Milford B Case Study Case Studies Example

Milford Industries is a company that sells its products via the partners’ retail stores. It is of great importance for the company to set up reliable relations with the buyers, have a good product layout in the stores and a large number of locations where the products can be solved. Therefore if Milford Industries is going to maintain or grow its customer base, it should pay more attention to the sales people that are responsible for the communication with the buyers and increasing the sales figures. Distribution of the company is divided into the regions and districts, but the size of the districts is very large, so the regional managers cannot control the activities of the sales people all the time. As the result, the company has to hire the people that will be conscientiously fulfilling their duties. Undoubtedly, such people are very difficult to find and this matter should be of great concern to the Milford Industries’ management, because no matter how good the products are, there might be problems with sales and brand reputation if the products are not positioned properly.
What does it take to be a good sales person at Milford Industries? To begin with a sales person must be diligent. Usually a sales person is responsible for working in a specific area with the large number of stores that may be different in terms of store format and quantity of sold products. Therefore, it is important to be ready to visit all the buyers on a regular basis and work in a timely manner. What is more, a sales person must know the local market because of the changing buyers’ needs. Failure to understand the trends in the local market will result in overstocking or underperforming. Next, there should be a specific type of personality that will help a salesperson to communicate with the buyers and negotiate the better terms. Finally, a good salesperson should behave professionally in order not to harm the reputation of the Milford Industries and represent the interests of the company instead of receiving some informal personal benefits from cooperating with the buyers in the target districts.
In the case study, the new manager of the Capital District for Milford Industries Harry Oates decided to check the work of the sales people in order to improve the performance of the company in his district. As the result, he found out that the majority of the sales people work very professionally and the company benefits from their diligent work. But there are four people that in Oates’s opinion do not work well enough or are likely to bring the problems in the future.
So Oates has to decide which of the four sales people can continue to work for the company in the future. If to compare all four salespeople, one can come to the conclusion that the best one is Doug Eaton. He has the largest number of partners, because he has worked for the Milford Industries for more than 30 years. Now he is 62 years old and has some health problems, but still he is a very positive and hard-working person. There is a concern that he will not be able to cope with a large area, but in comparison with the other employees, he should not represent the greatest concern for Harry Oates.
A second person that can be regarded as a good sales person is Zeke Gibson. He has also worked for Milford Industries for more than 20 years and knows the local market really well. He established excellent relations with the customers that help Milford Industries to sell large quantities of products. However, there may be suspicions concerning his activity, because he does not work long hours, but has a very wealthy life. In order to be sure that Zeke Gibson is a good sales person, Harry Oates needs to make sure that his employees including Zeke Gibson do not collect kickbacks on contracts.
The other two candidates are younger and seem to be very unreliable. Tom Furness is not disciplined and has problems with alcohol. His private life influences his performance at work. Therefore he has not opened many accounts and there were some problems with large accounts recently. In turn, Sonny Caplan failed to meet the expectations of the management. He has worked for Milford Industries for three years, but the level of service in the stores that he is responsible for is very low and he does not pay much attention to the small accounts. He has the smallest impact on the sales and it seems that he cannot work better.
Harry Oates has many alternatives in order to resolve the problems that arose due to the bad performance of some of the sales people. He should consider firing and probation so that Milford Industries could operate more effectively. Firing is probably the best option that can be applied to Sonny Caplan. His sales figures are extremely low in comparison with the other three sales people. Moreover, the previous regional manager and the current one have noticed a very large number of weaknesses in Caplan’s work. He had much time to improve his performance and the probation period will result in the waste of time and the loss of the economic opportunities for the company.
In terms of Tom Furness the situation is more complicated, because despite his personal problems his performance is not that bad. So the company receives $1,220 thousand in sales thanks to him. Therefore the probation period should make him more responsible and he should understand the consequences if he does not change his attitude. In addition, Harry Oates should talk to Tom Furness about his expenses at work. They are much higher than those of the other sales people. Despite his negative performance, he should be given one more chance to bring his performance up to a satisfactory level, because he has a lot of personal problems including the divorce with his wife and possible drinking problems. Harry Oates should communicate more with Tom Furness in order to understand how he works and what could be done to help him to become more effective.