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Introduction - Sales Management
Sales management can be defined as the process of developing the sales force along with coordinating the operational activities of sales and implementing the techniques of sales in order to allow the business to consistently hit and achieve the sales targets. Sales management strategy is absolutely a must if the business organisation is focused on bringing in any revenue (Rapp and Beeler, 2021). This report will focus and demonstrate the principles of sales management for both private and public organisation along with evaluating the merits of how the structure of sales are organised. It will also highlight applying successful selling techniques for managing and building effective customer relationships has been beneficial for the organisation that has been selected for the report.
Task 1
Overview of the organisation including their products/services they offer
Sainsbury and its operational aspects are driven by their passion for food and together they focus on serving and helping every customer. The focus on providing great quality food and delicious items at a competitive price range which has been one of the major aspects that they have focused on since the very first opening of their store in 1869. Sainsbury Plc. is one of the second largest supermarket chains established in the United Kingdom and has a 16% market share in the supermarket sector (Sarkar et al., 2021). The organisation was founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury. The company focuses on helping everyone better so that they can create a better planet that is committed to delivering and developing healthy eating habits and sustainable diet for every individual. Their focus towards helping individuals make eating well easy, tasty and affordable for the purpose of supporting a positive impact on health and the health of the planet. The products offered by the company are super store Hypermarket, Supermarket, Convenient shop and Forecourt shop. All these supermarkets and subsections help in meeting and addressing the shopping needs of the individuals on a daily basis.
Current online and offline selling techniques and channels used by Sainsbury
It has been significantly found out that Sainsbury has adopted both ATL and BTL strategies to market all the products it has manufactured in the consumer market. It has focused on launching campaigns in radio, television, newspapers, billboards and leaflets for the purpose of building the name of the brand along with spreading awareness amongst the consumers. The company has also utilised sales promotion via database marketing and incentives as an essential part of a promotional strategy (Subawa and Budiadnyana, 2021). The official website of the company has also been one of the most effective promotional tools that has uploaded information regarding the product and has been effective as one of the current online techniques used by the organisation which has enhanced the promotional activity on a regular basis.
Sainsbury has additionally launched Nectar Reward Card for the purpose of building sales in increasing the loyal consumer base. Every customer can be on point with every purchase and it can be redeemed in their next purchase time. These cards have become one of the most popular for the customers while shopping for grocery items and other items they require and have helped the brand in maintaining a loyal base of customers (Guo et al., 2021). The company has also provided the customers with vouchers which can be redeemed at some of the sports clubs which are in collaboration with the company. It has been found out that the established slogan, “Quality perfect, price lower” by the founder has been able to describe the activities and functional aspects of the company perfectly. The company has also actively participated in several CSR activities that has created a positive brand image and has helped in forming a loyal consumer base which has brought about a competitive edge for the company in the competitive business environment (Zhuang et al., 2018). Sainsbury has also effectively been able to recognise the power of sponsorship deals and the significance of celebrity endorsements.
Application of key principles of Sales management in terms of the importance of sales planning, methods of selling and sales reporting to achieve the sales targets
There are several key principles of sales management that should be applied within the business environment of the Sainsbury in order to understand the importance of sales planning, various methods of selling and sales reporting for the purpose of achieving the targets of sales of the company (Ratchford et al., 2022).
Consistency: One of the major reasons of success in the sales process totally focuses on several factors and one of the most significant of them is consistency. It is very difficult to achieve consistency but it is worth the time and effort one puts into it. Consistency has been helpful for Sainsbury in allowing them to close the deals at a faster pace by building better relationships with their loyal customers which has significantly improved the number of sales revenue generated by the organisation (Hinson et al., 2018).
Degree of independence: Sainsbury believes that a sales manager is not the individual who can do everything all by themselves. The company focuses on allocating jobs to the team who are responsible for getting the job done and also allows some of the team members to perform tasks independently in order to track down their results (Jobber et al., 2019). The management of the company focuses on giving some extra tasks to that of performers along with rewarding and acknowledging them for closing the details which showcases the management of the company focuses on trusting in the work displayed by the employees along with encouraging them to bring good results.
Equality: It is very important to treat all the members of the company equally by showing them respect and approving their efforts.
