Unit 20 Sales Planning and Operations Assignment - L’Oreal

Program	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 20 Sales Planning and Operations
QFC Level	Level 5

Introduction

Sales operations are the most important part or the activity for the company or the organizations. For meeting the desired goals or the objectives of the company the sales operations of the company needs to be very effective in its selling process. The new and the innovative ideas for selling the products are the best and the effective way to operate selling in the organization.

In the assignment the various theories of selling and sales planning are detailed discussed and the importance of personal selling within the sales strategies of the organization is also depicted. The stages of the selling process and the use of this process in the organization are briefed in the assignment and the role and objectives of selling management are described in it. At last this assignment report includes the sales plan for selling of a product.

The aim of the assignment is to build the understanding of the sales and the operations management in an individual and the different selling strategies and plan for selling a product. The case study of L’Oreal is considered.

Task 1

Essay

The general definition of Personal selling refers to the selling method or technique in which the one part sells the products or the services to the other party by face to face meeting. Personal selling is the promotional technique which involves the one party working on building relationships with another party in which the parties gain the value. Personal selling methods include the face to face meeting, telephonic conversation, video conferencing and the messages and texts. The personal selling is done with the purpose of understanding individual needs and issues and focuses on them to sell the product or the services effectively.

The methods of selling the product and the service are majorly based on the consumer behaviour and according to the consumer needs. The consumer behaviour is the process in which the organization works or produces, experience, and dispose the ideas to satisfy the needs and the desires of the consumer. The consumer behaviour is the buying decisions of the consumer which is affected by the different factors.

Role of personal selling in marketing process

Personal selling is basically the oral communication with the buyers or the customers in which the seller initially work on building the relationship with the customer but the main motive and ultimately the seller end the selling process with “closing the sale”. Closing the sale is the term used for the completion of the sale. Personal selling is the important tool of the promotion mix and is an effective promotional tool (Olariu, 2016). Personal selling provides the customers a satisfaction of understanding the company and its product effectively which brings out the satisfied customer. It also provides the organization an opportunity to grab the customers effectively and understand the needs and desires of the company.

The role of the personal selling are bifurcated into following steps:

• Prospecting: Prospecting is the starting activity of the personal selling. The prospecting activity includes the activity of finding the potential customers to whom the product can be offered to sell.
• Communicating: Communicating is the process of describing and providing the information to the customers about the product range and its features.
• Selling: Selling is the activity in which the doubts and the questions of the customers are cleared by the seller. The selling activity includes the providing the answers to the customers questions and also closing of the sales (Deeter, 2016).
• Servicing: Servicing is the activity in which the issues and the problems related with the product are solved of the customers till the delivery and after sale.
• Gathering information: Gathering information is done to gain the information related with the product and the market to provide the better assistance to the customers.
• Allocating: The allocation of the resources left are done in this activity.

As the company L’Oreal is the consumer product and provides the consumer care products to its customers it has the importance of the personal selling. The personal selling in the company L’Oreal is important because it provides the company to directly meet to its customers and provide them with a demo or the sample products which can take the customers into confidence and helps in building a relationship with the customers (ALBERS et.al, 2010). The trusted brand also provides the brand loyalty to the company. The information which is gathered by the sales persons of the L’Oreal are very important because that information provides the company with the needs and the desires of the customers and what changes or the innovations are to be added to meet the customers expectation and provide them the quality products and customer satisfaction.

Promotional mix includes the personal selling, sales promotion, public relation and the advertising. The personal selling supports the promotion mix in a manner to provide the personal interactions, two way communication, better relationship, better communication as well as better convincing power.

L’Oreal is the product which falls under the business to customer market. The company needs to focus on the demands and the desires of the customers and should operate in satisfying the customers. The buying decision making process of the customers is that which helps in understanding the stages and the different steps of the customer while deciding to buy the product. These stages are-

• Need is analysed first to buy the product. The consumer before buying the product analyse the need of that product.
• The information related to the product and the service offered is gathered and the customer gets the knowledge about the product.
• Then the customer finds the alternative of that product. The customer starts comparing the product with that of competitors.
• Satisfied with the comparison the buyer purchases the product.
• At last customer evaluate the quality and the service of the product.

