1.How likely is it that Jon Menzes will be successful in the short-term with this strategy? 2.What are the longer-run implications of this strategy for Jon Menzes and ProFood? 3.If you were Emily Lewis, what advice would you give Jon?
ProFood Supply Company
This case revolves around the issue of sales strategy. Jon is faced with two alternative sales strategies for trying to make his sales quota. Neither appears to be a good short term solution.
Summary
ProFood Supply Company, founded in New York in 1960, has grown steadily over the decades to become one of the largest full-service institutional food suppliers in the nation, selling perishable and non-perishable foods and foodservice supplies such as tablecloths, napkins, and tableware. In the past year, ProFood had begun an aggressive push into a new market segment, the hotel/motel restaurant market. Jon Menzes, the ProFood sales representative in Nashville, Tennessee, has been with the company for two years and hopes to move into management someday. His sales manager, Emily Lewis, told him that if he finished the year over 100% of his sales versus quota that he would be put into the pool of candidates considered for a promotion during the next twelve months. To achieve his sales goal, Jon has been attempting to secure the restaurant business of Sleep Tight Inns, a 16-motel regional chain. Jon was having trouble getting the Sleep Tight business through the Baker Brothers, another food service wholesaler who ProFood worked with closely, as well as through Swanson’s, a former customer of ProFood, who now currently supplies Sleep Tight Inns. Sleep Tight is very happy with Swanson’s, who has no intention of working with ProFood this year. Jon decides to try to work with Baker Brothers to get the Sleep Tight operators interested in their products so that Baker Brothers will be on the approved list of suppliers more quickly than the minimum 60-day approval process—if approval is granted. This way, Jon believes that he can make quota.
Discussion Questions
1.How likely is it that Jon Menzes will be successful in the short-term with this strategy?
2.What are the longer-run implications of this strategy for Jon Menzes and ProFood?
3.If you were Emily Lewis, what advice would you give Jon?
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