Conviction: Sainsbury and management have a better understanding of the customer from communication and has been able to find arguments in order to make them buy the product which they desire. Sainsbury focuses on adjusting their targets of sales and controls expected standards instead (Ingram et al., 2019). The management of the company focuses on training the individuals and other employees to handle the rejections of the clients in a better way so that they can improve customer retention. It is also important for the sales team to enhance their communication skills along with being more confident and have a good knowledge of the product they are selling to the customers.
Sales planning are quite essential for Sainsbury as it helps the company in planning for the unpredictable and unforeseen risk so they can focus on formulating strategies which will be effective to overcome these challenges and risks. Sales planning also provided the benchmark to the company of where they see themselves in the future and how they can get there by allowing them to adjust the plan based on necessary changes and trends in the competitive business environment (Chunawalla, 2021). It is also very sensual in driving individuals with the creative thinking ability that helps the employees focus on the bigger picture and form plans on the basis of their analysis in order to cope up with every kind of unseen circumstances.
There are several methods of selling a product and several approaches have been implemented by Sainsbury. The company focuses on applying the SNAP selling technique in a consistent manner which focuses on reaching the customers by speaking to them at a direct level. This has allowed Sainsbury to manufacture products on the basis of the customer needs and aligning their activities by raising their priorities (Chapman et al., 2021). By following this method, Sainsbury has been able to reach the customers in an effective manner by gaining valuable knowledge about their business operations and by determining what is more valuable to the customers. This has been helpful in enhancing their revenue goals and enabling them to stand out from the competition along with increasing the structure of the organisation.
Sainsbury has further implemented conceptual selling which has been able to establish a Framework that centres on planning the interaction of the company with the customers along with identifying patterns in which the customers focus on buying their products. This framework helps Sainsbury in understanding what factors drive the customers to purchase new products. Once this is identified, the framework helps in selling the right product to the customers in a way that helps the company in standing out from their competition (Åge, 2018). Sainsbury also utilizes this information for the purpose of building an action plan to help customers utilise the products they are selling along with improving their processes or overcoming any kind of obstacles.
Sales reporting have been helpful for the same query in allowing them to successfully locate and remove various obstacles in their sales funnels and therefore the company has never remained at a stagnation point. This report helps in providing the company with the chance to discover different positive trends throughout a specific field along with mitigating the drawbacks of employee turnover (Chapman et al., 2021). Also helps in providing the sales team with proper direction and better sense of motivation to bring about a competitive advantage to the marketplace.
Evaluating the benefits of sales structure and how they are organised
Sainsbury follows a hierarchical structure for sales management which provides employers with more power and authority in the process of decision making.
Recruitment: It is the duty of the sales manager to recruit applicants who are best fit for the specified job role of the company. Sainsbury have separate employment Agencies for their jobs that helps in identifying talented individuals who have potential enough to contribute towards developing a functional working environment (Thaichon et al., 2018).
Training and Development: Sainsbury have focused on providing the employees with on duty and off site training so that it can improve their knowledge and experience to work in the changing trends and society. The management of the company has focused on conducting a survey in understanding how the employees are benefiting through training and their progress in the workplace (Sinha and Verma, 2020). This has been helpful for them in terms of understanding the improvement of skills and knowledge within the employees in the process of researching.
The business operations of Sainsbury are organised on the basis of the roles and skills into smaller groups and departments. Based on the sales, the organisation has been able to classify the functional activities which are known as sales structure and their type has been provided below:
Marketing: The company has been working in collaboration with several research agencies and has a marketing specialist that helps them in predicting the current needs and requirements of the individuals and competitors (Spisakova, 2019). The USP of Sainsbury’s is that it sells affordable ranged products that have been helpful for them in acquiring around 32 million customers. With constant training, Their employees have been able to utilise technology in an easy manner that is helpful for them, increasing the sale of the product and helping the company in the process of growth.
Geological: It has been identified that natural resources are pretty much important in the process of developing sustainable business plans and maintaining them. Sainsbury has been working effectively with many companies for the purpose of drawing maximum benefit from these natural resources (MOORTHY, 2021).
Importance and advantages of the concept of ‘selling through’ others.
