Unit VI concepts and overview

Changing a Promotion System

What is the likely cause of CSD's problems?

The problems in the Commercial Sales Division (CAD) aren't Tom's; they are the lack of succession planning, management and leadership training offered by the company. It can be inferred from the case study that Bioglass at a corporate level and CSD specifically lack the necessary training to ensure high achieving sales personnel step into a leadership role. This is a common problem across many business-to-business (B2B) enterprises who highly value sales performance yet perennially struggle with how to turn it into excellent leadership (Butler, Reese, 1991). As the book indicators, many enterprises settle for a mediocre level of performance when it comes to leadership overall, and this is especially the case in the area of sales as high achieving individual performers often struggle with the transition into management (Heneman III, Judge & Kammeyer-Muller, 2012).

Second, CSD has architected their sales strategies away from standardized processes and allowed for too much variation in how new customers are gained and existing customers upsold and served. This is implicit in how Tom Caldwell's replacement struggles to attain results in his role. Of the many sectors of B2B marketing and selling, manufacturers struggle most often with standardizing selling processes, ensuring smooth and profitable transitions from one sales representative or manager to the next (Rajagopal, Rajagopal, 2008). The lack of consistency of process is undermining Tom's replacement and paradoxically also is hindering his performance as a sales manager. Bioglass at a corporate level and CSD specifically need to put into place entirely new, standardized sales processes to ensure the success of their CSD division and company overall. In conjunction with the training that Tom needs to excel at his job, Bioglass needs to define more effective sales management processes as well.

2. How might CSD, and the Bioglass more generally, make better promotion decisions in the future? Be specific.

Bioglass in general and CSD specifically have to define a more effective sales planning, execution and management process if they are going to succeed in the short-term. Part of any sales planning process alone is the need for defining analytics, key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics of performance that capture individualized and group-based performance (Rajagopal, Rajagopal, 2008). From this baseline of performance, Bioglass can better manage its many divisions, including CSD.

Second, Bioglass has no clear idea of the balance of qualitative and quantitative attributes and factors that will lead to success in a management or leadership position in their company today. Too often high achieving sales professionals are promoted based on their ability to consistently meet and exceed quotas, with little thought to how transferrable their skills sets are or how adept they are at coaching and nurturing other sales professionals to higher performance