COURSE CODE: BC0226 COURSE NAME: SALES & PURCHASING MANAGEMENT Task brief & rubrics

Case study

Task

The following case should be prepared by the students individually and in the essay format.

Case: CALIFORNIA ADHESIVE CORPORATION

Mark Farraway recently became a sales representative for the California Adhesive Corporation and covers the states of Oregon and Washington. After completing a three-week training program, Mark was excited about the responsibility of reversing a downward sales trend in his territory, which had been without a salesperson for several months.

The previous salesperson was fired due to poor sales performance and had not left behind any information regarding accounts. After contacting his first 20 or so customers, Mark came to a major conclusion: None of these customers had seen a CAC salesperson for six to nine months; they had CAC merchandise, which was not selling, and they had damaged merchandise to return. These customers were hostile toward Mark because the previous salesperson had used high-pressure tactics to force them to buy, and as one person said, “Your predecessor killed your sales in my business. You said you would provide service and call on me regularly, but I do not care about service. In fact, it is OK with me if I never see anyone from your company again. Your competition’s products are much better than yours, and their salespeople have been calling in this area for yeas trying to get my business”.

Mark was wondering if he had gone to work for the right company.

Question: 1) If you were Mark, would you continue working in CAC after knowing the bad reputation it gets? Why/why not? Explain challenges,

provide pros and cons of your current situation. 2) In case you decide to stay, what would you do to improve the sales in your territory? In details, describe the strategic plan to return

the current accounts to CAC. Briefly, explain the strategy to attract the new accounts to the company. 3) Apply selling productivity drivers for this case.

Formalities:

• Wordcount: 1500 words

• Cover, Table of Contents, References and Appendix are excluded of the total wordcount.

• Font: Arial 12,5 pts.

• Text alignment: Justified.

• The in-text References and the Bibliography have to be in Harvard’s citation style.

Submission: Week 10, Sunday 3rd April 23:59 – Via Moodle (Turnitin).

Weight: This task is a 40% of your total grade for this subject.

It assesses the following learning outcomes:

• Outcome 1: Understand the sales management function as part of the overall company strategy and the processes involved in go-to-market activities.

• Outcome 2: Describe the importance of personal selling as part of IMC.

• Outcome 3: Analyze the different stages of the personal selling process and its participants.

• Outcome 4: Evaluate the sales operations management functions and its role in salesforce effectiveness and productivity.

Rubrics

Exceptional 90-100 Good 80-89 Fair 70-79 Marginal fail 60-69

Knowledge & Understanding

(20%)

Student demonstrates excellent understanding of key concepts and uses vocabulary in an entirely appropriate manner.

Student demonstrates good understanding of the task and mentions some relevant concepts and demonstrates use of the relevant vocabulary.

Student understands the task and provides minimum theory and/or some use of vocabulary.

Student understands the task and attempts to answer the question but does not mention key concepts or uses minimum amount of relevant vocabulary.

Application (30%) Student applies fully relevant knowledge from the topics delivered in class.

Student applies mostly relevant knowledge from the topics delivered in class.

Student applies some relevant knowledge from the topics delivered in class. Misunderstanding may be evident.

Student applies little relevant knowledge from the topics delivered in class. Misunderstands are evident.

Critical Thinking (25%)

Student critically assesses in excellent ways, drawing outstanding conclusions from relevant authors.

Student critically assesses in good ways, drawing conclusions from relevant authors and references.

Student provides some insights but stays on the surface of the topic. References may not be relevant.

Student makes little or none critical thinking insights, does not quote appropriate authors, and does not provide valid sources.

Communication (25%)

Student communicates their ideas extremely clearly and concisely, respecting word count, grammar and spellcheck

Student communicates their ideas clearly and concisely, respecting word count, grammar and spellcheck

Student communicates their ideas with some clarity and concision. It may be slightly over or under the wordcount limit. Some misspelling errors may be evident.

Student communicates their ideas in a somewhat unclear and unconcise way. Does not reach or does exceed wordcount excessively and misspelling errors are evident.