World Wide Equipment (China) Ltd: A

Sales Performance Dilemma

Sales and Distribution Management






Submitted to
Prof. Jeevan Arakal




Submitted By:
Ashutosh Narayan - U313007
Indrajeet Kumar- U313021
B Mahan Hansaraj - U313023
Rahul Ranjan Sinha- U313040
Saurav Anand- U313045
Sumit Kumar- U313053



Q.2.What are some of the long term issues confronting Mr. Frank Wang?
Lowest sales revenues- Beijing office was having the minimum sales revenue among
the three offices in Asia-Pacific. His prime concern was boosting the sales figures.
Sales lead generation and low negotiation power: Sales lead comes from
networking and WWE is lacking behind and are also lacking in bid documents and
quotes. They also lost two much important bidding (one of them was Handan project)
just because of improper negotiation.
Weimen termination- Weimen has only been able to gather 17 leads in the past six
months and none of them has converted to contracts. Because of him the morale of
other sales force is also going down.
Performance measurement and evaluation of sales- Employees are not satisfied
with the current performance appraisal and evaluation system. The relative indexing
system is creating confusion among the sales team. The Beijing team is working with
better prices and low expenditure but they are not enjoying the benefit as the bonus
system is done by relative indexing.
Recruiting and training- Recruitment in this organization is carried out in a
conventional manner which is not sustainable as the final interview is taken by Wang
who has the sole authority to take the decision. Also, there is no proper training for
the newly recruited employees to properly introduce them into the system. It has to be
taken care that the type of recruitment which took place for Weimen should not be
repeated next time.
Compensation The sales engineer was paid a straight salary and bonus but the
criteria for position advancement in order of advancement depends on seniority, sales
performance, sales lead and team spirit where there is no absolute tool to measure the
team spirit. Also the amount of bonuses varies significantly among the offices and
individuals.
Changing market scenario- The job market is changing at a rapid rate. Moreover,
the reform in the government system is making the situation worse.
Moral issues- The morale of the sales team is not positive which is creating problem
for sales force management. The failure of two projects coupled with the fairness of
hiring Weimen is the resentful topic of daily discussion which will definitely create
impact on the sales performance. The point which the sales team of Beijing is putting
is that why should they work hard and bear the non performer only to get business
from Guangzhou. So to build synergy in the system he needs to provide stimulus to
boost the performance.
Centralised nature of decision making-The decision to select Weimen was although
taken by him but it was done with the pressure from Yu. Wang is not able to fire
him because he is in a dilemma that this can breach his relationship with Yu.
Developing cohesiveness among sales team- There is a need to develop
understanding among the sales team to meet the target.

Q.3.What are the new competencies the sales force must develop given the changed
market conditions? What are the key actions that need to be taken for the same?

The sales force of WWE China included a team of Sales Engineers and Senior Sales
Engineers, headed by a Regional Sales Manager. Their major tasks were to generate sales
lead, preparing sales and technical documents, making sales presentations and determining
customers technical and commercial needs. However, in the recent changing market
situation some of the senior sales engineers were also required to make quotations in some
cases, under the guidance of the RSMs. This responsibility was becoming more & more
crucial due to the need for getting tenders and contracts.
With the changing market conditions, the need for tendering projects increased which in turn
complicated the process of making bidding documents and quotations. The emergence of
textile industry due to the Chinese govt. incentives led to more focus on public bidding
process. Since the industry was price sensitive as well as crucial for WWE operations, lower
prices were quoted with bargaining power of sales engineers and RSMs. The current scenario
needed the sales engineers to be thorough with the terms and conditions of the contract so
that they can integrate all this well with the services offered and bring benefit to the company
in terms of protection from the commercial as well as the legal front. Proper training on
tendering projects and rapport building was the need of the hour.
The sales force at Beijing office had virtually no experience of making highly professional
bidding documents and had no idea on how to decide on the prices to be quoted for a deal.
They did not have any professional for the same nor did they have any guidance. Eventually
they had to rely on their gut feeling to make these crucial decisions.
For example, in the instance of hiring Li Weimin, despite his not fitting the role very well due
to his introvert nature, he was hired because of pressure from Edward Yu (CMM) due to
strong connections of Weimin with Jinchuan Fiber Co. This ultimately led to poor sales
performance of the Beijing division in the long run. As is mentioned in the case, WWE faced
terrible loss in the Handan project because of poor reliability of Weimin & his connections.
Thus, there is a dire need of imparting professional training to the senior sales engineers and
sales engineers at Beijing office which will make them adept in various skills to satisfy the
market needs. They need to be given training in the following fields:
Better presentation skills,
Preparing complex bidding documents,
Making quotations
Information about commercial and legal technicalities &
Building customer relationship.
Beijing office needs to take the following decisions keeping in view the changed market
conditions:
Need to do the capacity building of sales engineers towards the new job responsibility
of market analysis so that accordingly they can improve their quotation making skills.
They also need to take the help of professional consultant to help them in drafting
professional biding document
Introduce the decision making capabilities as one of the important criterion for the
selection of sales engineers.
Roles and responsibility should be clearly defined and communicated as in the
changed market scenario there can be ambiguity in it.
The existing indexed dual performance incentive system does not take into account
the geographical and market conditions diversities existing across different territories.
Hence, a new system is to be designed to take care of these issues.
While rewarding they should look for quality Vs quantity and results Vs behaviour
trait for better result.
Long term goal of team building should be envisaged with right methods so that it
will lead to long and continuous growth.
No compromise on the value system of the company for connections of any official.

