Reference no: EM132195183
CASE : ALLIED NOVELTY COMPANY
Background
Allied Novelty Company markets a broad mix of toys and games to retailers throughout the United States. The salesforce is organized into five regions, each comprised of five districts. A national sales executive oversees the five regional sales managers. Each regional manager is responsible for the effectiveness of his or her region and is compensated according to the achievements of their region.
Current Situation
Kerri Ross is the northern region sales manager for Allied Novelty. The fiscal year just ended, and Kerri has compiled data to help her analyze her region’s effectiveness. Although her region has had what she believes to be a very successful year, she wants to analyze each district closely. She hopes to use her analysis to identify and correct problems. Moreover, she needs to complete her analysis for her upcoming meeting with her national sales manager, Greg Rich. Market shares for each district were fairly sizable (30 percent, 32 percent, 34 percent, 31 percent, and 28 percent for districts 1 through 5, respectively) at the beginning of the fiscal year. Kerri had expected these to remain relatively stable over the past year. The company had anticipated a sales growth of 2 percent. In addition, selling costs were budgeted at 10 percent of forecasted sales. If Kerri’s region did not increase sales by 2 percent and stay within the sales budget, her performance appraisal, and subsequently her compensation, would suffer. Kerri knew her boss would carefully scrutinize her analysis. She hoped to be able to identify any problem areas so that she could develop solutions and implement them in the upcoming year. She was scheduled to meet with Rich in three days. Kerri compiled the following information (shown in the table below).
Questions
What analyses should Kerri perform with this data? Conduct these suggested analyses being careful to document your work and your answers.
What problems can you identify from your analyses?
What solutions would you recommend to solve these problems and improve sales effectiveness in the future? Explain why your recommendations are appropriate.