Prior
to our contemporary time, the bottling industry will dominated
by the products of Nigerian Bottling Company Plc.
Recently, 7-up bottling company Plc reemerged in the scene to compete
with the Nigerian bottling company Plc, both also struggle with
other manufacturers of mineral soft drinks. The scene
was complicated further by poor economic
situation in the country.
Therefore, innovation, dynamism and efficiency vis-à-vis marketing are
necessarily required as a means of not just surviving but also ensuring
profitability and co-operate growth. The implementation of marketing
strategies as well as successful co-operate performance of the sales force.
As a result this work sought to determine the implication of the
effective performance of salespersons as an indicator of corporate
growth potentials (a case study of 7 –up bottling company Plc) used
questionnaire, design and tests of hypothesis. The hypothesis was
tested based on the data collected and analyzed and the following
findings were accepted.
The consumption pattern of 7-up drinks customers is dependent on
the company sales persons performance.
The returns generated by 7-up bottling company is directly proportionate
to the effectiveness of the salespersons.
Consumers have favourable attitude toward 7 –up soft drinks.
Furthermore, conclusions and recommendations were made, the conclusions
are:
-
An average salesperson of 7-up bottling company is
professionally unskilled.
-
There is a direct relationship between a company’s growth sales
potentials and profitability with sales force performance.
- The 7-up salespersons do not effective and
intensively distribute their products.
- Consumers have favourable attitude towards
7-up drinks
- The company should strive to increases
it’s market share.
- There is a need to give proper
training and orientation to the salespersons.
- 7-up bottling company should enhance it’s
distribution network.
- It is hoped that if these recommendations
are applied by the 7-up bottling company, the effectiveness of it’s
salespersons will be enhanced.
BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
OVERVIEW OF THE COMPANY
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
STUDY
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
HYPOTHESIS
FORMULATION
SCOPE OF THE
STUDY
DEFINITION OF TERMS
LITERATURE REVIEW
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
DESIGN OF THE STUDY
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
SAMPLE SIZE
SAMPLING TECHNIQUES
METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION
QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN
TREATMENT OF DATA
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION FO
DATA
ANALYSIS OF DATA FROM THE MANAGEMENT STAFFS
ANALYSIS OF RESPONSES FROM CONSUMERS
TEST OF HYPOTHESIS
HYPOTHESIS
1
HYPOTHESIS
2
HYPOTHESIS
3
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CONCLUSION
RECOMMENDATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX
QUESTIONNAIRES
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
to the Study
A
Firm having carried out some researches and found out what the
buyers want, specifications and requirements converts these findings into
product concepts and lastly into goods and services that can satisfy these
identified wants, in their exact specification and requirement.
Hence” the typical firm can be seen as on input-output system" ”(Okeke C.
I 1993).
It is not enjoy to look at a firm more so in the context of
marketing as on input-output system. This is because several other
chain of activities preceed the input as well as the output.
A wholestic perspective considers all these interlocking and
interrelated activities that preceed input and follow after output.
For example, the output must be in the right proportion, must be
effectively priced, promoted and distributed.
Yet all these do not even guarantee exchange and transfer of title from the
firm to the buyers, neither do they even guarantee a reward or
profit to the firm.
In other words, all these activities may be properly integrated, blended and as
well form the bases on which a firm should b e viewed.
“Good distribution, new products, improved manufacturing resources, skillful
advertising and many other factors in marketing must
inevitably fail if a manager is unable to build a team of men
able to compete with strong competition and sell efficient to
every type of buyers”. (Jack 1983 P.80)
Hence the popular sloggan in marketing that “nothing happens until a sale
is made” (Okeke 1993)
To implement these marketing variables, the sales force has to be
utilized by the sales manger, they have to exhibit their primary sales
manship functions whereby they act as intermediaries between the
company and prospective customers, discharging their duties as the voice
of the company to the customers and directs the voice of the customers to the
company.
Therefore, personal selling brings the buyer and seller into direct
contact. It is important that every organization should have some number
of persons known as the sales force whose responsibility are to be sure that
customers and prospects are contacted and convinced to accept the items
offered in exchange for a value needed by the organization.
There is no amount of advertising, sales promotion and publicity that can be
equal to personal selling. This is because, contacts must be established
by somebody with buyers some where for market transactions to take
place.
The sales force in modern marketing do not only perform the
current sales, they are also concerned with laying the foundation for
further sales through the performance of information gathering function.
To properly carry out this, there should always exists in an
organization, a skilled manager who manages the sales force efficiently and
effectively.
