Insider versus outsider – who is better? The case of Zyne furnishings

Case overview/synopsis Zyne is a mid-sized Delhi-based firm engaged in the home linen business under the company’s brand name. Raman was the Managing Director of Zyne. In 2019, Prashanth the head of the second-best region (West) quit abruptly without grooming a successor. Prashanth’s team consisted of greenhorn executives whom he recruited from colleges. Raman has options of selecting a replacement for Prashanth from within the organization. Two candidates are in the reckoning, namely, Amit and Neha. Amit was 48 years old, a veteran in the business and associated with the Zyne group for over 15 years. He was a top sales performer in the Central region and was interested in relocating to the West. Twenty-seven-year-old Neha was industrious, talented and creative. Within three years of joining Zyne, she had proven herself as a go-getter with remarkable ability to develop strong channel partner relations. Raman had to decide whom to select from among the two or go for an outsider from the industry. Raman has to contend with selection issues related to insider vs an outsider. If one of the internal candidates is chosen how could he motivate the other to continue to perform and deliver? The case focuses on the challenges of recruitment of a Sales Manager (SM) in a small home furnishing business. Use of competency framing to validate the candidates is the high point of the case Learning objectives By the end of case discussion participants should be able to understand the following: differentiate skills required in a sales leadership role as compared to that of a sales executive; evaluate the pros and cons of internal promotions versus hiring an outsider; apply the concept of competency framework to evaluate different candidates vying for the same position; and understand how a candidate not selected for the position understands the reasons thereof to enable improvements. Complexity academic level Started in 2010, Zyne Furnishings headquartered at Delhi, was in the business of selling home furnishings. Raman, a second-generation entrepreneur was Zyne’s Managing Partner. With help from his father Rajesh Gupta, Raman worked toward expanding Zyne’s business operations in India. Raman was facing a challenge because of the abrupt resignation of Prashanth, the Western Region SM. Prashant had done well in the region and assiduously built Zyne brand’s presence there. As Raman pondered over the ways of filling up the SM position, questions confronted him for which he did not have immediate answers. He had 30 days in which a replacement must be finalized. Raman looked at the file containing the applications of the two internal candidates, namely, Amit (Southern region) and Neha (Western region) who had applied for the position. What evaluation process should he adopt to ensure an objective assessment is done before deciding on which of the two candidates fit the bill? Given that it was the first week of January 2020 and the year-end targets had to be met by March, Raman knew time was running out. He had to take a quick call. Use of competency mapping to evaluate candidates is a high point of the case. This case can be used to enhance the participants understanding of the challenges of identifying the right candidate for a senior position and weigh the pros and cons associated with the selection. Motivating the rejected internal candidate through the procedural justice system adds value to the case. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

Empirical analysis of the content of psychological competencies of active sales managers

Introduction. The subject of this article is the analysis of the requirements for the psychological properties of active sales managers from the point of view of the competence approach. It is assumed that the interaction of working conditions in the organization and the psychological properties of a professional, as well as the requirements for them from the tasks performed, generate a certain set of psychological competencies necessary for the productive activity of an active sales manager. The complex nature of human-to-human activities, as well as the need to perform organizational, intellectual, communicative and coordination tasks, forms a system of requirements for the psychological competencies of representatives of this profession, compliance with which increases the productivity of a professional. The article presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the requirements for an active sales manager from the point of view of psychological competencies.Materials and Methods. Empirical research method - standardized self-reports with Likert scales, correlation and factor analysis.Results. Six main groups of required competencies are identified: value competence, regulatory competence, motivational competence, special competence, communication competence, strategic competence. It is assumed that the balanced development of these groups of competencies in accordance with the requirements of the profession of an active sales manager ensures high productivity of a specialist and his psychological well-being.Discussion and Conclusions. At the end of the article, the results obtained are evaluated from the point of view of their applicability in the training of specialists in key positions of sales departments, new research directions are outlined that allow for a more systematic study of the psychological competence of active sales managers, and it is also concluded that the content of psychological competencies should be taken into account when building educational programs for future sales managers.

