Sales Planning and Operations Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Sales Planning and Operations - Assignment Example Development of sales strategies in line with corporate objectives These strategies should also take into consideration the need of the sales team to be knowledgeable about how their products or services can satisfactorily solve the customer needs. This reduces time wasting, as the sales team is able to target the right customers, communicate to them the correct message at the right time. In developing of a competitive sale strategy doing an extensive research about your competitors is a prerequisite thing that should be done early in the planning stage. This enables the sales management team to do a strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats matrix for each major competitor leading to a focused and consistent competitive sales strategy (Care & Bohlig, 2008, p220). Then the over all sales strategy will involve planning of the long-term sales goals, analyzing the business sales cycle, and meeting with the sales team about the sales drive and their personal career goals (Reid & Bojanic 2009). After developing the long-term sales strategy, the sale s management team should then develop monthly and weekly sales strategies that support the long- term sales strategy and facilitate evaluation of the short-term performance of the sales people. Importance of recruitment and selection procedures Sales people are crucial pillar in creating and implementing any sales strategy thus their recruitment and selection should be done in a manner that will lead to the right people who can accomplish their sales responsibilities effectively.. Studies have revealed that without proper recruitment and selection of sales personnel, an organization may experience the following problems. First, inadequate sales coverage and lack of customer follow-up; secondly, increased training costs to overcome deficiencies; thirdly, more supervisory problems; more so, higher turnover rates; additionally, difficulty in establishing lasting client relationships; and lastly, suboptimal total sales force performance (Ingram, Laforge & Avila, 2008, p132). Therefore, recruitment and selection should be well executed so that competent and high performing sales personnel are hired. Effective recruitment and selection procedures can be achieved mainly through a process that is fair, considers diversity, meets the company needs and has