As a result, sales management is defined “as the organization efforts
necessary in planning sales objectives, specifying selling efforts needed
in realizing the objectives, selecting, training and motivating appropriate
sales force and controlling their operations towards ensuring the full
realization of sales objectives (Okeke 1993: 40).
Salespersons are trained in a method of analysis and customer management.
Today, selling is a profession that involves mastering and applying a whole set
of principles, personal selling has some different styles, some
antithetical to the spirit of the marketing concept.
Three major aspects of personal selling are sales manship, negotiation and
relationship management (Kotler 1993).
Sales manship is the act of the sales persons persuading the
customer or prospect to see his point of view or do something the way he
wants.
Negotiation means the act of two or more parties reacting an
agreement on the price and the other terms of sales. Most
business selling involves negotiating skills.
Price is the issue being negotiated always, others include contract
completion time, quality of goods and service offered, purchase volume,
responsibility for financing risk taking, promotion, product safety etc.
Relationship management is a larger concept that guide the seller’s
dealings with customers. Sales manship and negotiation are transaction
or rented.
The company has continued to grow from strength to strength both in plant
expansion and product popularity amongst customers. By 1990, the company
has had plant location within it short period of operation in
Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Kaduna, Aba, Ilorin, Benin and that of Enugu (9th Mile
Corner).
A new glass industry for the manufacture of bottles was also constructed in the
Northern part of the country.
New Deposits are opened in many parts of the country to ensure that
their products react their products reached their ultimate customers even in
tar-flung places. The company commitment to quality is consistent
and unsurpassed in the soft drink industry.
This they develop over the years and lately enhanced by their partnership with
Pepsi-Cola international. The company have remained stead fast in their
effort to maintain the quality and excellence of their product.
Furthermore, it’s marketing strategies have been geared towards making
their products acceptable, available and affordable through creation of
awareness and aggressive sales of sales promotion by the sales persons.
Their objective therefore is to establish a steady consumer trend in the soft
drink business. This is endorsed by their innovative and modest promotional
campaign in which the people benefit immensely by getting added value for their
money.
In terms of sales, the company has made an appreciable volume
and profit margin growth over the years.
The head of corporate affairs, (Promotion Division) claimed that the company
has an appreciable percentage of the market share. It c an be however
adduced that the company has a strong capital base.
The company has been competed to increase the price of it’s brands for so
many times now, the current price of their product is N25.
This according to them is to keep to their marketing
strategies and objectives to it’s target customers. It is interesting to
note therefore, that these development has no visible effects on the
volume and sales return to the firm. The company has come along way hence
their slogan upholds. “The Difference is Clear” because it is the clear choice
for a new generation. Their interest is to help marketers close a particular
sales with a customer.
As regards relationship management, any seller who builds and
manages strong relationships with key customers will have a
reasonable turnover from the customers and mostly important to those customers
who can typically affect the company’s future.
Furthermore, sales representative covers a broad range of positions in our
economy. The following classification of sales positions was devised by
many as quoted by Kotler 1993.
Delivery Sales man/Deliveries:
Positions where the salesperson’s job is predominantly to deliver products to
buyers.
Inside order taker:
The salesperson here is predominantly an inside order taker.
Where the salesperson stands behind the counter and serves buyers.
Field order taker:
This is the kind of sales position where the sales person is predominantly an
order taker but goes outside to meet buyers. For example, shampoo salesperson
calling on the super market manger.
Missionary:
This is a position where the salesperson is not expected or permitted to take
an order but to build goodwill for his company or to educate the actual or
potential user. He does not do direct selling.
Technical Salesman :
Position where the major emphasis is placed on technical knowledge. That is the
salesperson selling only technical goods and offering technical services.
For example, the engineering salesperson who is primarily a consultant to the
client companies.
The conclusion is that salespersons realize profit from various sales and that
customers are satisfied in buying organization outputs.
And this calls for corporate growth potentials. This work therefore aims
at critically evaluating the effects of this all important marketing function
of personal selling corporate performance.
The production of soft drinks in Nigeria started off in 1933 when a foreign
concern established the Nigeria mineral waters Limited.
Since then many other companies have established various brands of soft drink
companies. Some of the early companies to make an impact in the industry
in Nigeria then was the Pesi-Cola company (franchised by seven-up
bottling company), the London and Kano trading company with it’s “sword
brand”, the Nigerian bottling company with it’s Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and
others.
Some other soft drink companies existed, however most of them collapsed
under the weight of heavy and aggressive competition in the
industry. One of the contributing factor which led to the
extinction of most soft drink companies was the then Niagara Civil War.
