Sales Team Structure Roles And Rewards - Case Study Example

IBM Sales Team Structure, Roles and Rewards by Student’s name Course code+name Professor’s name University name City, State Date of submission Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 PART 1: Sales Team Organisation Chart 1 1.1. Sales Te am Organisation Chart 1 PART 2: Sales Team Organisational Structure 2 2.1. Customer Specialization Sales Structure 2 2.2. Chart overview 3 2.3. Independent sales agents 3 2.4. Selling Partners 4 PART 3: Salary Packaging Content & Supporting Arguments 5 3.1. Overview table 5 3.1. Examples of close industry rivals 6 3.2.1. Australian Red Cross (ARC) 6 3.2.2. International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) 8 IBM has been celebrated for increasing the number of leadership positions that women professional in the company. The increase is noted in different IBM departments, which include a 15 percent increase in the sales department and a 20 percent increase in the technology department. In the year 2012, IBM elected Virginia M Rometty who is the company’s first woman chief executive officer. This positive move is line with the company’s belief of the fact that the presence of a diversified leadership is much more likely to lead to increased innovation as well as creativity in the production of products. In addition, there will be an effective understanding of IBM consumers and the trends in the technology market. 8 3.2.3. Child Fund Australia 8 3.2.4. Plan International Australia 9 Plan International was established more than seventy years ago. Plan International is known as the non-profit and non-governmental organization in the field of child development. The organization has its operations in more than 50 countries in the developing world. The operations are designed to provide empowerment to the local communities as a way of enabling them to deal with poverty issues as well as provide different amazing opportunities in order to attain their full potential. The basis of the program of Plan International Australia is on the fact that positive and real change in the life of a child can only take place if the children are involved in the process. Plan International Australia works towards uniting, empowering as well as inspiring the communities to advocate for the rights of children. 9 Executive Summary IBM is a global technology and innovation company that stands for progress. With operations in over 170 countries, IBMers around the world invent and integrate hardware, software and services to help forward-thinking enterprises, institutions and people everywhere succeed in building a smarter planet. With a 79-year history in Australia, IBM has been applying its expertise, global scope and creativity to help Australia compete in the global digital economy. Base on the geographic location, sales roles and remuneration packages that a software sales team structure can be reorganized in the Australian marketplace. PART 1: Sales Team Organisation Chart 1.1. Sales Te am Organisation Chart 1.2. Chart Overview Figure 1.1 illustrates within the organization sales force had some interactions among other functional areas-production, logistics, marketing, and accounting and finance-the need for coordination was limited but necessary. For example, the account manager for a major customer can call on the project manager and technical support engineer for the product production. If the situation is appropriate, the R&D team may also be involved into this specific product development. If the product is such a brand new product, marketing people may using promotion tools to raise the product awareness and build a good public relations, which in order to helps salespeople to sell. Finance and accounting are also very important for salespeople, since all of the sales activities cannot be go-over the financial budget. As a result, with an increased focus on solving customers’ problems, a two-way communications can be used to describe the relationship between sales and other departments. The sales force first communicates with customers to gain their needs and then bring the expectation back to the organization and cooperate with other functional staff. (William L. Cron & Thomas E. DeCarlo 2009, p171) PART 2: Sales Team Organisational Structure 2.1. Customer Specialization Sales Structure 2.2. Chart overview IBM’s sales force of around 35,000 people is a good example of a company that has organized its sales force around customers. The sales force is organized according to customer size, industry, and location. In this environment, delivering a great product is not enough, and providing solutions to customer needs requires a deep understanding of the customer and its market situation. In such conditions, specializing by customers is highly effective. Since in the enterprise relationship, customized product is the key factor to keep a long-term relationship between the two companies. Therefore, this type of structure allows salespeople to gain a deep understanding of the customer’s special needs and problems, and in order to become the experts in certain industry. 