What are the main benefits of integrating the Sales and Marketing functions?
What are the most important market and organizational contingencies that increase the need of Sales-Marketing integration? Why do they increase this need?
What are the different levels at which Sales and Marketing can be integrated? What are the differences?
What are the main barriers to Sales-Marketing integration? Do they have differential effects on interaction and collaboration? What about their effects on the different levels of integration that can be achieved?
What are the most important managerial systems that can be used as mechanisms to improve Sales-Marketing integration? What are the differences among them?
What are the most important organizational structural changes that can be used as mechanisms to improve Sales-Marketing integration? What are the differences among them?
What are the different steps of a Sales-Marketing integration process?
What are the three main aspects a sales manager should consider when organizing a sales force?
In what way does a company’s stage of development influence the organization of sales?
What are the main drawbacks of a function-based sales organization?
When and why is organizing sales by products beneficial for a company?
How would you determine the number of sales people – what should you consider? What are the consecutive steps in the process of determining the number?
What factors should you consider when designing sales territory?
Why has international selling become important to many firms, even those with production facilities in just one country?
Which steps in the selling process become more challenging when a salesperson moves from selling within just his or her home market to selling within foreign markets? What are the sales management implications?
Typically, for each market entry option, how should international selling operations be structured when a firm first enters foreign markets? What are the sales management implications for each option?
Why might global account management be necessary even for a firm that has production facilities and sales offices in just one country?
What are the sales management implications for each possible global account management structure mentioned on pages 268-269?
What are the main advantages and disadvantages of standardising the international selling and sales management strategies of a typical firm?
Identify some situations in which standardisation would be inappropriate, and provide reasoning.
Identify some cultural differences that might exist between salespeople (and their customers) in your country and customers in some foreign markets. Explain what international salespeople and sales managers should do in view of those differences.
Identify and explain the advantages for a global firm in establishing regional sales offices, perhaps covering North America, South America, Europe, and Asia/Australasia, each regional sales office coordinating sales strategies and operations within that region, rather than allowing complete autonomy within each country-level sales office.
What additional training might sales managers require if promoted from a ‘home country’ sales management role to an international sales management role? Provide reasoning.
Explain why many firms use different channels to reach different foreign markets for the same range of products.
How important do you think Sales Force Training is for a Sales Organization? Justify your answer.
Describe briefly the three basic stages of Sales Force Training.
Which are the most important sources of information regarding the determination of training needs?
Please list the most common sales training objectives.
Which are the basic factors on which the Sales Training cost depends?
Which of the Training topics do you consider as being the most important? Why?
How do you think computer technology can nowadays support training methodologies?
How do the decisions regarding “Who should do the training” and “Where should the training take place” differ between missionary and trade salespersons?
“Sales Training should take place after a salesperson goes out into the market to sell, so that he/she has an idea of the problems he/she will face in everyday work.” Do you agree with the above statement? Why?
How can sales executives decide which salespeople will benefit the most from training?
Which stage of Sales Force Training do you consider as being the most important? Why?
Would you assume that more training is always better? Explain your answer.
How do you evaluate the Sales Training programme implemented by John? Justify your opinion.
If you were the Training Manager at Pharma, would you have done anything differently? Explain.