Case Study: Baria Planning Solutions - Fixing the Sales Process

As the company continues to grow at a tremendous rate, the organizational structure became more complicated for the managers to maintain. Additionally, the Association is unsure of how to deal with the growth, and continue to preserve their company philosophy of “people supported first” at the same time. When the company was small their informal way managing the support service was a great fit, however, with more people constantly being supported, a more structural way of overseeing the expanding support service infrastructure needed to be established.

c) Arbill, a Philadelphia-based workplace-safety consultancy, takes that observation to heart. The company boosts morale by giving the troops more responsibility. "We created employee committees to do things like set up a health fair, a food co-op and other [projects]," says chief executive Julie Copeland.

Due to the fact that procurement strategies are the focal point in the planning stage of all business firms and is a vital

BPS also has to address the optimal product development path for its new products, reexamine its marketing focus and company perception, reexamine its manufacturing integration processes, market pricing strategies

Baria Planning Solutions (BPS) is a consulting firm serving manufacturers with $95 million in annual sales. BPS analyses its customer spending categories and identifies various sources of potential savings. It carries out various change management, supplier consolidation and purchase standardization initiatives to attain its objective. It specialises in “Spend Analysis”. In order to expand, BPS acquired various niche service providers. BPS practised a solution selling process which was essentially a

In response to a loss of clientele to competitor firms, Ken Winston (C&B’s Boston Sales Office Director) assembled the five most successful salespeople into a Key Accounts Team (KAT). Having previously enjoyed the autonomy of selling a diverse array of products to their own clients, these five ‘Generalists’ would now ‘Specialize’ only in one specific

These transformative changes to the selling environment are ultimately forcing the salesperson to reengineer and rethink how they approach their business accounts. Failure in adapting to these changes can result in many adverse situations but ultimately revolves around ineffective team selling.

In 1985 Michael Porter surmised that a market can be subjected into different strategies, thus, three variations of competitive advantage were born. The differentiation strategy is the focus for the purpose of this paper. Furthermore, the differentiation strategy in its most exposed form is a strategy that places prominence toward the brand name and advantage is the prestige that follows. This type of angle draws in a specific high-end consumers which in turn sets its corner of the market apart from its competition. Additionally, in this advantage there is a uniqueness perceived by the consumer, industry wide. The differentiation strategy is distinct in attributes indescribable by price but all the same customers are more than willing to pay a premium for the product or service. Firms that are successful in this advantage are fully equipped with a product development team high in creativity and innovation. Additionally, this strategy is only able to be an advantage if a firm is able to access an unlimited amount of research.

*Integrate all areas of sales support and get rid of the industry centered structure of proposal support. BPS has relied on the unique industry-centric organization of their sales support and salespeople for competitive advantage. Customer surveys to gauge how much they actually value the industry niche approach could be useful in determining what effect any

Similarly, both companies had a product differentiation strategy, with the aim of being distinctly set apart from their competitors by the viewing market. However, different elements of this strategy were focused on by the firms. For instance,

An effective business strategy and budgeting is very essential in a manufacturing industry. A company without a proper business strategy and master budgeting plan would usually faces tremendous challenges and losses during its business operations. The importance of company’s business strategies and budgeting plans, as well as the challenges and losses in the absence of these items has clearly presented in this case study. (“Wiley,” 2013)

of the key issues result from John’s inability to comprehend the difference between sales representative and a sales manager. He was overly enthusiastic about his position and disregarded Phil Jackson’s tips on how to be successful as a sales manager. Sales managers must be multi-taskers who plan, organize and lead the functions of all customer contact and ensures that these methods of contact maximize the profit and sales goals of the company which hires them. A salesperson is responsible only for his/her own territory – a sales manager is responsible for the entire sales force and their productivity and revenue that

A procurement strategy is an important tool in the procurement of goods or services. The strategy serves as a guide in the procurement process and should be updated regularly to ensure it satisfies the needs of the organisation. A strategy is defined as a plan selected to bring a desired future. It involves planning and ordering of resources so as to realize the most efficient and effective use of these resources. With respect to strategic procurement, this implies a plan to optimise the organisations external spending and procurement of goods or services in a way that serves the organisations objectives. A procurement strategy has several components that make it unique to a specific organisation. An effective procurement strategy is reliant on the prevailing market conditions, the nature of the organisation, its strategy as well as its requirements (Fields, Craighead and Ketchen, 2015).

To remain competitive a company must consider who their biggest competitors are while considering its own size and position in the industry. The company should develop a strategic advantage over their competitors’

Assessing the pre-existing organization – Describe the strengths and weakness of the C&B Brokerage division prior to the two changes explained in the case. • The interactions of the New York Office with the regional sales teams • Whether there are misalignments in incentives between these functions. – Salespeople aim to maximize dollar value of sales (hence commission) while product managers aim to maximize profit of sales (overall firm objective as well). – How important is the regional sales manager to the success of the regional office?