Sales Cultures at Tickford Flexible Products and Samuel Jones Ltd - Assignment Example

Student name Course name Name of instruction Instructor’s name Date submission 1. Comparison between sales cultures at Tickford flexible products and Samuel Jones Ltd, “buyout” of SamuelJones by Tickford Tickford Flexible Products Ltd. Primarily focused on making sales towards an industrial market. These products are rubber materials, that is, itproduced raw materials for other companies. On the other hand, Samuel Jones Limited, which targeted sales towards the consumer market, and that is, the goods it produced were ready for consumer consumption[Duk09]. These included shoes, ladies handbags, travel goods and eventually sports shoes. Samuel Jones used to pay a commission on top of the salary for every good sold by their sales persons. This strategy motivated the sales personnel to be vigilant and purchasea lot of goods that in turn lead to high returns for the company[Ran07]. On the other hand, tickford flexible products only paid its sales personnel salary only since it markets are companies that required raw materials and so it did not require that much involvement of sales staff. Samuel Jones marketing and selling strategy required their sales staff to move into the field meet customers, market their products and sell the products to them. This face to face marketing and selling strategy helped in creating a good relationship with customers and helped maintain customers for a long time leading to more sales and thus real profits[Ing06]. On the other hand, Tickford flexible did not require field sales personnel since it produced goods that were for industrial use. The sales staff worked from the office. The appropriateness of the new sales structure Looking at the new sales structure for Tickton-Jones I feel it is going to work well for both the organization and its customers. The marketing department that is led by Jack Simpson as the director has four departments namely; industrial products department, distribution department, administration department and consumer products department. Each one of this department has a manager and its sales personnel. With this, there is a good chance of developing trust among employees[Raz03]. With this new structure, duties are well distributed among the departments. Every department has its particular goods it markets and sales. This makes it easier for the management to monitor the performance of every staff and how fast an individual product is selling[Hes04]. This new strategy also makes it easy for customers to know which department to get the product they want. It also helps create apersonal relationship with loyal customers. In addition, in case of a complaint by a customer, it is easy and fast for the customer to get the assistance he or she requires[Ahl04]. 2. Conversation between David Courtney and Romano Pitesti Thisconversion is about accusations made towards Romano by other employees. Romano always reports to work late and parks his vehicle wrongly. Also in mismanaging his time, using work time to play golf and mismanaging the companies’ resources, that is, he uses the company’s vehicle to carry voters. David talks to him to make him change these behaviors and start working with other employees. Romano defends himself and says that he does all these for the good of the company. Behavioral issues and actions for David Courtney David courtesy proves that he is a good sales manager by summoning Romano for questioning after he received the accusation made by other collogues. By askingRomano, he shows Romano that if even he is the best sales person the company has he should follow the rules and guidelines of the company. Behavioral issues and actions for Romano Romano is a very skilled sales person. He always meets the company’s target. Since he believes he is the best the company has he is arrogant. He reports to work late and parks his vehicle where he pleases. This kind of behaviors is not acceptable in any company. This kind of practices gets one into trouble with their bosses and colleagues. David Courtney sales management abilities From the conversation David’s management abilities seem to be wanting owing to a variety of reasons most visibly is how he handles the responses from Romano. David seems to understand his management roles in theory, but implementation seems to evade when dealing with Romano. David seems to be keen in assessing how his sales representativesuse time and even their location that is part of his managerial duty in organizing the sales representatives. However, when he comes to confront Romano, on the issue of time wasting, for instance, he does not exercise that authority and is too easily shot down by the responses. Romano is guilty of too high claims for replacement of damaged clothing compared to other company employees. With this in mind, David still fails to handle the situation as an account manager by backing down after asking about it. You get the feel that after that conversation, Romano will stick to the same trend if not in a more severe level. David questions Romano on the issue of misusing the company’s car. Again David fails to deal with the situation after Romano claims a similar evil done by Bill Thompson, the production manager. Two wrong do not make a right, and so David fails in his duty that time. Romano Pitesti salesperson abilities Eve though most of his colleagues do not like him, Romano is still a great salesperson. It may not be easy to work with him with or even to deal with as a senior, but there is no doubt that he is a real salesperson. Romano has masterfully grasped the art of personal selling. From the conversation, he claims to have gone as early as 6.00 AM to meet with a customer. This is a highlight of his enthusiastic approach towards generating revenue for the company that is the ultimate purpose of his employment. The fact that he feels that very few or none of the other employees would be willing to do the same. It shows that this is not a culture he has adopted through the company and its working environment, but it’s something he innately has. He also uses a personal selling strategy that most of the other employees don’t. This process gains committed customers who will remain as customers for a long time and these generates a lot of returns to the company[Rix01][Woo08]. Moreover, Romano seems to be dedicated to establishing a relationship with customers on the individual level. This is a plus on his salesperson beliefs because it contrasts the negative attitude towards sales people who are more viewed as being inhumane in their sales approach. And treat everything as a transaction and not as a dealing with another human being