also play a huge role in sales performance. Through training and development also we can increase our sales performance. As a large scale organization when we recruit people we are training them according to their positions. If we recruit a person to fill up the sales persons position we are giving a one month training to improve their skills such as to get customers attention towards hi m, presentation skills and etc. so that will be an effective when they communicate with our customers. And also we give them a reasonable salary for the job they have done. Without giving them a fair enough salary they employees wont work up to their best level. So to avoid that we are used to give them bonus.
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Sales Planning and Operations 2.4 Sales management functions 2.4.1 Sales structure
Sales manager
Supervisor01
Supervisor 02
Supervisor 03
03
Supervisor 04
Field Reps 06
Field Reps 06
Field Reps 06
Inside sales force 02
Distributors 03
Figure 3 - Structure of Sales department
Head of sales department - Sales manager. Three spans of control, where easy to communicate and control. Under the managers - Four sales supervisors, 1st, 2nd and 3rd are monitoring the 18 geographical sales representatives while the 4th supervisor monitoring the 2 inside sales force as well as 3 distributors. 2.4.2 Territorial design 01.
Sales supervisor 6 sales reps
Figure 4 - Territorial designs
02.
03.
Each and every territory includes 1 sales supervisor and 6 sales representatives and 6 cities covered by the each team. One territory has to cover 1200 target of DVDs.
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Sales Planning and Operations 2.4.3 Sales targets
Targets are given to the inside sales reps and the outside sales reps as a control of sales activities. It encourages sales force to achieve more. 200 DVDs = Inside telemarketers 200 DVDs = Geographical sales reps These targets are given on monthly basis. It increases with the experience.
2.4.4 Sales records All the sales people inside and outside should record their daily sales in their own data bases and should be reported to the supervisors for the evaluation purposes.
2.4.5 Methods to control sales activities Daily sales summary should be e- mailed on the same day or before 8.00 am on next day to convince the office staff of recording them in the databases. All employees should cover their sales costs as per stated and this will reduce the sales expenses and increase the profits. Targets increases commissions to the sales reps as encouragement and also to increase the sales of the organization. Sales would be analyze daily, monthly and yearly to define the revenues, expenses and profits. Train the sales force to improve customer service, cash registers, presentation skills, selling methods to gain more sales. End of the month sales reps should be attend to the meetings with top management and show their performance in detailed. This will enable to identify the best performances and seen them, others also will be keen on their performances.
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2.5 Use of databases in setting Effective Sales management program A database is a collection of information which is available on past and current customers together with future prospect, build to allow for implementation of effective marketing strategies. Database marketing is a customer oriented approach. It is only possible if modern ICT is used and it enables the company to do three things. 1. Companys target audience 2. Further demand 3. Close customer relationship Keeping a record of customers and of all communication and commercial contacts helps to improve all future contact. The database may be used to meet a variety of objectives such as focusing on prime prospects, evaluating new prospect, cross-selling related products, launching new products to potential customers and identifying new distribution channels. Therefore customer database is an asset to the organization to improve their customer satisfaction and to deliver best products and services to the customer. An effective database can provide important management information such as, Usage patterns and contacts of customers Evaluations of marketing activities, for example response rates Segmentation analysis to ensure accurate targeting Update market research information
The database should not be seen as a tool simply to generate the one-off sale, requiring the marketing effort to be re-engaged time and time again. The reason for this is simple; it is four times more expensive to win a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. 2.6 Opportunities for selling internationally Entertainment is a want of customers to satisfy in their leisure/free time. ABC can go internationally by first entering the neighbor country India, Then gradually expand the Organization to larger economies such as United Kingdom, U.S.A, Japan and China. Because of the high population with more young/entertaining minds, can be an advantage to fix a good international market.
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Today 95% of the population uses the world wide web. When it comes to the advertising stream, internet can reach a large number of audience more cheaper. It is much easier to satisfy the international customers by having a web site which provides customers with all the ranges of DVDs and upcoming movie DVDs. Then later on there will be a customer tail and company should arrange a delivery channel in order to meets the customer requirements, and most importantly it should be very fast and trustable for the both parties. Simply Master cards, VISA cards and Pay Pal can use as payment methods. Opening branches in different locations is another good way to promote the business in international market, but when you considering the cost and the legal boundaries that is abit difficult way to take business into international level.
Benefits of international market Economies of scale in distribution and production. Lower marketing cost. Benefits of E-Marketing over traditional selling. Organization can try to get absolute and comparative advantage.
Disadvantages of international market Differences in buyer needs and wants, and usage patterns for goods. Discrepancies in customer response to marketing mix factors. Discrepancies in brand and product enlargement and the competitive environment. Changes in the legal environment.
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Sales Planning and Operations 2.7 Opportunities for using exhibitions to promote movie DVDs
Exhibitions are where lots of sellers meet lots of buyers at a place and these are not held very often, once a year or so. If there are exhibitions for DVDs it will offer opportunities such as Increase the customer tail, because a larger proportion of the population visits exhibitions and it will go in word of mouth as well. This helps to communicate the products for the target market easily as it is a mass promotion. Some times when a discount, product bundle and free try on products are offered it helps to sell more and promote at the same place. Help to research competitors, their products, prices and their strengths and weaknesses which indicate the threats and opportunities to address and prevent. Thus exhibitions are also an attractive method of communication and selling product and services.
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Conclusion
In this assignment I have included sales strategies, sales recruitment and selection procedure, strategies for training, motivation and remuneration, and also types of the personal selling of the ABC Company. Sales management functions should be efficient in restructure the sales structure, territories and the sales should be budgeted to start at the beginning. In order to have a quality sales force organization should motivate them by financial and nonfinancial rewards such as proper training and attractive compensation packages. And these sales activities should be control to save time, unnecessary expenses of selling and to increase profits.
Recommendation
If the ABC Company chooses an International market its worth using indirect export system. Its very cost effective to a company because no need to open showrooms and hire sales people etc. And also company can spread their goodwill through their brand name in the world among other kind of productions
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Reference
anon. (). Personal selling. Available: http://www.enotes.com/small-business-
encyclopedia/personal-selling. Last accessed 10th Dec 2012. anon. (). marketing promotionpersonal selling. Available:
http://tutor2u.net/business/marketing/promotion_personalselling.asp. Last accessed 10th Dec 2012. anon. (). marketing communications. Available:
http://www.davedolak.com/promix.htm. Last accessed 18th Dec 2012. anon. (). Top eight marketing and sales stratergies. Available:
http://www.businessknowhow.com/marketing/top8mark.htm.Last accessed 11th Dec 2012. anon. (). Sales strategy creates competitive advantage. Available:
http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/sales/a/aa111002a.htm. Last accessed 15th Dec 2012.
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