The seven-up bottling company Plc came into the Nigerian Business Scene in 1959
through the efforts of the founder, a well known and respected figure, Late
Sheikh Mohammed CL Khalil.
The company which was franchised to bottle seven –up bottling international,
incorporating of US came up with a brand of softdrink “7-up” in 1960, in 1986,
the franchise for “change crush” was added; thus began their
gradual incursion into the Nigeria market with just two brands, 7-up and
orange crush.
In 1989, the company future rose to a new height with the acquisition of Messrs
John Holt soft drink business in Nigeria. This led to the successful
negotiation of another franchise from Messrs Pepsi –Cola, Merinda
orange, Merinda Soda and tonic. This full complement of flavours offers
the company a tremendous competitive advantage in their expansion programme and
future growth as these products now measure competitively with
other soft drinks especially with the products of the Nigerian Bottling
company, who have dominated and enjoyed a large percent of the market
share of the industry.
Despite the apparent increase in soft drink companies in the country today, the
seven-up bottling company with it’s target sighted planning aggressive
marketing strategies, heavy promotional and distributional network, the
company with it’s ten plats as against twenty ix of the strong threat to the
NBC in the industry. Due to the activities of the salespersons, the
company products are in high demand and with sustenance and increase of
it’s effort in these areas.
OBJECTIVE
OF THE STUDY
In order to properly evaluate the effective performance of salespersons as
indicator or cooperate growth potentials, certain basic data are required, the
objectives focus on how the goals of the study are to be accomplished.
To ascertain them, the objectives includes:
- To determine the nature and scope of the
company’s sales force
- To determine the salesperson’s performance on
the achievement of the organization corporate growth.
- To determine the impact the sales persons have
created on the customer act of patronage.
- To determine the nature and basis of allocating
quote as to the salespersons.
- To determine whether sales of the company
justify investment in it’s expenditure.
- To ascertain the relationship but between
performance of the salespersons and corporate growth potentials.
- To determine how efficiently 7-up bottling
company Plc organizes and manages it’s sales force.
Significance
of the study
Personal selling is a unique promo tool in the sense that it is the marketing
function with the task of converting the organization’s produce to cash.
It is always at the point of personal selling that the point of efforts
of a firm either fails or succeed. It is the act of the salespersons that
converts a prospect into customer and the customer into user
and brand loyality. In other words, personal selling is not only
the key to company’s success but also a very crucial and decisive marketing
function.
Personal selling brings the buyer and seller into direct contact. It is
the heart of marketing, representing the market transactions with it’s inherent
issue of exchange and values.
The study is further of great significance in the sense that every product or
service marketed, no matter how technical or non-technical it is.
Final analysis for it’s success is dependent on the ability and
performance of the salespersons.
Finally exchange is the key factor in marketing and this exchange
is a function of personal selling. Whether industrial products or
not, exchange relationship must exist between the corporate organization
and it’s customers. Exchange is effected through personal
selling. Therefore, personal selling could have a strategic impact
on the performance of the corporate entity.
Based on the above, there is a very strong need to determine the extent
at which the quality and other related profits of the sales force impinge
on the corporate performance.
Hypothesis
formation
The following are the basic assumptions for the research.
Consumption pattern of seven-up soft drinks customers is
dependent on the company’s salespersons performance.
Consumers have favourable attitude towards 7-up soft drinks.
Returns generated to 7-up bottling company is directly
proportionate to the effective performance of the salespersons on the sales of
the products.
Scope of the study
The study is expected to cover the activities of the salesperson of the sev en
up bottling company, Enugu plant.
Competitors of the seven-up bottling company was also considered
as they make up the major players in the study.
Definition
of Terms
Sales Force,
These are sales personals that deal directly with the customers on behalf of
the entire organization.
Selling,
This is getting orders from customers and supplying the orders. It
involves the act of salesmanship.
Salesmanship,
This is the act of persuading people to buy, hence it can be seen as the
ability, hence it can be seen as the ability to persuade, convince and
motivate a customer to take action.
Prospecting,
This can be defined as the search for potential customers.
Personal selling, This
can be seen as the face to face contact between the salesperson and the
prospective customer.
Sales Presentation,
This is a kind of opportunity for the salesperson to project the image of
the company and possibly relate it’s product or services to the buyer needs.
Department | Marketing |
Project ID Code | MKT0087 |
Chapters | 5 Chapters |
No of Pages | 85 pages |
Methodology | Null |
Reference | YES |
Format | Microsoft Word |
Price | ₦4000, $15 |
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