The personal selling is the important activity for the organization and needs to be improved to gain the competitive advantage and to impose the company value on its customers. The recommended strategies to improve the personal selling in the L’Oreal are:

1. Sales person must be skilled in communicating about the product to the customer.
2. Complete knowledge about the product is needed.
3. Ability to convince customers.
4. Training must be provided to the sales person.
5. The effective relationship should be maintained with the customer.
6. The customer should be provided with the solutions of the problems and the issues he/she faces.
7. The demo and the free locusassignments.products should also be provided to the customers.
8. The personal selling must involve the positive comparison of the competitor’s product and the benefit of using the L’Oreal products (Cummins et.al,. 2016).

Advantages of the strategies recommended to the L’Oreal will be:

1. Enhanced customer satisfaction
2. Better quality management
3. Increase sales
4. Improve the relationship with the customer
5. Enhance profitability
6. Increase customer loyalty

Disadvantages of the strategies recommended to the L’Oreal will be:

1. Invest time
2. Invest cost in providing training
3. Risk of failure as the online selling is increasing

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Task 2

Presentation

Task 3

Introduction

Success of business depends on sales team. Sales manager is the key member to who plays an important role in increasing sales. Sales have number of task. Sales manager objective is to increase the sales and increase profit share of L’Oreal. Growth, profit and increase in sales is the main motto of L’Oreal. Top management structure the policies and strategies, sales team have to handle the sales of product and promotion.

Major objective of sales force is to maximize the sales. Good Sales leads to profit maximization. Sales team of L’Oreal manage campaign to sales product. Sales team generate maximum leads. Sales manager did not work alone; a proper team is required to do the task.

Meeting sales target, maximum number of customer satisfaction, developing strategies for sales, motivating team member for work, maintaining good relationship between customer and team and major decisions are also taken by the sales manager. For this a sales manager must be a good person, very much motivated, he should be a role model, punctual, result oriented, leader and example setter (Albert &DeTienne, 2016).

Corporate objectives impact on sales strategies and vice versa

L’Oreal objectives are set of goals and decisions which are realistic taken in specific time to increase sales. Contribution of L’Oreal towards its employees, customers, suppliers, stakeholders, growth and profit and the objectives of L’Oreal is to capture market worldwide and increase growth, Quality of product. More and more customer purchase more products. L’Oreal objective is to run long term business, maintaining completion and customer satisfaction.

Sales strategies of L’Oreal are to know its customers, focus on sale and availability of product. By knowing its sales strategy L’Oreal helps to achieve objective. By focusing on sale sales team increase the customer and it also increase the profits of L’Oreal. Product must be available to every customer so that there must be a tough competition in market.

Sales team must target the customer, who is the customer of our product. By focusing the customer promotional events, advertisements of product may be done to attract customers. This increases the L’Oreal market share and increase growth for rural customers marketing by local newspaper, radios and televisions (Paesbrugghe, et.al, 2016).

Rigorous recruitment and selection procedures to your recruitment campaign

Recruitment is the process of finding right person at right time at right place. To hire good sales team L’Oreal must do recruitment and selection. Various methods are there for recruitment it includes interviews, tests and form fill ups. Recruitment must be done internally and externally. Selecting quality of candidate and asking question to the candidates in interview should be done.

A sales person must be motivated, enthusiastic, and cooperative and have good convincing ccapacity. It is very important to have rigorous recruitment and selection to get high skilled employee. It Provides L’Oreal good sales team, motivated person, high profits and it also attract other companies. Talented employees are selected.

L’Oreal policy is to take approval from HR department. After this give advertisement by newspaper, internet and employee referral. Internal selection may also be done (Sok, et.al, 2015).

