International Selling & Sales

1. THE LOST COMPUTER SALE &
GARDNOV LTD CASE STUDY
PRESENTED BY GROUP I
ANDRE AGHATA, MUTIARA PERMATASARI, & RONGGO TANTRI YOGYANTO
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT – BATCH 3
BUDI LUHUR UNIVERSITY

2. CASE 1 – THE LOST COMPUTER SALE

3. CASE 1 – THE LOST COMPUTER
QUESTIONS
Answers:
3. Recognition that buyers purchase products in order to overcome problems and satisfy needs implies
that an effective sales approach will involve the discovery of these needs on the part of the salesperson.
Therefore, if I were a salesperson, I will conduct the interview to analyze what customers needs first. Then
try to determine of characteristics, specification and quantity of needed item instead of insist them to
buy something premium product of ours to generate more profit. It is better to keep good relation with
customer especially as first impression to make then a loyal customers. If they are satisfied then they will
comeback to buy more. And the last, of course to persuade them to have closing sales.

4. CASE 2 – GARDNOV LTD

5. CASE 2 – GARDNOV LTD QUESTIONS
Answer:
1. In this part, steps to investigate further the problems highlighted by the initial research will be suggested. These
steps were designed to help the Sales Manager of Gardnov Limited – Richard Booth to contain further understanding
of his sales force and the situation.
• Competitors and industry analysis
In order to understand why the company’s performance was below the industry, Analysis about competitors should be
conducted. Jobber suggested there were five main questions to be answered by the analysis, they are: “1. Who are our
competitors? 2. What are their strengths and weaknesses? 3. What are their strategic objectives and thrust? 4. What
are their strategies? 5. What are their response patterns?” Sources of the information can be through structured field
research or secondary sources e.g. trade union report, mass media). The analysis should contain elements such as their
performance, product differentiation, competitive advantages and target markets.
In this particular case, analysis should also study about competitors’ sales force sales force management. Competitors
salespeople performance and compensation system should be included.

6. CASE 2 – GARDNOV LTD QUESTIONS
Answer:
1. Sales Manager – Richard Booth should conduct a research about his company. He should acquire
comprehensive knowledge about his company, which included competitive advantages, target markets
and market segmentation, market position, products differentiation, SWOT analysis and etc. Jobber and
Lancaster in discussing how to establish marketing plans suggested a sequence of logical steps to follow,
and the second step is to analyze current marketing situation, the analysis comprises of market analysis
and SWOT analysis, which are the same as mentioned before.
• Selling strategies and styles
Company’s selling strategies have to be reviewed, as the case study mentioned, over 90 per cent of
company sales were generated by their sales force, that means personal selling is the main sales channel
of Gardnov Limited. Nevertheless, it is essential to know about more details such as resources plan,
expenses in each selling methods and selling plan. Furthermore, Booth has to find out the selling style
the sales force was using and then find out the selling styles the competitors were using. Compare with
them, in order to examine the current selling style, to identify is it appropriate or not.

7. CASE 2 – GARDNOV LTD QUESTIONS
• Salespeople’s individual performance
The case study has only revealed about overall performance of the sales force, but there was no
indication about individual performance. Booth has to check up a record about individual sales record,
personal portfolio and customers visit record.
Apart from the selling performance, Booth also has to interview or observe individual salesperson, to
know more about different dimensions of them. Individual’s personality, skills and attitude towards the
job were also the factors to be considered. In addition, individual selling style needed to be identified, in
order to carry out more depth understanding of salespeople.

8. CASE 2 – GARDNOV LTD QUESTIONS
Answer:
Jobber and Lancaster in the discussion of fixed salary for salespeople suggest that three
disadvantages:
1. There are no direct financial incentive is provided for increasing sales. Since the salespeople
within Gardnov Limited will not receive any additional financial incentives for additional sales,
there were very little, even no motivation for them to sell more. What they had to do is just
maintain certain amount of sales and visit exist customers to close sales, in prevent of being
sacked. They were also not being rewarded to open new account, so instead of put additional
effort into open new account, they chose to spend more time with existing customers. This
might also explain the reason why they visited category “A” so often and neglected two other
categories, because “A” customers have more sales potential, as mentioned before,
salespeople just have to visit them regularly to close sales, not to create sales, be an order-
taker rather than order-maker.

9. CASE 2 – GARDNOV LTD QUESTIONS
Answer:
2. Difficult to attract and maintain high performance salespeople.
The fixed salary system would make high performers feel unfair and unmotivated. Because,
people are motivated to obtain what they consider fair return for their efforts. While in this
cast, pay scales were varied according to individual’s age and length of time has been work for
the company, not to his performance. First, it was refusing applicants to join. Second, it
provides no motivations. This gave the reason of unmotivated and little enthusiasm within the
sales force.