first. Romano claims to have played golf with a certain Arthur Dixon, the purchasing manager at Singleton and also believes to be close to getting into business with them. Romano has another golf game that he is going to play to build a good relationship with Author, who is a customer. These helps in building a good relationship with the client. Romano can persuade Author Dixon more effectively face to face. Talking face to face with customers enables a salesperson to be able to convince the customer to buy their products more efficiently[Sha13][Fut93]. Despite the alleged inability to keep time and even waste time, it is clear that Romano still strives for maximum productivity for the time he does work. Getting sales and other duties done at the end of the day is the goal. He affirms this by boldly stating that he is the best sales representative in that company. He further goes on to mention how none of the customers have ever complained about him and how he never fails to meet targets set for him by the company. He can communicate with the customers well, and he presents himself well before the customers. These ability to communicate with customers effectively enables the customers to trust the sales person and thus purchases the product he or she is selling[Ing06]. Implications of their behaviors Romano may be a good sales person, but his conduct within the company may prove to be problematic for the company in future. He seems to be untouchable on themerit of his sales performance and the fact that he knows he is a valuable asset for the company seems to fuel his misconduct further. This may ultimately in one way or another lead to a lot of disharmony in the company due to the friction. This will then reduce their productivity. If Romano does not change his bad behavior, it may lead to his sucking. Sucking Romano would lead to loss of customers since he has developed a good relationship with the customers. The customers would luck someoneto connect with and trust at the company[Bal05]. They would either stop a customer from buying or also it may make a customer look for another person within the company to relate at a personal level. In doing this, the company would lose some significant amount of its revenue. 3. Action plan to overcome issues identified in question 2 for David Courtney David Courtney, who is the sales manager,needs to understand his roles as a manager. When he summoned Romano and confronted him on the issue of time management, he quickly accepted the excuse from Romano on how he managed his time. This shows that David is unable to exercise his authority as a sales manager. As a manager, David needs to learn how to discipline the workers below him regardless of their success rate and personal relationship with them. David was unable to restrain Romano on the issue of time management because Romano is the best salesperson the company has. Here David fails as a manager, and he requires to be disciplined[Chr10]. Secondly, David has been signing for the replacement of damaged clothes for Romano which he says is at a high rate than that of other employees. He questions Romano on these but quickly gives in to Romano’s excuse, here you even ask who the manager between the two is. On this case, since David is the one who is always signing to issue Romano with new clothes any time he asks for them. David should be asked to pay these clothes when he signs for the replacing of undamaged materials. This will teach him how to say no toRomano’s requests[Bas10]. Lastly, when David questioned Romano on the issue of company’s car miss use he quickly let go of the issue when Romano claimed that even Bill Simpson had done the same. This shows the incompetence of David and for these he should be fired or demoted from the sale manager position since he is unable to excise his power as a manager[Das11]. An action plan to overcome the issues identified in question 2 on Romano Pitesti. Romano, who is the best sales person for the company, takes advantage of these and does what he feels like doing.Theseare because he believes that he is a valuable asset to the company, and they cannot fire him. He Misuses Company’scar mismanages his time and asks for new clothes all the time. For these, he should be fired. Firing him would teach all the other employees that nobody is intangible in the company evenif you are leading in what you do[Chu13]. This would also make the other employees obey all the company’s rules and work towards achieving the company’s goals and not personal glory[Far11]. It would also teach the other employees that their arrogance will only see them lose their job and not treated as special by their employers. Given Romano’s case, firing him would make the other employees see that there is a figure of authority in the company and it should be respected[All10]. It also would help show the other employees that following protocol when carrying out company’s activities is imperative. This is because Romano did not inform David the sales manager when he went to play golf with Arthur, and he even was to go play again without having told the sales manager. This shows that he did not follow protocol[Esk12]. The action plan will involve the following people; Jack Simpson the marketing director, David Courtney the sales manager and Romano Pitesti, who is a sales person. Romano here is the accused of so many misdoings in the company while David, on the other hand, has been unable todeal with Romano’s issues. This is where now Jack Simpson comes in, as themarketing director he has the authority to discipline David Courtney for failing to punish Romano for his misconduct. He also has to fire Romano regardless of him being the best sale person in the company. In doing this he would be sending a message to other employees. That no one is unreplaceable in the company regardless of their position and success rate in the company when the misbehave, they can quickly be fired[Fre11]. He also would be showing an example to David Courtney how a manager should executive his or duties. A manager should put the success of the company first before any personal relationship all the time. If one person threatens this success, she or she should be fired[Sag03]. References Duk09: , (Dukes, 2009), Ran07: , (Ranchhod, 2007), Ing06: , (Ingram, 2006), Raz03: , (Razzaque, 2003), Hes04: , (Hesse, 2004), Ahl04: , (Ahlert, 2004), Rix01: , (Rix, 2001), Woo08: , (Wood, 2008), Sha13: , (Sharpe, 2013), Fut93: , (Futrell, 1993), Bal05: , (al, 2005), Chr10: , (A, 2010), Bas10: , (Bass, 2010), Das11: , (Dassah, 2011), Chu13: , (Chung, 2013), Far11: , (Farrel, 2011), All10: , (Allio, 2010), Esk12: , (Eskridge, 2012), Fre11: , (Fredrick, 2011), Sag03: , (Sage, 2003), Read More