The company has 5 reps, working mostly from home, covering different areas. They generate their own sales leads, by cold calling architects and building contractors, offering the service of specifying which architectural ironmongery is needed on each door of a building project. This saves the architect time when there might be hundreds of doors in a hotel or an office block. The director is aware that most architects use AutoCad, and so wants to be able to offer a compatible, software based service instead of the word-processed documents they currently send through the post.
Communicating with the reps is a real problem, as they are either on the road, in meetings, or are at home making their sales calls.
The Director believes that one of the Accounts staff has the skills to become the new role of ‘Sales Co-ordinator’. Based in the office she will make calls to architects and builders, and gather information about any planned building projects. She will create and maintain a database detailing each planned project, which rep it has been passed to, which architect is involved, and what stage of planning approval it is at (many planned buildings are never actually built.) She will log all door schedules that the reps do, and all quotations sent out by the Estimating Department. When a building contract is awarded, she will know which contractor the rep has to meet, to prevent them from choosing a cheaper alternative of architectural ironmongery. Sometimes a building takes years to actually be built, and so the Director believes that the more information they have, the more likely they are to get the order. When an order is lost, he will know which rep was responsible for that project, which in a lot of cases has never happened before.
This is the structure of the company:
Director
Write a report that will help the Accounts Manager make his proposal to the Director describing how communications technologies described in the lesson might help improve their sales.
Try to be detailed, and clear why you are making a suggestion – remember it is for the Accounts Manager, who is not a computer expert and so should be able to understand it.
Describe the current situation first, and what you would replace it with. Say why your suggestion is an advantage, and also why it might be a disadvantage. To help you structure your answer, concentrate first on the Sales Reps, then on the new role of Sales Co-ordinator, and then on the other departments in turn.
One thing to note: the Director intends to pay for the changes by making redundant the worst-performing rep.
By Joseph Morris
