District Sales Manager Essay

The principle error Maureen made was underestimating how fundamental company culture could impact decision-making at e real responsibility level. Even though Quaker had austere functional reporting lines, the organization supported an informal culture based on friendliness and openness. or so importantly, Quakers ethos required a high degree of influence by persuasion and personal magnetismnot formal authority.Secondly, the communication vehicle that Maureen chose to carry and deliver her proposed excogitation was ill suited for interconnecting the plan and expectations. Instead of going with the organizations pattern of utilizing personal relationships, team crop, and the openness to express opinions and feedback, Maureen sent a memo directly to the titanium extrusion gross sales representatives. In the memo, she simply gave a rationale for making the change. In response, a District Sales Manager (DSM) called Maureen to ask for a more detailed commentary for the change due t o its arbitrary spirit. Therefore, Maureen presented her findings to the DSMs in a yearly sales meeting in the front man of the VP of Marketing. pretermit of em supplyment from authority Although Maureens plan obtained approval from her boss, Hugh Salk, there was never a report from the VP of Sales to his subordinates (district sales managers and sales representatives) supporting the proposal. As seen in Exhibit 2, Lawrence Israel, the VP of Sales has direct power over DSMs.Companys hiring practices Maureen was hired at a managerial position because she had a very attractive professional background that made her a highly desirable candidate for her role. However, this was not in line with the company culture that encouraged internal promotions rather than external hiring at a managerial level (Typically, managers who joined Quaker from other steel or metal producers found the company a confusing and frustrating place in which to work. For this and this other reasons, most of Quak ers managerial positions were fill up from within, p2).Responsibility lines structure Due to the companys growth, many managers and at times only divisions were responsible to other departments even though there was not a preset hierarchy that conjugated them. This situation complicated to a certain extent the relationship between the product management groups and the sales force as can be inferred from the fact that the titanium DSM in Chicago had to report to cardinal bosses (p5).Sales forces lack of adaptation Sales representatives were assigned to accounts based on have it away and usually had tough time cracking big accounts. This was in part due to lack of livelihood from the technical support services and sometimes from the R&D labs as the larger accounts were more technically complex. It was also because there were no additional economical benefits to work on bigger accounts, thus harder work was not compensated in any manner (The Chicago DSM explained that a modest ca sh pension existed, but that he did not use it, believing it had little effect, p6). Hence, the only motivation for the sales people was closing a successful deal and working directly with customers which was frequent with small accounts.Lack of relationship and communication Maureen spent so much time analyzing the sales time simulations therefore, she did not authorise enough time getting to know other team members on the field. These circumstances did not esteem building trust with the sales personnel and this lack of participation within the decision-making process hindered effective results (In response to the memo, one of the titanium DSMs called her to say that he had received several complaints from his salespeople about its arbitrary nature, p8).