Consultative Selling Development
Consultative selling is the process of assisting customers in identifying their individual needs and suggesting products that satisfy those needs. It is an important skill that Marketing Associates need to develop, and MA participation in consultative selling practices is closely watched by supervisors. There have been two new programs created to help MAs succeed with this task; a website called Sysco Test Kitchen and a new process called Business Review. Sysco Test Kitchen is a website containing product training videos. To encourage use of this new tool, product specific corporate promotions are being offered to MAs who go on the site and watch new sets of videos.
Collaborating with the Sysco’s Business Review department is an important task for MAs. The MAs work with a Business Review Manager to create an individual consultative review session unique for each individual customer. On average Sysco’s sales increase 15% for customers that have been reviewed. MAs are required to have two reviews per quarter due to the effect these sessions have had on Sysco’s sales. To participate in local sales promotions, MAs must meet their quotas for Business Reviews each quarter. Sysco has tied overall compensation to Business Review by lowering MAs guaranteed salaries that do not meet the quota of two reviews per quarter.
Sysco has put into place tools for supervisors to ensure that their MAs are using best practices to maximize their sales. These tools plus communication via email, phone and visits provide Sysco supervisors with a picture of each MAs sales practices and how relationships with customers are forged.
Theory
A distributed work group is one in which individuals are dispersed across multiple locations. These groups are a challenge to supervisors since they must be managed by means other than direct daily observation and mentoring. Supervisors need to rely on other measures to control and monitor work performance (Kurland & Egan, 1999). Supervisors can use technologies such as cellular and hard lined phones, email, video conferencing, instant messaging, and the internet to exchange work information in place of face to face communication (Kiesler & Cummings, 2002).
Teams and “Working Groups”
Barrick, Bradley and Colbert (2007), define team interdependence as the extent to which tasks and outcomes define and affect the relationships between individuals as a collective team. Interdependence determines the degree to which team members need to rely on one another to complete their projects. Teams with high levels of interdependence are defined as “real teams” while teams with low levels of interdependence are what Katzenbach and Smith (1993) call “working groups”. A working group’s performance is a function of what its members do as individuals, while a team’s performance includes both individual results and collective work products.
According to Katzenbach and Smith (1993), working groups have a strong, clearly focused leader while true teams share leadership roles. True teams have a specific purpose and their members have individual and mutual accountability. A working group’s purpose is the same as the broader organizational mission, and members of the group are individually accountable for their performance. Communication should be less important for effective functioning of a working group. Groups with lower interdependence have higher performance when communication and cohesion levels are lower (Barrick et al., 2007).
Working group effectiveness is defined in terms of both productivity and employee satisfaction (Campion, Medsker & Higgs, 1993). Effective working groups engage more in external knowledge sharing. Structural geographic diversity has the potential to expose group members who are in different environments to different sources of task information, knowhow and feedback, which can lead to new opportunities for knowledge sharing (Cummings, 2004). Working groups can be strategically designed and distributed to take advantage of changing resources and opportunities (Kiesler &Cummings, 2002) associated with structural diversity. The best working groups come together to share information, perspectives and insights that help each person do their job better (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993).
Self management at the individual job level is essential in effective teams. Self management gives team members autonomy and increases their sense of responsibility and ownership of the collective work products (Campion et al., 1993). Successful teams develop direction and shape their purpose as a response to a demand or opportunity given to them by higher management (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993).
Communication is an essential team process because it clarifies how a team interpersonally orchestrates work to get things done (Kurland & Egan, 1999). In distributed work groups, communication through technology is more likely to be effective when groups are cohesive (Kiesler & Cummings, 2002). Cohesion is defined by the state of shared commitment, attraction and team pride that emerges from the experiences and interactions among team members (Barrick et al., 2007). Because technologies do not necessarily encourage good communication, distributed groups are likely to be somewhat less mutually attentive, less companionable, and less frequent than if the team was nearby and talking face to face. In these kinds of situations where cohesion is lower a more structured form of management is needed (Kiesler & Cummings, 2002). Determining whether a supervisor is managing a team or a “working group” has a significant effect on the types of processes that will work best to optimize performance. When employees are distributed, this makes the distinction even more important since control is often more difficult to maintain.
Tools for Managing Distributed Employees
To effectively supervise dispersed groups outside direct observation, managers need to rely on easily measured performance based output controls based on results, work quality and timeliness (Kurland & Egan, 1999). Clear performance goals help individuals and teams stay on track and increase accountability (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). According to Kurland and Egan, successful managers use three strategies to remotely control employee behavior. First, supervisors should rely on written records of results as compared to subjective evaluations. Second, particular positions should have written job descriptions and performance requirements. Finally, managers need to participate in formalized communication with their employees.