Selling through an intermediary has been much more cost effective for Sainsbury in reaching the end customers in comparison to selling them to the customers directly. When Sainsbury focuses on targeting business customers that deal with large suppliers, they prefer supplies wholesalers already have an existing relationship with the business. During the times when an individual consumer thinks about buying low-value quantities of the products sold by Sainsbury, one of the best options opted by the company might be to target the retailers that focus on selling similar products (Rapp and Beeler, 2021). The management of the company also chooses an alternative approach to focus on providing effort on a smaller number of wholesalers who can in turn supply the products and services to most of the retailers. In order to get the customers, it is essential for the company to promote effective advertisement and promotions that can be crucial to obtain the targets and objectives of the company. Promoting products directly through various channels to end customers is one of the most effective options of marketing that can be opted by the company where the distributors will be keen to stock and sell those products that the customers are looking for (Singh et al., 2019).
Required skills and attributes of a successful selling techniques in sales proposal
It can be stated that sales technique is one of the most essential components. The company should focus on selling to the buyers considering their situation. Most of the sales representatives to the sales force representative and studies have shown that 40% of the deals in the pipeline considered no decision rather than to competitors. It is very important for the sales department to introduce the needs which are not considered by the company to a client. This approach helps in virtually research on discovery questions which inclines on connecting to the capabilities of those needs that have been identified (Mahlamäki et al., 2019). It is very important to tell the customers the stories of the company in order to focus on raising the sales conversions. This will help the company in forming a bond with the organisation and this principle applied in a correct manner will be helpful for the clients to understand the justification of the purchase decisions they have made. Although it is very important for the sales department to not provide too much information on describing value according to the buyer’s perspective.
Ways in which skills and attributes contribute to building and managing customer relationships
Building and maintaining strong relationships between clients and the management of the company are one of the crucial factors for sustainable business growth. It is common for the owners of a business to focus their resources on gaining new business ventures.
Focusing on communication: Sainsbury believes effective communication should be their priority as communicating the objectives and goals of the company clearly will help in developing value statements for the clients which will align the business goals with the evaluated progress. Timely and thorough communication has been helpful for the company in terms of building a strong relationship with the clients by making them feel comfortable. This can be achieved by being honest and open with the clients (Shen and Tang, 2018).
Sharing knowledge: It is essential for the management of a company to understand their area of expertise so that they can share the knowledge with the clients. If the clients do not understand the specified area of expertise, they might end up feeling ignorant about the processes and intricacies of the delivery and are disconnected from project development.
Developing appreciation: While it is an established fact that client boundaries are important, there are times where it is important to go above and beyond that can be helpful for the business. Keeping the limits in place but looking out for a moment also can go an extra mile for the business.
Writing catchy emails: Sainsbury has trained employees in writing emails in a personalized way to the customers in order to build a connection with potential customers. With the help of content, they have been able to provide value and personalized service based on the preference of the individual by understanding the journey of these customers (Islam et al., 2021).
Reward loyalty: Developing a way in which the customers can be benefited from a loyalty program along with offering them free samples, gifts, points as rewards can enhance the communication and bonding between the management of the company and the client. Sainsbury thinks of these incentives as an investment for the purpose of retaining customers by being creative.
Establishing trust: Building trust is very essential and keeping the communication honest and open keeps the company in building relationships with the client.
Seeking feedback and showcasing genuine care: Providing customer feedback is what are the critical aspects that provide an on-going success to the organisation because this process helps indirectly hearing from the customers about what is working and what is not. Sainsbury has where the customers can provide their feedback on the website or across social media channels and by seeing these recommendations they implement strategies to foster business growth.
Being consistent and timely in the interactions: One of the primary ways of encouraging open feedback on the website is through social media and email. After recording these feedback, the management of Sainsbury.
Conclusion
This report has been able to summarise the principles of sales management along with the sales management process and sales strategy which are followed in Sainsbury for the purpose of achieving the goals and objectives of the organisation. Several other aspects have been evaluated which includes significance of key financial concepts and portfolio management principles. Sales management can be termed as one of the most crucial processes of determining overall success in business functions. The importance of steel structure and its application has been discussed in this assignment. Sainsbury have focused on providing the employees with on duty and off site training so that it can improve their knowledge and experience to work in the changing trends and society. Sainsbury have separate employment agencies for their jobs that help in identifying talented individuals who have potential enough to contribute towards developing a functional working environment. The management of the company has focused on conducting a survey in understanding how the employees are benefiting through training and their progress in the workplace. This has been helpful for them in terms of understanding the improvement of skills and knowledge within the employees in the process of researching.
