Athenian Press, INC Case Study PDF

Preview

Summary

Download Athenian Press, INC Case Study PDF

Description

Michael Buterakos MKT 440 22378156 Due: 4/1/2020 ATHENIAN PRESS, INC Case Study

a) Athenian Press Inc, founded in 1945 publishes daily newspapers in Athens, Tennessee. A major source of revenue for the paper derives from volume of papers sold. The company has 800 accounts they call on. Competition between competing paper companies is high. To compete with the other paper’s companies, Athenian Press Inc,’s competitive advantage is inserting coupons into its papers for their customers to use. Currently, the sales team is directed to mainly prioritize meeting with big customers regularly, followed by contacting less active accounts once or twice a month to stay in contact. The second priority for the sales team is to make their customers aware of upcoming promotions. Steve Womble was recently promoted to Sales Manager for the Athenian Press, Inc. His main responsibility is to monitor the sales team’s performance, calculate reports such as yearly quotas annual evaluations, and monitor the sales team’s performance on a monthly basis. In addition, he schedules weekly breakfasts to discuss and share problems and concerns. Payment structure for the sales team is determined by status. Sales trainees are paid though straight salary, while advanced sales team members are compensated based on salary, commissions, plus a yearly bonus. Steve noticed a slight decrease in quarterly sales from previous quarters showing a disturbing trend of not meeting quotas. He looked further into what the underlying issues were that may have been causing the sales team to not meet their quotas. He concluded that each salesperson was not spending enough time out in the field meeting clients. That could have derived from the vast number of clients each salesperson was responsible making each interaction brief to be able to reach all clients. This was leaving little time for new client accusation. Steve thought a change in the sales organization was in order. To service these problems, Steve developed three strategies to recant these difficulties.

b) The first alternative Steve developed was to delegate certain responsibilities such as preliminary sketches, that the full-time salespeople were responsible for, to someone other than salespeople. He felt specifically, the art department could take on this new responsibility. The sales team was hesitant on this idea as they felt like the sketches were needed close to the sale with one specific complaint being, they enjoyed that part of the work immensely and if taken away it that salesperson could lose motivation.

The second alternative solution Steve presented was hiring more salespeople to cover the workload of accounts. This meaning each salesperson would be responsible for fewer accounts which would increase time spent per client. The sales team was not too fond of this idea as it could threaten their sales volume and ultimately their commission-based pay.

Lastly, Steve’s third alternative was for himself to start taking on selling to several of the larger accounts the company had attained previously. This would give the sales team a weaker workload. A disadvantage of that would be Steve would have less time to spend on his managerial duties. The sales team was not satisfactory with this solution as they saw a threat to their commission.

c) The alternative I feel best fits this specific circumstance would be a mix of solution one and two. The first solution Steve presented of delegating art tasks would help cut down on time spent meaning more time for the sales team to handle the volume of clients. The sales team’s main responsibility is to sell, not make the art. However, to refute the argument about one of the sales team members enjoying that part of the job and that part of the job may be a motivator to them, I would still allow the sales team members to be involved in the process. I would assign specific art design employees to a specific sales team member, so they are able to communicate quickly and efficiently with each other saving time in the process.

Additionally, I would hire more sales staff to be able to help cover more accounts. As the time traveling between appointments is a setback, more people on the sales team would be

able to cover more ground and make up for lost time. Though the sales staff was not too keen on this idea, it would allow them to increase number of calls per day as well as make time for new client acquisition, potentially making their commission higher in the long run. Acquiring more staff would allow each sales team member to spend more time per call and provide an overall better service.

I don’t believe Steve taking on accounts would be in the best interest of the company as his main responsibility is to manage, monitor and control their sales teams’ actions. Steve’s responsibility as Sales Manager is essential to the success or their organization at his current role and obligations....