Newer technologies are helping dispersed groups deal with the lack of group awareness that occurs when a work group is spread out across different locations. Data networks can provide shared database of images that are regularly updated and available for all worksites. These images provide a view of other group members’ interactions around their daily work environment. Distant group members can see who is around the office, what activities are occurring and who is talking with whom. Dourish and Bly (1992) concluded that these virtual interactions can lead to spontaneous connections and the development of shared cultures that are normally denied to groups distributed across multiple sites.
Aligning Theory with Practice
According to Katzenbach and Smith (1993), a district at Sysco would be defined as a “working group”. Marketing Associates service customers in their territories and are compensated for sales and profit growth of those customers. While the district’s performance is measured as a whole, a MA’s performance is judged on an individual basis. Districts have a clearly defined leader, District Manager, and the group’s mission is that of the broader organization, profitably growing sales and providing excellent customer service.
Sysco’s districts are examples of a highly effective “working groups” rather than the team concept John Doe described. MAs bring their own individual perspective, insight, and knowledge to “roundtable” discussions that take place at district meetings. The knowledge sharing that occurs at meetings is an effective way to improve MA performance. Districts that have lower interdependence levels and communication are effective because they rely on individual MA performance. DMs at Sysco would be better served by encouraging their MAs to share knowledge rather than encourage teamwork.
Campion, Medsker and Higgs (1993), thought individual self management was essential to effective teams. However, this also applies to distributed working groups. DMs need to give MAs the autonomy to increase their sense of ownership of their territories because they are outside of direct supervision. Effective management comes from closely monitoring performance based output controls (Kurland & Egan, 1999). Sysco’s DMs can effectively monitor MA performance by looking at measured outputs: sales growth, profit margin, number of new account openings, lost accounts, pricing recommendations taken in Market Mover, number of business reviews, and percent of A/R past due.
Kurland and Egan (1999), described three strategies for successfully controlling remote employee behavior; rely on written records of performance, having written job descriptions and performance standards, and formalized communication. DMs effectively rely on written records when evaluating employees, but Sysco currently does not have written descriptions of what is required of MAs. This is an issue at Sysco because compensation is being tied to job activities that are not clearly defined. Sysco’s Vice President of Sales enacted a policy of deducting $25 from a MAs guaranteed salary if they have not participated in two business reviews during the first quarter. There has been considerable resentment toward this policy by MAs, since it was seen as arbitrary. There would have been less resistance from MAs had this policy been stated at the start of the fiscal year. Formal communication is another area where Sysco’s DMs need improvement. There is not much knowledge right now about Project 212 and what effect it will have on the MA. Without knowledge of what changes are coming, it is difficult to motivate MAs to embrace the new business practices being implemented. Formal communication describing upcoming changes and how those changes will affect job function would be useful to improve the overall effectiveness of new programs such as Market Mover.
Technology is another important tool for distributed working groups. Technology provides the means to exchange information and work effectively. Currently District Managers rely on email and mobile phones to stay in touch with their MAs. Dourish and Bly (1992) described using data networks for virtual interactions, and how these interactions can lead to the development of shared cultures and practices. Sysco is rolling out more interactive technology to keep MAs better informed of what is happening at the home office, new market trends, and insight into prices of customers similar to theirs as part of Project 212 through the Sysco Resource Center, Sysco Test Kitchen and Market Mover.
The Resource Center enables MAs and DMs to access everything at Sysco’s offices without having to go there physically. MAs can print off new customer credit applications, market reports, contact lists and special sheets, track promotions, and compare their performance to other MAs. The Sysco Test Kitchen website provides product knowledge and sales training in a virtual environment. Market Mover gathers information from across the country to help Marketing Associates make more informed pricing decisions. Sysco’s use of technology should improve the effectiveness of their working groups by providing a new source of external knowledge.
Conclusions
This paper has described the processes by which Sysco’s DMs manage their sales force of MAs. There are a number of areas where Sysco’s supervision methods are in line with theory and best practice from the literature. These areas are: Sysco’s use of technology to manage their employees, the encouragement of knowledge sharing among districts, and effectively using written records to evaluate MAs. There are other areas where Sysco practices need improvement based on the literature and theory of managing distributed work groups. These areas are: Sysco’s lack of written job descriptions and requirement, and the use of more formalized communication. In my view, making changes in these areas should help Sysco correct these problems and the result should be improved sales and a more motivated and productive sales force.
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