2.3. Independent sales agents Since IBM’s products are occupying in a large portion of the market and selling in many different geographic locations, sometimes hiring independent sales agents is very necessary within the situation. For instance, IBM launched new software, instead of using company’s sales force to develop the market, manager may choose to hire the sale agents to perform the selling function. Because sales agents are not employees, they are paid strictly on commission, comparatively, and it is much cost saving. On another side, sales agents possess professional selling skills and general product knowledge. Especially, they are holding certain relationships with existing clients. Thus, for the new product selling in rural areas, sales agent could be even more effective and efficiency. 2.4. Selling Partners “Worldwide, IBM has relationships with nearly 50,000 “business partners” consisting of independent distributors, value-added resellers, system integrators, and software vendors. The 20 percent of small business customers that account for 80 percent of the dollar sales receive one-on-one attention from the IBM sales force. However, salespeople are responsible for effectively managing the customer relationship by working with their distributors and resellers to present a coordinated and effective message to the customer.” (p174) 2.5. Web based structures The presence of a web-based structure has proved to be essential for IBM sales plans. After a period that was characterised by the failure to meet the demands of consumers within a set time, an increase in the expenses that arise during the efforts to meet sny anticipated demand of products from the consumers and which is also as a result of insufficient. Because of these shortcomings in the efforts of IBM to succussed in it, marketing came up with a web-based solution to address this problem. The web based structure when combined with the other sales programs that have designed by IBM works on making sure that all the IBM every departmental goals are harmonised to meet the overall sales goals for the company or the sales department. In order to efficiently plan the sales operations of IBM, the web based structure is advanced in a bi-directional manner where is able to clearly present each type of workflow which includes the role of sales manager, individual sales reports, has a master planner of how each work is progressing (Edwards 2011, p. 17). The web based sales structure gives very accurate sales as well as real-time data for every sales activity analysis. Moreover, the sales team can access information from the web-based structure, which includes; new product introduction costs, product sales, machine, the different inventory levels and labour capacity and logistics data. As the web-based structure has been used for IBM sales has been d designed to provide a complete performance management system (Novick 2000, p. 21). This has assisted IBM achieve optimum peak profits as well as sustainable competitive advantage because of increased sales over the years PART 3: Salary Packaging Content & Supporting Arguments 3.1. Overview table Sales Role Annual salary Weekly salary National Sales Director (1) 150,000 3,125 State manager (6) 750,000 15,625 Total Salespeople (20) 1,500,000 31,250 Independent Sales agents 1,300,000 27,083 Selling Partner 1,800,000 37,500 Web based structure 2,000,000 41,600 The IBM sales team is well motivated and organized an excellent sales plan that is designed to work around a salary and commission based system in order to effectively reward as well as motivate the different sales personnel working for IBM. At the start of every year, IBM publishes out its annual sales plan (Colletti & Fiss 2001, p. 34). For all the sales professionals at IBM, the sales plan gives out a detailed plan of how every member of the sales team will be in a position to earn money in the year. The sales plan gives out a detail salary package for every member of the IBM sales team. This includes the annual salary as well as the commission. There sales representative can make as little as 50% of their net salary. In most cases, it can go up to between 60% and 70% with a certainty of getting a 70%. IBM has a commission-based system for the sales team that is often referred to as the ‘quota’. The essence is to motivate the sales representatives to move from relying on a steady staff income to a commission based income after conducting good sales (Colletti & Fiss 2001, p. 39). IBM pays the sales team commission depending on their performance against the sales quota. The quota comprises of a set of that are usually measured using a point based approach. This measure has and continues to be used globally by different corporations. 