Sales
Management
Verona case study
Kratika Totlani: C038
Puneet Hira: C028
Aditya Periwal: C039
Ganavardhan Kotyala: C027
Charulata Gautam: C050
Yash Fredericks: G022
Background:
Elise Smith formed the Verona Group, and the company's product range consists of women's
attire aimed at affluent women aged 30 to 60, with a concentration on sportswear.
Information and ideas were encouraged to be shared between teams by the organization.
JULIET and weekly meetings are two methods that have benefited staff in better cross-
departmental collaboration. The company consistently encouraged its employees to stay
updated with the latest fashion industry trends irrespective of the position held by them at the
organization.
Employee Assessment:
To track their development, each employee has a personalized scorecard with both qualitative
and quantitative measures. Total Sales goals and the customer satisfaction score obtained by
the sales managers is given importance in the organization. These parameters are used in the
balanced scorecard utilized by the company. The company uses a rating method with
employees rated ‘1’, accounting for the least 20% of the performers while employees rated
the highest, ‘4’ account for no more than 20%. The rest of the staff are rated at ‘2’ and ‘3’.
Managers and above are subjected to an annual 360-degree assessment performance.
As mentioned in the case, Anna George, a highly experienced salesperson at the organization
with a territory comprising high end specialty clothing and department stores in Western
United States is unhappy with this rating mechanism as a performance assessment. She built
a great reputation in the industry among the consumers & retailers even before joining the
organization. This led to her being recommended to Elise Smith. The sales territory assigned
to her when she joined The Verona group is a small but growing territory. Her initial 2 years
at the organization haven’t been fruitful and she achieved low sales targets owing to her
territory. She felt her skill & knowledge were not being put to use.
Identified Issues:
1. In this scenario, organizational issues such as the provision of required inputs, the
performance assessment system, and the failure to meet market demand for the
required product are directly hurting George's performance. It can be observed that
the corporation evaluates a salesperson's success based on the sales target and the
customer survey score. They were also graded on product design and quality,
marketing material efficacy, and prompt shipment arrival in the customer survey. The
salespersons were directly impacted due to these factors though they have no control
over them.
In the case of Anna George, she was held accountable for the unhappy
retailers over the less availability of ‘Paula’ dresses in her territory. She was
continuously informing the company about the high demand for the dress with no
response. She did not get enough support from the marketing and designing teams.
She had feedback of being responsive and understanding the necessities but not able
to utilize her knowledge into actions.
2. External Factors play an important role too. It was mentioned that George's
predecessor in the same territory also quit the company owing to poor performance
reports. In the western and southern United States, not a single salesperson received a
4 rating. As a result, it's understandable that Verona Group is having difficulties in
various markets, resulting in low customer satisfaction ratings for its staff.
Recommendations:
Currently the company is taking into account just sales and customer satisfaction into account
while evaluating the performance of the employees. As per the model of determinants while
evaluating the performance there are major five factors that should be taken into
consideration the role level which is amount of sales and customer view, aptitude level which
constitutes the ability to take quick decisions in times of emergency, skill level take into
consideration the amount of trainings the person has ended or how much knowledge the
particular sales person has, motivation level combined with personal, organizational and
environmental variables should also be considered.
According to my team the following measures can help Verona to solve the issues
- Changes in the scorecard
Instead of keeping it under one base the evaluation should be divided as per the area, as
the area played an important role in the final sales amount
Inter department review will also help them to get an understanding of who actually is
working at a below average rate in that department which will give better understanding
of the problems
Other aspects of the model should also be included in the assessment process to make it
more accurate and fairer to employees.
- There is a problem of role perception
The rules should be written and also that who will be responsible if the goods get delayed.
What is the amount of responsibility of the other departments and the sales executive.
Because as per the current situation Anna has done her job about informing the
organization about the increasing demand but didn’t receive the consignment which made
things bad with the retailers.