Q.4.Is the sales management system of World Wide Equipment China effective, what
are the changes that may be necessary given some fundamental changes in market
conditions? Please map changes in market conditions with changes in sales force
management?
The sales management system of World Wide Equipment China is not much efficient and
hence not fully effective. With the change in market scenario they need to undergo an
overhaul in the process and make the team efficient and competitive.
Issue and changes required with the current sales management system:

1. Recruitment Criteria: The recruiting criteria should include relevant work experience in
the targeted industries of World Wide. For example the textile industry which is one of the
growing sector being a huge potential market for Worldwide, it can recruit sales engineers
having relevant experience in textiles.
2. Tender and Bidding Training: The traditional purchasing by Industrial houses is getting
replaced by Bidding. So there is a need to provide training in tendering projects and
customer rapport building to meet the increasing competition in china. Example- the
regional and senior sales manager getting influenced in bidding price quoted by novice
Weimin in Handan project.
3. Abolition of Relative Index, as the relative index criteria leads to cross conflicts among
the branch offices and could act as a threat to mutual support in generating sales leads
4. Incentive to motivate: The compensation package should include bonus for training and
development of employees by regional manager. Of course it would have difficult to
measure the improvement of the employees but without the incentive the regional sales
manager would not be motivated to give special training to the employees which is very
evident in case of Wang in his reluctance to give special training to Weimin. In caseoff
Handan Project,morale has been decreased and employees are not interested to work
harder so the performance measurement should be changed to motivate them.
5. Training for Market Penetration: There should be a system in place for providing
training to sales staff on new sectors which the company is trying to penetrate like textiles.
After training there should be a mechanism to measure the sales staff performance.
6. Separate HR department: In order to have better management of the Human resources
World Wide should have separate HR department which will take care of recruitment,
performance appraisal , promotion , lay off issues or they should give training on HR issue
to its upper management team at various sales offices as Wang himself admitted having
zero knowledge about firing of people.
7. To tap the potential of cash crunch textile industry, product can be offered on instalment
basis with minimal interest rate.


Change in market condition Change in sales force management
1. Prior to 1965 market was relying upon the
import to supply chillers. During
economic boom international chiller
companies entered china market and
in1996 chinese private enterprise and Joint
ventures of chinese local company and
foreign entered the market increasing the
competition in terms of price reduction.
Worldwide equipment positioned itself in
high end premium price but having low
operational cost.
The training of sales force for better
negotiation and bidding skills.
Training on basic etiquettes of business
like dressing sense and presentations.
2. The textile market is the market having
favourable tax and foreign policy booming
continuously. For these types of industry
the good quality chillers are most
important for optimum production.
So hiring of sales personnel with quite
good amount of knowledge in textile
industry is an initiative which should be
taken up seriously.
Training of existing employees about
basics of textile industry.
3. Chillers market being price sensitive
textile manufacturer are keen to spend
more on production related equipment
rather than peripheral equipments like
chillers.
The sales person should communicate the
low operating cost of worldwide chillers
due to energy savings design and low
maintenance cost.
Even if the old sales person are not textile
background training can be given in order
to convince the buyer about the value of
good quality chillers in maintaining
quality of textile.
4. Change in purchase process of market that
is bidding or tender process.
Special training to sales force about details
of bidding and pricing process.
5. In market the cycle time of the lead to
convert into a real contract is increasing.
From three and half month from 5 years
ago to 6 month now.
Training on negotiation skill, time
management and compensation for
conversion of lead to the real contract.