Territory Management Kudler Fine Foods

Territory Management

Kudler Fine Foods

Kudler Fine Foods needs sales force's complete support to make this new product a success. For this reason, sales staff must be adequately compensated. Compensation can be both monetary and non-monetary. Non-monetary rewards would include promotion, more responsibility and thus greater command etc. All these kinds of compensation indicate recognition of the work performed and for this reason, compensation plans must be completely transparent. Transparency in determining compensation is one of the most successful strategies used by managers to get more out of their sales force. In most cases, compensation plans do not work because they are not understood by the very people for whom it was designed. Kudler needs to develop a clear transparent compensation plan that would make it absolutely clear that all work done would be recognized and hard work would not go unnoticed. The compensation plan must also include the company's goals and targets so every person on the sales force can see what he needs to achieve and how will he be compensated.

Monetary rewards are important but equally important are non-monetary ones. The firm must take into account the needs and desires of people in order to develop a plan which is suitable. For example Kudler can attach non-monetary rewards with bigger achievements or more important targets while it can attach smaller monetary rewards with initial targets or goals. If someone has reached a certain sales target in his territory, then he must be rewarded with some kind of recognition. This would boost his morale and motivate him further. At the same time, it will send a clear signal to everyone about what they need to do in order to achieve that reward or recognition. This calls for effective incentive management that must form an integral part of territory management.

Today's market and customer dynamics make it difficult for companies to achieve sustained growth -- particularly when deficient incentive management processes and technologies prevent them from influencing sales force behavior. Effective incentive compensation management is vital to business performance -- giving the sales force incentives to do the right things the right way has an enormous impact on revenue growth, profitability and retention. Our research shows that a $1 billion business can boost its pre-tax profit by $13 million by using better motivational tools and incentives." (Accenture)

Territory management plan must also include time management plan. There is no point in achieving a given target four months after the due date. If the firm makes it clear that there is a timeframe in which work needs to be done then it will be easier to motivate the sales force to achieve more. Time management is extremely important for Kudler Foods because it is introducing a new product line which is a perishable good. This means it must sell within a certain time period and for this reason sales staff must be given a clear time frame in which to achieve various sales targets. Time management is important also because it tells the sales staff where they need to spend more time and energy. For example Kudler is an up-market brand name which means that people living in certain affluent areas are more likely to purchase its salads than those living in low income areas. For this reason, while it might not hurt to try to gain a market in other areas, it would be utterly useless to spend as much time in these places as they are spending in target customers' areas. Therefore time management plays a very significant role as Rick Phillips, president of Phillips Sales and Staff Development (PSSD) explains:

If you want to maintain and grow existing accounts while obtaining new accounts, you must budget your time. Your territory action plan must include a time management plan. You will need to decide how to parcel your time and make some hard decisions based on account size and potential, spending more time with the most valuable accounts and less time with others. (Phillips)