Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic

Marketing: A

Global−Managerial

Approach, 14/e

15. Personal Selling Text © The McGraw−Hill
    Companies, 2002

focused on technology that substitutes for personal contact by a salesperson. But

marketing managers also need to make decisions about providing sales technology

support to help salespeople communicate more effectively.

434 Chapter 15

Information Technology Provides Tools to Do the Job

How sales tasks and responsibilities are planned and handled is changing in many

companies because of the new sales technology tools that are available. It is usually

the sales manager’s job—perhaps with help from specialists in technology—to

decide what types of tools are needed and how they will be used.

To get a clearer sense of what is involved, consider a day in the life of a typ-

ical major accounts sales representative for a large consumer packaged goods firm.

Over a hasty breakfast, she reviews the day’s events on her laptop’s organizer,

logs onto the company network, and sorts through the dozen e-mail messages she

finds there. One is from a buyer for a supermarket chain. He’s worried that his

store’s sales in the paper towel category are off 10 percent and wants to know if

the rep can help. Working from her home PC, the rep dials into an online data-

base and downloads sales trend data for the chain and its competitors. A

spreadsheet analysis of the data suggests that the chain is losing sales in the paper

towel category to new competition from warehouse clubs. Next, the rep places a

conference call with a brand manager and a company sales promotion specialist

to seek their advice. She then prepares a written recommendation that the buyer

include and frequently promote larger size packages of both her company’s and

competitors’ brands in the chain’s merchandise mix. She also prepares a Power-

Point presentation, complete with a proposed shelf-space plan, that she will

deliver to the buyer on her laptop PC at a later meeting. Before leaving home,

the rep e-mails an advance copy of the report to the buyer and prints a color

copy for her manager.

This example uses a consumer packaged goods setting, but the basic idea applies

in all types of sales settings, especially in business markets. Many of today’s sales reps

rely on an array of software and hardware that was hardly imaginable even a decade

Changes in how sales
tasks are handled

New information technologies are
making the modern sales force
more efficient and giving
salespeople communication tools
that are creating totally new ways
to meet the needs of their
customers while achieving the
objectives of their jobs.

New software and
hardware provide a
competitive advantage