Role of effective motivation, remuneration and training on sales management

To work effectively L’Oreal motivates employees for work. Motivation is the process of stimulating the employees towards completion of goals and targets. L’Oreal motivating employees by providing rewards, appreciation letters, contribute in child education. There are financial and non-financial rewards employees. Targets must be set for employees and after achieving the targets L’Oreal provide good incentives to employees.

Job security, job satisfaction, decision taking these all are part of non-financial rewards it boost up the morale of employee and helps in motivating employee.

L’Oreal also conducts trainings for the sales force. Training helps employees to work efficiently and effectively. Employee lack in certain skill must provide training. Sales team need trainings. Training includes negotiation, effective selling techniques and how to sell.

Sales team need motivation for work. L’Oreal provides remuneration to employees. Remuneration is praise and recognition. It boosts up employee morale and motivate employee towards work. Overall L’Oreal productivity increases by providing remuneration to employees. As a team they work in favour of L’Oreal. Remuneration also provides job satisfaction to employees (Kuvaas, et.al, 2016).

Organizing the sales activity and measures to control sales output

To get good output from sales L’Oreal coordinate, plan, control, monitor and organise. By these activity sales activity must be managed and follow-ups of reports generated by sales team. L’Oreal also has a DBMS by which sales information is store and keeps safe. It helps to store and modify data.

L’Oreal also track the activity of sales team and goals of sales team is to control sales by maximizes profit and optimizes sales.

Sales audit and sales analysis is done to control sales. It helps in better sales performance. It also helps in targeting customer and product.

Conclusion

Sales management is an important part of L’Oreal. It helps in increasing sales and profits. For this L’Oreal needs motivated sale force. Recruitment and selection is done to get more motivated and enthusiastic sales force. Remuneration to the employees enhances their work. They are more motivated and job satisfied (Bodla, et.al, 2014).

Task 4

Sales Plan for L’Oreal

Sales plan is the document which provides the schedule of the working and the operations of the sales plan and the projection of the sales needed to be achieved in the coming year is recorded. The sales plan includes the planning of the activities of the business.

The sales plan is the strategy of the sales targets and the goals or the objectives of the business to meet the objectives of the sales of the organization.

The sales plan helps to-

1. Define a set of sales targets for your business- it helps in defining the sales targets and the organization motives and the aims to run the business successfully.
2. Choose sales strategies that are suited to your target market- the business strategy are chosen to the target market which is to be done on the basis of the products and services features.
3. Identify sales tactics for your sales team- the sales plan helps in identifying the sales tactics and the sales strategies for the sales team and helps in guiding to work accordingly.
4. Activate, motivate and focus your sales team- the sales team needs to be activated as well as motivated. By preparing the sales plan and the strategies to sell the product and the services the sales team and the employees of the organization can b activated and provide the motivation to work effectively and efficiently (Goldsmith, 2013).
5. Budget and clarify steps you'll take to achieve your targets- the sales plan provide the budget and the clear steps that are needed to achieve the targets and the objectives of the sales team and the organizational objectives regarding the sales.
6. Review your goals periodically and improve your approaches to sales- the goals are periodically reviewed and the approaches to the sales plan are improved by preparing the sales plan of the organization.

The sales plan for the business can be updated and made in the 6-12 months of the year and this updated sales plan is made to provide the sales activity in the particular schedule and provide the basic process of operating the company’s sales and working of the organization.

Below is the sales plan for the company L’Oreal and it provides the sales and the projected sales schedule to gain the maximum benefit from the organization sales. The organization sales activities and the promotion activities are scheduled and planned under this sales plan which helps the organization in gaining the competitive advantage to the company

February, 2017
2017 Sales Plan
Vision 3-5 years

To remain in the competitive advantage and in the competition with the competitors internationally, the company should produce the £10M of units annually, to earn £700K / year at least.

