Question

Dhruvi the sales manager of Onyx Ltd. has been assigned the responsibility of revising the sales territory according to the latest developments in the market. Explain first four steps undertaken by Dhruvi to revise the sales territory.

Hint:

Think of the design order: choose the control unit, study sales potential, study workload, then combine units into balanced territories.

Answer 1

Step 1: Understand what is asked:
A sales territory is a group of present and possible customers in a defined area, given to one salesman or one sales team.
Markets change, so the company must redraw its territories from time to time.
Dhruvi must follow a fixed order of steps. The first four steps are explained below.

Step 2: Select the basic control unit:
She first picks the smallest geographic unit from which territories will be built.
This unit can be a city, a district, a pin code area, a ward or a state.
The unit must have data available and must be easy to join with the next unit.

Step 3: Analyse the sales potential of each control unit:
She then studies how much each unit can buy.
For this she uses population, income level, number of retailers, past sales and the strength of rival firms.
The latest market developments, such as a new mall or a new competitor, are added at this stage.
Units with high potential need more effort than units with low potential.

Step 4: Analyse the workload of each unit:
Next she finds how much selling work each unit needs.
She counts the number of customers, the calls needed per customer, the call time and the travel time.
This tells her how many salesmen the unit can support.

Step 5: Combine the units into new territories:
Now she joins nearby control units into tentative territories.
Each territory should have a fair and nearly equal share of potential and workload.
The units in one territory should lie close together so that travel time stays low.
The new territory is then assigned to a suitable salesman.

Final Answer:
The first four steps are: select the control unit, analyse sales potential, analyse workload, and combine the units into balanced territories.