Task 2: Portfolio management process
Purpose and benefits of using portfolio management
Portfolio management in general can be defined as the assorting, categorization as well as controlling of the company’s act as well as ventures in accordance with its tactical purposes as well as ability to supply. Different companies based on their functioning decides the purpose of having a portfolio management in the same manner Sainsbury based on their functioning which is completely on retail segment created the purpose of having portfolio management too. The main purpose of having portfolio management in Sainsbury is to simplify the functions at a speed as well as increasing their expensing investment actions with an intention to save more in getting better the worth of food, developing the assortment and creativity as well as frequently supplying the worth to the clients (Sainsbury's, 2022). By using proper portfolio management Sainsbury enjoys the below mentioned advantages:
Augmented venture assortment technique
Greater picture of serving its customer in a more superior manner
Providing additional choices of products
Greater focal point on the business purposes
Additional effective deployment of company assets
Reduced company threats
Augmented timely supply of products and services to its client
Use of different sales analytical
These days taking care of the customers has become one of the major tasks and particularly for retail companies like Sainsbury retaining and holding the client is of utmost importance. In order to do so there are various kinds of sales analytical is now available in the market which companies can use to focus more on the customers. In case of Sainsbury it has been seen that they are using two tools which are customer relationship management and customer experience management. According to the top management of Sainsbury In the present worldwide market Customer relationship administration (CRM) is one of the significant strategies to acquire the connection among shoppers and associations. Client relationship management helps Sainsbury in prompting the upgrade of prominence of the association in the worldwide business sector (Mashingaidze, 2014). Also with the help of customer experience management Sainsbury able to comprehend the client as well as based on their shopping experience they develop tactical designs which facilitates cross-operational and endeavors as well as client-focused culture to get better the satisfaction, trustworthiness as well as encouragement. Overall it can be said that both the sales analytical tools helps Sainsbury in keeping a good relationship with its clients (Hassan, 2013).
dentification of investment opportunities
The monetary planning technique starts with the recognizable proof of the prospective ventures and various other occasions. Normally the arranging body fosters the evaluations of future deals, which fills in as the reason for setting creation target. Considering the investment opportunities within Sainsbury it has been declared on July 5th 2021 that the company has revealed a £50 million savings in order to supply the best costing for its clients. The patrons of Sainsbury after this will be competent enough to invest fund on the popular daily based products within shop as well as on the website of the company too. The £50 million value speculation is the most recent striking move from Sainsbury's to convey better incentive for clients, as a feature of the store's arrangement to return food at the core of the business. Since declaring the new arrangement in November last year, Sainsbury's has previously sent off its Sainsbury's Quality, Aldi Price Match responsibility, which assists clients with feeling certain that they are getting extraordinary quality and extraordinary worth. So, overall it can be said that the investment opportunity of Sainsbury is quite high and also customer centric too (Sainsbury, 2021).
How to monitor performance of sales force to ensure they are focusing their efforts correctly?
In order to monitor the performance of the sales force Sainsbury need to make use of the below mentioned techniques in order to facilitate that they are concentrating their endeavors in a proper manner.
Incorporating a sales cycle length: While taking a look at the sales group of Sainsbury, incorporating a sales cycle length will assists Sainsbury with estimating the general viability of the techniques Sainsbury’s sales team is utilizing and the nature of the potential customers they are getting out of the given target.
Regular transaction size per salesperson: Monitoring the size of the normal sale per sales representative is a metric that Sainsbury might make use of to follow the singular presentation of the outreach group individuals. On a more elevated level, this measurement can measure up to the company's income objectives and assists Sainsbury with assessing the nature of leads and whether you're focusing on the accurate target.
Setting of proper targets and giving deadline: Lastly, it will be pivotal for Sainsbury to set proper target for each sales force group and giving them proper deadline to meet the target this performance tracking process will help the company in identifying how the sales person are performing and how much they are taking their work seriously based on which further actions can be taken (Gilliam,Crystal , 2017).
How to manage sales pipeline and account management using the CRM software's
There are various steps which need to be followed by Sainsbury to administer the sales pipeline as well as account administration deploying the CRM programming. Those are explained in detail below:
The first step is identification of the sale prospect that helps in recognizing the needs for the sales which is usually focused on creating revenue for Sainsbury.
The second step is determining the actual lead prospective which directly helps the sale team of Sainsbury in identifying the total target to be achieved.
Third step is identification of the decision maker who will take decision on what kind of client will need to target as well as in how much that target need to be achieved.
Last but not the least updating the pipeline in which target will be created in addition to achieve by the sales person (Mashingaidze, 2014).
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