Mission

To provide customer satisfaction to the customers and be able to focus on the every customer is the company’s mission.

Objectives-2016

1. To increase the sales from £3M to £6M
2. At least open three new major accounts with the revenue potential of £1.5M each annually
3. To increase the number of active accounts from 60-80

Strategies

1. To lead the account team to sell at multiple levels and on a maximum level.
2. To cross sale our full range of product offerings through inviting the prospects to visit the current customers.
3. To implement the contact system, goals and exceed the goals for outgoing calling, appointment setting and proposal goals.
4. To provide the effective training activity of the selling and convincing people to the employees of the company.
5. To hire the skilled and qualified employees.

Actions

1. To plan two site visits/ month with new top prospects to existing customers.
2. To plan two meetings with the high potential existing customers every month with my team.
3. To plan three executive prospect meetings per week.
4. Prepare the new sales presentation including revised sales value proposition.
5. Finish with the new prospects/ account analysis.
6. Develop account plans for top 10 targets accounts. Provide Updated monthly management reviews.
7. Start the bi-moth direct mail to stay in touch with the top 50 existing customers.
8. Training to new sales and marketing administration (Young, 2013).

Conclusion

This assignment brings us to conclusion that the organization needs to be very effective in the sales planning and operational management of the organization. This provides us with the conclusion that the effective sales marketing planning and the operational management provides the organization benefit of increasing the competitive advantage and the increase customer satisfaction as well as the loyalty of the customers. The assignment is based on the case study of the organization and a popular brand for the cosmetics items all over the world named L’Oreal. This report brings to the conclusion that the effective role of the sales person helps the organization in gaining the customer satisfaction and the increased customer loyalty. The customer’s behaviour and its dependency are also discussed in this assignment. The assignment includes the presentation on the new product launching and the pre and post activities of the organization to manage the sales and to promote the product in the market. This assignment further describes the impact of the sales strategies on the organization and includes the sales plan of the organization for the coming year describing the activities of the organization.

References

ALBERS, S., MANTRALA, M.K. & SRIDHAR, S. 2010, "Personal Selling Elasticities: A Meta-Analysis", Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 840-853.
Albert, L.S. &DeTienne, D.R. 2016, "Founding Resources and Intentional Exit Sales Strategies: An Imprinting Perspective", Group & Organization Management, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 823-846.
Bodla, M.A. &Naeem, B. 2014, "Creativity as Mediator for Intrinsic Motivation and Sales Performance", Creativity Research Journal, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 468-473.
Cummins, S., Peltier, J.W. & Dixon, A. 2016, "Omni-channel research framework in the context of personal selling and sales management: A review and research extensions", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 2-16.
Deeter-Schmelz, D.R. 2016, "Personal Selling and Sales Management Abstracts", Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, , pp. 1-11.
Goldsmith, J. 2013, "Cablevision plans sale", Daily Variety, vol. 318, no. 24, pp. 8.
Kuvaas, B., Buch, R., Gagné, M., Dysvik, A. & Forest, J. 2016, "Do you get what you pay for?Sales incentives and implications for motivation and changes in turnover intention and work effort", Motivation and Emotion, vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 667-680.
NIENABER, A. & SCHEWE, G. 2014, "ENHANCING TRUST OR REDUCING PERCEIVED RISK, WHAT MATTERS MORE WHEN LAUNCHING A NEW PRODUCT", International Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 1.
Olariu, I. 2016, "PERSONAL SELLING IN MARKETING", Studies and Scientific Researches: Economics Edition, .
Paesbrugghe, B., Rangarajan, D., Sharma, A., Syam, N. &Jha, S. 2016, "Purchasing-driven sales: Matching sales strategies to the
solution of the purchasing function", Industrial MarketingManagement
Sok, K.M., Sok, P. & De Luca, L.M. 2016;2015;, "The effect of ‘can do’ and ‘reason to’ motivations on service–sales ambidexterity", Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 55, pp. 144-155.