Sales Management

Sales Management CASE – 1 (20 Marks) Auckland Engineering plc Jim Withey, sales manager for Auckland Engineering plc, a well-established engineering company based in the Midlands, had been contemplating the memo he had received two days earlier from his newly appointed marketing director. Memo To: J Withey, sales manager From: D C Duncan, marketing director Date: 16 January 2008 Subject: Preparation of annual marketing plan

You will recall that, at our series of preliminary meetings to discuss future marketing plans for the company, I suggested that I was unhappy with the seemingly haphazard approach to planning. Accordingly, you will recall it was agreed between departmental heads that each would undertake to prepare a formal input to next month’s planning meeting. At this stage, I am not seeking detailed plans for each product market, rather I am concerned that you give some thought to how your department can contribute to the planning process.

Being new to the company and its product/markets, I am not entirely up to date on what has been happening to the market for our products, although as we all know our market share at 3.5 per cent is down on last year. I would particularly like to know what information ‘our department could contribute to the analysis of the situation. To help you in your own analysis I have summarized below what I feel came out of our first planning meetings.

Questions 1) Give a brief outline of the ways in which you as sales manager can contribute to the marketing planning process at Auckland Engineering. 2) Looking at Mr. Duncan’s analysis of your previous meetings, what issues/problems do you see which are of particular relevance to the activities of the sales force? 3) How would you respond to Mr. Duncan’s comments on the promotional mix and, in particular, to his comments about the level of advertising expenditure? 4) What is the point in conducting a SWOT analysis?