Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Case Study Example Every year Pat Waller needed to recruit sales representatives. The turnover of the employees and new recruitments did not increase the sales volume. Despite the recruitment of new sales representative employees, the sales volume remained constant. There was problem in the channel of distribution related to the retention of sales representatives, which was under the control of Valley Winery. When Valley Winery took over the distributor, old sales representative did not stay back and Pat Waller needed to recruit fresh sales representative for that particular distribution channel. With the recruitment of new sales representatives, there were costs associated with it. It also included cost of hiring the employees, consultancy fees for new candidates and training cost. The recruitment cost had to be incurred by the organization every year and the training cost also increased. The problem perceived by Pat Waller was related to the hiring process. Pat Waller thought that the hiring process was not appropriate as it was a lengthy process and was also complicated in nature. This lowered the level of recruitment of potential sales representatives. Cause of the Problems Faced by Pat Waller The cause behind high sales representative turnover was due to multifarious factors. The basic reason for the turnover was inefficient management of sales forces. Pat Waller was not able to manage the sales personnel efficiently which led to huge turnover. Sales persons remain in the organization only when they are rewarded appropriately based upon their performance. Most of them accept monetary reward, but there are also many who accept non-monetary rewards such as reorganization, promotion and other related activities of rewarding system. There was absence of such rewarding system in Valley Winery. There were three groups of sales personnel and they had different kinds of system of pay and incentives. The direct sales personnel were not rewarded, only 6% commissions were paid on sales . Sales personnel who generated highest sales were also provided the same facility of commission pay. This is the reason they shifted to another company or another sector. The unethical practice of Valley Winery in the matter of visual merchandise displayed techniques that were not suitable to the sales personnel or they did not accept it. In addition, it was either against their ethics or there was contradiction between the company and sales personnel ethics. The spray technique on competitors merchandise to decrease their sales was unethical practice. The sales representatives required to perform such activities that might not be ethical to that particular sales representative. The recruitment did not assist in increasing the sales volume because there was more turnover and the recruitment had just replaced the personnel. There was actually no increase in the workforce capacity and it was not expected that there would be huge increase in volumes of sales with the fresh sales repre sentative. The decision of forward integration was not appropriate as the sales representative did not remain in the company. This also affected the control related to the distribution channel. These aspects increased the burden of new recruitment and also training them for that particular distribution channel. The cost of hiring and training the employees for sales was more. The hiring cost was part of the budget every year. This increased the cost and to minimize the