Manufacturers Insurance Group: Developing Territories (Case Analysis) Sales Management (Joseph F. Hair)

Introduction

Manufacturers Insurance Group (MIG) is an insurance company which provides insurance policies of manufacturing companies. They have normally policies for employees like worker's medical cost injuring on the job, employee sick leave coverage, and dozens of policies for manufacturers. The operation area is 15 Midwestern States and later expanded to five more States. Here five states represent territory graphical control units. In some cases, States have been divided into two or three more territories to balance the sales potential using account analysis and workload analysis. Ashley Roberts is a sales manager in MIG and it's her job to analyze the information available of the States and assign territories to the salespeople accordingly. The case talks about the importance of distributing bigger territories to smaller territories which helps to reduce traveling time and selling cost with improved outreach and communication. The sales manager has to smartly use the statistics available from any forms and create a proper plan and manage workload to achieve a particular goal.

R3 Technology: Improving Recruitment and Selection (Case Analysis) Sales Management (Joseph F. Hair)

Introduction

R³ Technology is a tech company which provides services for remote recovery and repair of computer servers to companies with wholesale and retail websites. It has been an outstanding service provider with advantageous in cost, remote-access, troubleshooting and repair. The company has been operating on the vision of Josh that the employees do not have to have prior knowledge since the company provides on the job training. Due to lack of proper recruitment and selection process, the company is losing its potential customers and facing a high rate of employees turnover. The company growth is up but it is yet to improve its management and human resource processes. The company is in greater need to improve and develop the system of recruitment and selection process. It has to look for candidates from other sources rather than the recommendation from friends and families. It has to hire skilled manpower and retain its valuable employees.

Wild Willie "Juiced" Drinks: Planning for Sales Growth (Case Analysis) Sales Management (Joseph F. Hair)

Introduction

Wild Willie Juiced Drinks established by two graduates from Boston College, is one of the new entrants in the nice market of beverages and is sold only in New England. The blind test has shown that most of the people have loved their product in comparison to the existing ones. They have realized that the sales in New England have dropped to double-digit due to the seasonal effect of winter. They are looking for the new market where they can expand their business so that the sale is consistent throughout the whole year.

Wild Willie is a small company and they do not have enough fund, and brand value to the markets where giant players already exist. They need better sales to plan to reach this market and compete. They do not have a brand image to sell their product through the large chains organizations like Wal-Mart and Target, or supermarkets like Publix and Kroger. They cannot compete with a big organization who are strong in "direct store door" from financial, brand, and distribution system.

Global Container Corporation: Creative Sales Forecasting (Case Analysis) Sales Management (Joseph F. Hair)

Introduction

Global Container (GC) is a known name in the field of plastic container manufacturer. It has containers manufactured for a variety of liquids, from beverages to industrial fluids. It has been operating worldwide through the well-organized distribution channel. Maiko Sakane, Director of New Product Development for GC during her vacation in the Bahamas got a new idea while spending time in the beach about the Snork-All to carry the equipment needed for Snorkel (diving undersea). The Snork-All is a lightweight product designed to carry necessary stuff related to Snorkel which can be snap to belt or bathing suit of the diver.

This idea of carrying container is well appreciated by most of the team member although the CEO and senior management team were not much convinced. The uncertainty of the senior members was due to different product line the company was serving. The major obstacle was to prepare marketing, and sales forecasting for the product Snork-All since Maiko was not an expert in marketing and forecasting. So the challenge is to gather knowledge about the market potential and sales probability.

SOLEX-DIGITAL: EFFECTIVE NEGOTIATION STRATEGIES (Case Analysis) Sales Management (Joseph F. Hair)

Introduction

Solex is a Digital Signage and Technology company with two decades in the field of technology based on the South of England. The company provides semiconductor-based solutions that can be integrated with surveillance and analytics options.

This case of Effective Negotiation Strategies is based on Personal Selling Process (PSP). The sales representative, Marilyn Boldt is in the negotiation process with the National Computer Company (NCC) and she is facing a hard time to take a decision whether to provide a discount which will affect the revenue of the company or to lose the negotiation which could lead the company to a better reputation. The hard time decision is due to Mr. Logan representative from NCC who is characterized as a greedy bargainer. There are two prospects in this case either to get a contract by compromising on the quality or to let go of the negotiation.

Cosair Gas Distributors: Problems with a CRM System Installation (Case Analysis) Sales Management (Joseph F. Hair)

Introduction

Cosair Gas Distributors with a fleet of 50 trucks operating 24 hours a day is oil distributor based on Houma, Louisiana to distribute the oil in 360 networks which it purchases from other vendors. Cosair has recently bought the Client Relationship Management (CRM) software. The founder of the company Riley Sayer is criticized for making a quick decision without consulting his employees about the usability of the software. He was only focused on the need for the software rather than its effectiveness. The author has indicated a need of a mediator between the management team and the employees to do the gap analysis, and what could be the best features and the best way to implement the CRM according to the business environment.