3.1. Examples of close industry rivals Direct Industry Rivals for IBM IBM ANC MSFT HPQ Market Capitalization 236.42B 41.46B 269.75B 49.18B Quarterly Rev. Growth 0.30% 12.30% 6.00% -7.00% Employees 440,885 246,000 90,000 349,600 Revenue 106.98B 27.28B 73.03B 124.98B ACN = Accenture plc HPQ = Hewlett-Packard Company MSFT = Microsoft Corporation 3.2.1. Australian Red Cross (ARC) In the year 2011, IBM Australia was awarded a contract by the Australian Red Cross Blood to work on a project to design a blood management system which was an upgrade to the then existing blood management system. The software application is designed on the similar concept as the eProgesa. The software application has been providing secure and safe supply chain infrastructure in order to manage the Australian blood donation system. In addition, it includes ensuring that the blood donated is tested, recorded in the inventory as well as the distribution of different blood products such as the red cells, the platelets and the plasma. The Global Business Services for IBM has been and continues to provide support in the implementation process of upgrading the Blood Service to a current version of the eProgesa. The eProgesa is particularly made to specifically to meet the needs of blood services and blood transfusion centers within Australia. The eProgesa works towards the management of the safety, well traceable as well as secure of blood-related products, which includes different information starting from the time blood is donated and to the time when the donated blood is distribution to hospitals. 3.2.2. International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) IBM has been celebrated for increasing the number of leadership positions that women professional in the company. The increase is noted in different IBM departments, which include a 15 percent increase in the sales department and a 20 percent increase in the technology department. In the year 2012, IBM elected Virginia M Rometty who is the company’s first woman chief executive officer. This positive move is line with the company’s belief of the fact that the presence of a diversified leadership is much more likely to lead to increased innovation as well as creativity in the production of products. In addition, there will be an effective understanding of IBM consumers and the trends in the technology market. IBM has made an identification that women who have a working experience of more than 8 years can have tremendous impact on the company’s sales plan. The IBM technology leadership programme, which is called the TechAcme, is designed to focus on the technical functions of women. On the hand, the SalesElan programme is designed to provide a multifaceted programme approach which within all the different IBM departments. The SalesElan is expected to contribute greatly to the existing Sales programme for IBM and in particular in building the best selling skills and effectively organizing as well as rewarding the IBM sales team. 3.2.3. Child Fund Australia Child Fund Australia is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that is focused on children. Child Fund Australia works with families and community leaders directly in order to establish a meaningful as well as lasting positive transformation in the life of children. Child Fund Australia works on empowering the community to be in a position to speak out their wants as well as providing support for the people in the society in addressing the daily life issues. Child Fund Australia actively supports development that is sustainable community and friendly to the environment. Child Fund Australia works on making the world safer, healthy and a peaceful place for happier place for every child. Child Fund Australia does this by establishing child-centered programs, which provide support for the long-term development in order to achieve self-sufficiency in a child’s life. 3.2.4. Plan International Australia Plan International was established more than seventy years ago. Plan International is known as the non-profit and non-governmental organization in the field of child development. The organization has its operations in more than 50 countries in the developing world. The operations are designed to provide empowerment to the local communities as a way of enabling them to deal with poverty issues as well as provide different amazing opportunities in order to attain their full potential. The basis of the program of Plan International Australia is on the fact that positive and real change in the life of a child can only take place if the children are involved in the process. Plan International Australia works towards uniting, empowering as well as inspiring the communities to advocate for the rights of children. PART 4: Bibliography & Referencing Capek, P. G., Frank, S. P., Gerdt, S. S., & Shields, D. D. (2005). A history of IBM's open-source involvement and strategy. IBM Systems Journal, 44(2), 249-257. Colletti, J & Fiss, M 2001, ‘Compensating New Sales Roles’, New York: AMACOM. Edwards, C. C. (2011). What has IBM done for us? Engineering & Technology (17509637), 6(3), 72-75. doi:10.1049/et.2011.0314 Elkin, T. (2000). Branding Big Blue. Advertising Age, 71(9), 42-44. Haigh, T. (2012). The IBM PC: From Beige Box to Industry Standard. Communications of the ACM, 55(1), 35-37. doi:10.1145/2063176.2063188 Novick, H 2000, ‘Selling through Independent Reps’, New York: AMACOM. Walker, L. L. (2007). IBM business transformation enabled by service-oriented architecture. IBM Systems Journal, 46(4), 651-667. Read More