Spectrum Brands Inc.,The Salesforce Dilemma Case Study Help
Merging the Sales Force
The second option suggests creating a merged team for sales in order to take full leverage of the acquisition and to attain some benefits through it. Through this strategy, the company will be able to create a single sales force that will be able to possess knowledge of multiple brands. This will allow the company to move sales representatives easily across geographies and different brands without any additional training about product knowledge.
Secondly, the sales representatives will be able to sell different brands with low sales leveraging the established relationships of some brands. On the other hand, the company will be able to reduce the sales force and save expenses that are spent over the salaries and bonus of these representatives. Besides that, managing relationships with big retailers will become easier for the company.
Furthermore, the company will be able to create consolidation among the sales representatives and will be to attain complete benefits of the acquisition. The sales representatives will highlight prominent brands and leveraging the relationship with the retailers will also be able to make some shelf space for the weak brands as well. Moreover, the issue of seasonality will be overcome as the sales representatives will have brands to cater during the low season of some brands.
However, it is quite difficult to create an efficient and effective, merged sales force in a company with such a diversified portfolio. The sales representatives will have to undergo extensive training modules in order to gain knowledge about each brand. Nonetheless, gaining knowledge is not sufficient as it is difficult to remember.
The brands are different from each other and the portfolio is highly diversified, which makes it very difficult to provide training and create efficient sales force. The focus will be diverted and the representative will be unable to identify the brands of his strength. Thus, this opportunity seems quite difficult to implement.
Delicate Responsibility to the Distributors
The third option suggests that the responsibility of managing sales should be delegated to the distributors that are completely aware of the market and have an established sales force. These distributors will be able to manage the products more efficiently as compared to the sales force of a firm as they have established relationships with the retailers and will be able to generate sales at a speedier pace.
Furthermore, they also possess market knowledge and are aware of the trends of the market which will allow them to put forward the most demanded products. On the other hand, these distributors will be able to reach more retailers as compared to the sales force of a firm. The reach of the distributors is always high and establishing relationships with retailers, the company may get extensive and essential knowledge about the market trends and competitor activities.
However, this strategy also has some potential disadvantages as well that are also important to address before pursuing this strategy. The company will have to pay commission to the distributors which will incur costs that is slightly higher than the cost that will incur in hiring the sales force. Furthermore, managing strong relationships with the distributors is important and also challenging.
The people issues that are likely to emerge during the implementation of the new change are many and differ according to the situation. If the company decides to implement the strategy of separate sales force, then communication between sales team will emerge as the major issue. Secondly, the geographic regions also determine the sales as Ontario comprised of major sales and some other brands that have high brand recognition will sell like hot cakes.
However, the less recognized brands and seasonal brands will face challenges in meeting the above stated targets. This will create dissatisfaction among employees and will result in a low level of motivation. Furthermore, the level of competition between the teams will hinder and the teams managing the seasonal brands will be discouraged and will give up easily.
On the other hand, merging the sales team or dedicating the sales task to distributors will incur dissatisfaction among employees about the job and a possible threat of unemployment will revolve around them. Thus, the employees will not be able to give complete focus on the task assigned to them and will create distortion among employees. Besides that, employees will show strong resistance to the change and will impact the growth of the company in a negative manner.
Falconi must possess the ability to make strategic decisions and have strong communication and people skills to increase communication with employees. The attitude needs to be positive in order to eliminate the negative illusions revolving around among employees. Furthermore, Falconi as a leader must have the ability to convince employees and align employees on his decision to overcome resistance shown by employees.
The analysis of the alternative done above indicates that the company must implement the first alternative of creating a separate sales force for every brand which will help the company in managing the brands separately. This option will allow the company to utilize the sales force efficiently and enhance the overall sales force efficiency.
Secondly, the company will be able to give importance to every brand and will be able to cater every region efficiently. On the other hand, different levels of management will be created that will help in managing the sales force effectively. Besides that, the sales representatives will be able to create strong communication with the customers and will be able to provide extensive knowledge to the customers about the products as well.
In order to implement this strategy the company will have to make changes defined in the latter part of this section. The company is currently catering three regions that are west, Ontario, and eastern. However, Ontario has two sales managers while east and west has one sales manager each. In order to overcome this issue the company can appoint 3 general managers, one in every region under the supervision of Robert Falcon i, who will serve as the VP of sales and marketing.
Furthermore, the company can appoint one sales manager for batteries and home categories and one sales manager each for lawn and pet category in every region. Moreover, every sales manager must have 2-3 sales representatives to manage and to provide every sales representative an opportunity to gain expertise in one category.........................
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