Sales management

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College of Business FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

MAR4403 — SALES MANAGEMENT

Prof. Rafael Soltero

36-Hour Final Assignment > Case – Madison Fiber Corporation

The senior management team at Madison Fiber Corporation is considering altering the system by which their salesforce is paid. All the concerned parties (e.g., the salespeople; the sales manager; the VP Marketing etc.) seem to have conflicting views on what the “best” course of action is in terms of any type of change to the salesforce compensation system. Some even suggest doing nothing, leaving the current system – 100% salary, plus a “subjectively assessed” annual bonus – in place.

In hiring you as a consultant, the management team at Madison Fiber has clearly indicated that they think they have done a pretty solid job of putting all the logical “options” with respect to how the salesforce could be compensated “on the table”. Thus, they recommend that you simply act as an unbiased outside expert and provide them guidance as to what compensation plan / system is best for the company going forward.

In your analysis, you may wish to consider all of those aspects of any material / concepts we covered in MAR4403 which seem most germane to this situation. Management at Madison Fiber expects your report to really cover two areas in particular:

(1) Compensation Plan Change – You should critique all FIVE of the options the company faces with respect to salesforce compensation, and then RECOMMEND one to management. Your recommendation should be grounded in solid analysis and reasoning pertinent to this case; yet it should also be linked more broadly to all that you’ve learned in the course. Here you should also offer insights as to the amount of compensation a Madison salesperson should make under any new scheme (i.e., more, less, or about the same TTC as at present. See case, top p. 7).

(2) Excited by the prospect of getting expert outside advice, the management team at Madison Fiber would also like any other insights or recommendations you might have, even if preliminary, on other elements of their sales management system which, in your opinion, could use some “fine-tuning” or refinement (e.g., training, deployment, first-level management etc.). Be careful here, as key elements of their sales management system may only be mentioned in passing (e.g., a sentence or two). Nevertheless, you are expected to critique how they run their salesforce if elements of it which are mentioned seem less than optimal, regardless of how little information is given.

OTHER INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Please type your work.

2. Focus less on case facts and data and more on the implications of the facts, data and themes in the case. Case data and facts are only useful if they support the strategies & policies you will ultimately recommend.

3. Please organize your work to the greatest extent possible. Make use of section headings and sub- headings, bullet and numbered lists and so on. (See the “Suggested Format” on the backside of this cover page as one way you could proceed).

4. THIS EXAM IS DUE in 36 hours from when the case was made available to you. LATE EXAMS will be commensurately penalized.

5. Please submit in Canvas under the correct assignment. Please use WORD (DOC) or PDF as the file format for the report.

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Suggested Format for MAR4403 Final Exam

The following is JUST A SUGGESTED format for organizing your work. As I always say in class, the amount of “emphasis” you place on any given area should always be driven by the severity of the issue(s) the company in question is dealing with, plus your own take on the business situation at hand as an aspiring businessperson and manager.

Some of the topics / areas you may wish to address in your work might look like this:

 Introduction, Your Role, and Your Objective(s) in the Analysis

 Statement / Summary of the Problem(s) the Organization is Facing

 Short Summary of the Key Alternatives Available for Solving the Organization’s Problems

 The Decision Criteria you have Chosen, plus any Weighting of these. Once you’ve listed and organized these (a table is always good), they’ll help you assess the Merits and Drawbacks of each of the Alternatives.

Note that you’ll often have to come up with these yourself, as they are seldom in the case (for example and for one hypothetical case, one criteria might be “restoring the company to profitability” while another might be “to minimize the expenses of the salesforce”). Again, look to the case and answer this question: what are the key thing(s) that the decision maker is worried about or trying to correct. The answer to this question (or small set of questions, for more complicated case situations) will usually be your “decision criteria”.

 “Body of the Analysis” – this is where you can do whatever you like, based on your take on the situation and what needs to be tackled, discussed, qualitatively or quantitatively analyzed etc. This section should form the bulk of your work, and should be organized by whatever topics / headings you wish. Don’t forget to use headings, sub-headings, bullet-lists etc. to help keep your work organized here.

Note – you’ll almost certainly be well-served in the body of your analysis to consider both quantitative as well as qualitative information in the case. To neglect one or the other would be basically to propose an action plan to management based on an “incomplete information set”. In short, not good.

FOR THE Madison Fiber Case a good idea in terms of organizing the main portion of your analysis might be to do a “pros / cons” of each of the five compensation plan options (use a table recommended), and then “pick one”, defending your position as best as possible. Any other areas you tackle as a review of Madison’s other sales management areas can just be handled with subheadings (e.g., “Training”) and then related text and analysis.

 Conclusions – a quick recap of what your plan and implementation path will mean to management (and the company etc.) if they decide to adopt it, which hopefully they will, because it’s so sound.

 Recommendations

 Attachments: Include any material pertinent to support your report and recommendation.