Emerging Markets: The Private Equity Challenge (Case Analysis) Global Business Strategy Mike W. Peng

Introduction

Private equity means the investment made in private companies or buying out public companies by taking them out of stock exchange. According to Peng, "The market for private equity focuses on using funds borrowed from private sources to buy out existing shareholders and make a firm private." Private equity has been controversial due to its advantage and disadvantages. Critics from developed countries have been against private equity since they argue it brings income equalities, exploit the resources and cut down the job opportunities. But in emerging markets like China, it is well accepted due to value-adding technique and value-added resources.

The private equity ensures the investment and its return on investment creating higher values for the shareholders. They work on maximizing the profit with skilled and experienced investor and appointment of the employees of highly qualified candidates. They create a financial discipline in the system to increase the profit and decrease the unnecessary expenses. Private equity work for long-term basis so that the investor gets more secured returns with less risk and capital preservation techniques.

Emerging Markets: Emerging Acquirers from China and India (Case Analysis) Global Business Strategy Mike W. Peng

Introduction

Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) opt merger and acquisition (M&A) as the primary mode to enter the foreign market due to synergies, growth, increase supply-chain, and eliminate competition. The resource-based, industry-based, and institution-based view helps MNEs to determine a strategy to enter into the new market. Chinese and Indian MNEs are also following the same concept to enter into a foreign market. Chinese and Indian MNEs have a competitive advantage in their respective home countries, China in the industry based and India in technology-based. China has the advantage of support from Government side whereas a disadvantage of suspicious actions by the host country. India does not have the advantage of support from Government side but due to being private firms government trust is high in the host country in comparison to the Chinese MNEs. Chinese and Indian MNEs conversion ratio is not in good figure though Indian MNEs leads the acquisition by 67 percent to 47 percent of Chinese MNEs. The MNEs lack the management techniques and capabilities due to which they have been criticized in post-acquisition stages.

Emerging Markets: BP, AAR, and TNK-BP (Case Analysis) Global Business Strategy Mike W. Peng

Introduction

A strategic alliance is done by the firm to explore the international resources and there is a various way to do so. According to Peng (2013), "Some of those reasons include, looking for new customers, raw materials, cheap labor, other monitory and fiscal benefits such as lower taxes, lower energy prices, host country subsidies".

BP, a western firm, has done Joint Venture (JV) with the Russian consortiums namely TNK-BP to start the business in Russia to explore oil fields of Russia and Ukraine to make it world's 3^rd largest oil producer. It is better for a firm to align with local firms and not to wholly owned business while doing business outside the home country. Every country has its own rules and regulation regarding an alliance with a foreign nation country and its compulsory for any businesses coming to Russia to have local partners. By following the industry, resource, and institution-based strategy any firm can create a strong strategy to sustain in the foreign market. BP and its strategic partners have clear miscommunication and trust between them as we can see in both episodes. BP has been trying to explore more business outside Russia in the first episode and its strategic partner AAR has denied on so. And in the second episode, BP has clearly breached the agreement in JV to have third alliance by any of the members in JV.

Emerging Markets: Microfinance, Macro Success or Global Mess? (Case Analysis) Global Business Strategy Mike W. Peng

Introduction

According to Peng (2014), " Recent research suggests that firm size and age are not defining characteristics of entrepreneurship." (pg 128), this suggests that an entrepreneur can arise from anywhere and it's not necessary that they need enough fund to start. Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are a type of banking system which provides loans to those group who have low-income or unemployed without any financial guarantees. MFIs are directly contributing to the national economies by putting an effort to raise the people from poverty. The MFIs are playing smart by providing 80 percent of its lending to women since they are likely to support their family and less likely to adopt bad habits like drinking, gambling in comparison to men. Muhammad Yunus, a visionary person has come up with an idea to lent people less and raise them out of poverty, and make them the practice of self-dependence which has led him to get the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

The case arises questionable debate of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus instead of the Nobel Economics Prize. It has also raised ethical questions to MFIs about its investors being richer and richer, charging up high loan interests, using unethical ways to recover, and forcing the customer to take the suicidal way out. Also, the Government of Bangladesh has been intervening and arising questions of wrongdoing by the Grameen Bank.

Ethical Dilemma: Facebook Violates Privacy (Case Analysis) Global Business Strategy Mike W. Peng

Introduction

The case is about ethical and unethical Facebook has made during its business operation. It has been blamed time and again for selling the sensitive information of the users to the advertisers. According to Peng (2014), "Facebook has been playing with fire and has got its fingers burned, again" (pg. 119), Facebook has been accused and it has accepted that it has sold the data to the advertisers but only as an advertisement. Since it is a profit motive organization, it has to earn from the platform anyhow but not in the cost of users privacy. Business houses have looked to Facebook as a platform to advertise and sell their products. The question has been if Facebook needs to be in tight rules and regulation and in doing so Facebook will lose its innovations or not. Since Facebook has a very good set of intellectual individuals, it will continue to stand high in this field.

Emerging Markets: High Fashion Fights Recession (Case Analysis) Global Business Strategy Mike W. Peng

Introduction

The case is about how high fashion has fought in the Great Recession in 2009 and how it has recovered from it and how it has entered new emerging markets. The luxury market was merely touched by the recession but they grew rapidly in emerging markets after a recession. The answers are in favor of high luxury items due to its customer brand loyalty. Consumers in these segments do not look for pricing and wealthy people lie in this segment so the luxury brands survived in the recession without offering much discount to the consumers and without going to the price war.