Hello, the topic of our lecture is sales strategy. Before developing a sales strategy, it is necessary to conduct a market analysis. An integral part of marketing analysis is competitor analysis. It includes an appraisal of competitive strategy, their current performance and market share, their strengths and weaknesses, as well as expectations of their future actions. When you have conducted marketing analysis, you can move forward to developing a sales strategy. Personal setting, objectives, and strategy include the determination of sales for size, sales managers' objectives in Salesforce organization. Sales strategy can be considered as consisting of four elements, account targeting strategy, relationship strategy, sales channel strategy, and selling strategy. Any strategy, including a sales strategy, begins with setting objectives. The main sales objectives are to whom, what products, and how many of them are they planning to sell? Additional sales objective could be raising the company's image or expanding the circle of potential customers through promotion measure, improving customer relations, and etc. Sales strategy is an integral part of the company's marketing strategy. One of the popular models of marketing strategy development is the product market matrix or the ants of matrix. Initially, the firm is located in the upper left corner, which stands for existing markets and existing products. The firm can choose a strategy for developing products in an existing markets or develop a new markets for existing products. In the long run, each company for develops comes to the re-certification. It means to create new products for new markets. The market in the matrix means either a customer segment or a new geographic market. You can see an example of the marketing strategy developed by Sega holidays on the presentation. Before determining the quantity of sales objectives, we must make a forecast of sales volumes. It should be done with a breakdown by products, customer categories, territories, and time intervals of sales. They are four categories of forecast, market potential and market forecast, sales potential, and sales forecast. Market potential is the best possible level of Industry industry sales. Market forecast, the expected level of industry sales based on a specific industry strategy. Sales potential, the best possible level of firm sales, and sales forecast, the expected level of firm sales based on a specific strategy. All of these categories are considered in a given geographic area for a specific time period. Also, there are three levels of forecasting, short-term forecasts, medium term forecasts, and long-term forecasts. Short-term forecast are usually for periods up to three months ahead and are really of use for tactical matters such as production planning. The general trend of sales is less important here than short-term fluctuations. Medium-term forecasts are normally for one year ahead. They are most important in the area of business budgeting, the starting point for each of the sales forecast. And long-term forecasts are usually for periods of three years and upwards depending on the type of industry being considered. In industries such as computers, three years is considered as a long-term, whereas for steel manufacturer, ten years is a typical long-term horizon. Long-term forecast is used for strategic decisions such as the construction of a new factory and the training of a workforce. Let's look at the top-down and bottom-up approaches in forecasting. In the top-down approaches, company personnel provide aggregate company focused that salesman must break down into zone, region, district, territory, and account-focused. In the bottom-up approaches, account forecast are combined into territory, district, region, and zone forecast. Forecast methods are divided into quantitative and qualitative. Qualitative forecasting techniques are sometimes referred to as judgmental or subjective techniques. That is because they rely more on opinion and less in informatics in their formulation. Quantitative forecasting techniques are sometimes termed objective or mathematical techniques. The rely more up on informatics and last up and judgments in their computation. These techniques are now very popular as a result of sophisticated computer packages. Some being tailor-made for the company need in the forecast. Let's consider some expert qualitative methods. They are consumer or user survey methods, which is top-down methods, panels of executive opinion, which could be top-down or bottom-up method. There are three methods. It is a top-down approach, salesforce composite which is a bottom-up method, and product testing and test marketing which are also bottom-up method. Consumer or user survey method, this method involves asking customers about their likely purchases for their forecast period. Sometimes it is referred to as a market research methods for industrial products where there are fewer customers. Such research is often carried out by the salesforce on a face-to-face basis. For B2C markets, sample research is applied. The only problem is that then you must determine how much of their probable purchases will be in your company. Next method is panels of executive opinion. This is sometimes called the jury method. It involves consultations with specialists and experts who have knowledge in the industry. Such people can come from outside the company or inside. More often, their experts will come from outside the company. They usually include management and consultants who operate within the particular industry. Sometimes external people can include customers who are in a position to advise from a buying company point of view. Thus, the panel normally comprises a mixture of internal and external personnel. Next method is called delphi method. This method bears a resemblance to the panel of executive opinion methods. The forecasting team is chosen using a similar test of criteria. The main difference is that members do not meet in committee and the project leader administers a questionnaire to each member of the team which ask questions, usually of a behavioral nature. For instance, do you envisage new technology products planting our product lines in the next five years? If so, by what percentage of their market share? The question then proceeds to more detailed or pointed second stage. It ask questions about the particular company. The process can go on to further stages where appropriate. The ultimate objective is to translate opinion into some form of forecast. After each round of questionnaires, the aggregate response from each is circulated to members of the panel, and it is done before they complete the questionnaire for the next round. In that manner, members are not completing their questionnaires and avoid, and can moderate the responses in light of the aggregate results. Another method is salesforce composite. This method involves each salesperson making a product-by-product forecast for their particular sales territory. Thus, individual-focused are built up to produce a company-focused. This is sometimes termed a grassroots approach. Each salesperson forecast must be agreed with the manager and divisional manager very appropriate. Eventually, the sales manager agrees on the final composite forecast. Such a method is a bottom-up approach, where remuneration is linked to the projected sales for quarter. So targets, there can be less cause for complaint. The focus upon which remuneration is based has been produced by the salesforce itself. Another methods are product testing and test marketing. Product testing involves placing the pre-production model with a sample of potential users beforehand. They have to know their reactions to the product over a period of time in a diary. It includes noting product deficiencies, commentary on how it works, general reactions, and others. Test marketing is perhaps of more value for forecasting purposes. It involves the limited launch of a product in a closely defined geographical test area. Okay, now, a couple of words on quantitative methods. It includes many mathematical and statistical approaches. The most popular are the following. Time series analysis, moving averages, regression analysis, exponential smoothing, correlation analysis, modeling, diffusion models, and others. In order to apply these methods, you need to know statistics and mathematics. As mentioned earlier, most of these methods are implemented using computer programs. The main condition for the use is the availability of statistical data for analysis.
