Case 13-2

According to the case, revenues of Athenian Press were down over the past 2 years by 7%, while the company made its targeted growth of 2%. Steve Womble, the sales manager for the Athenian Press, felt that most of the decrease in sales was due to the need for change in the sales organization. However, there are several factors that impact the sales: 1) Competition for retail advertisements is strong in this area 2) Each salespeople handle too much customers (8 sales reps: 800 accounts) 3) each sales reps has too many responsibilities. Reorganizing sales division can solve those problems.

Revising sales territories can be the most hurried things to do because it can be seen that in past two years the sales division has never reorganized. The studies indicate that over half (55 percent) of all sales territories need to be realigned because they are either too large or too small. Sales executives should review their territories at least once a year to see if they need to be realigned. Athenian Press may not need to hire new salespeople because those eight experienced salespeople already have their sales trainees. Sales manager should often focus on designing the new sales territories that suit to each sales rep, because potential customers always change. Even though this strategy may decrease commission of some salespeople who has larger potential customers, it can prevent in losing the customers from inadequate supervision. After revising sales territories, the following thing to be realigned would be routing the sales force. Sales reps could not spend as much time as they should with each customer because the travelling between each account takes about 15 or 20 minutes. If the travel time can be reduced by routing effectively, all salespeople will not only have enough time to meet all customers, but also have more available