Manager directives for salesperson ambidextrous selling and resulting job satisfaction: a regulatory focus perspective

Purpose To sustain firm profitability, it is critical for sales managers to direct business-to-business (B2B) salespeople to generate revenues by simultaneously acquiring new customers and selling to current customers. However, emerging research indicates territory-based B2B salespeople have a preferred customer engagement orientation that reflects a tendency for engaging in selling activities to new (i.e. hunters) and/or existing (i.e. farmers) customers, suggesting that managerial ambidexterity directives could have deleterious effects on salespeople. This paper aims to address this possibility by investigating the moderating effects of salesperson regulatory focus on the relationship between managerial directives for salesperson ambidexterity and salesperson job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a mixed-method approach by using a field study of 106 matched sales manager–salesperson dyads from a large Fortune 500 B2B industrial distributor sales force and an experiment involving 152 B2B salespeople from a cross-section of industries. Findings The results indicate that sales manager ambidexterity requests reduce salesperson job satisfaction. However, the findings also demonstrate that salesperson regulatory focus moderates these negative effects such that the negative effect of manager ambidexterity requests on job satisfaction is reduced for salespeople with high vs low levels of regulatory focus ambidexterity balance. The results from the cross-sectional experimental study illustrate the cognitive mechanism that helps explain why this occurs. Research limitations/implications The Fortune 500 firm used in Study 1 uses a territory-based generalist sales force model where salespeople are not incentivized to prioritize hunting over farming (and vice versa). As a result, the findings may not generalize to firms with hunting/farming incentive systems or to those that operate in particular industries requiring a focus on either hunting or farming. Practical implications The findings show why managers attempting to direct territory-based salespeople to increase their ambidexterity behaviors may undermine the job satisfaction of certain salespeople by triggering a decrease in motivation while the same directives have the opposite effect for other salespeople. The findings also demonstrate salesperson reactions to ambidexterity requests, which provide additional insights for effective salespeople hiring, training and management. Originality/value The findings have implications for better understanding the effectiveness of sales management leadership directives. The study also offers a promising direction for future research to investigate salesperson receptivity to managerial controls.

The conquest of gender prejudices over sales negotiations: which will prevail?

Study level/applicability Students from undergraduate and graduate levels. Subject area Leadership, implicit leadership theories, decision-making, gender stereotypes and discrimination. Case overview Defne was working as a sales manager in Diel Turkey, an international technology company. Diel focuses on software, hardware, network and business consultancy services. Defne had worked as a computer engineer before starting to work in the sales department. In her leadership, she gave importance to long-term relationships and justice. Defne had two meetings this week. The first one was with T&X, a big scale fast moving consumer goods company; and the other one was with Q-Coding, a medium-scale technology company. Defne had negotiated with T&X two years ago, and the project got canceled. Defne worked on T&X new contract very cautiously, as this time she wanted to finish the project and make the deal. Defne had to deal with prejudices during the T&X meeting. Implicit beliefs are grounded in the cultural background of the country, which determines the perceptual framework for the society. Male-dominated countries have implicit beliefs that women’s priorities should be their families, thus being successful at work is not expected. Defne faced male-oriented stereotypes, which challenged her in doing business. Even though she was a successful manager, these subjective beliefs made her perform poorly. During the meeting with Q-Coding, Defne discussed the prejudice for women leaders with a women entrepreneur Suzan. Expected learning outcomes This case is trying to achieve two main objectives: first, to make all students be aware of implicit leadership theories and beliefs, which are rooted in the countries’ cultural background; second, to make female students be aware of these dysfunctional coping behaviors and increase their self-efficacy without thinking about their gender roles. Subject code CSS 7: Management science

PENERAPAN DATA MINING DENGAN ALGORITMA NAIVE BAYES CLASSIFIER DALAM MEMPREDIKSI PEMBELIAN CAT

Companies need several types of communication technology that can predict customer purchase interest, the goal is that the company can properly consider product sales and determine the company's paint product supply. So far, the decision of the Home Smart sales manager has been made by looking at the closeness of the supplier relationship and how many sponsors are funding the company. So that sometimes the product cannot compete with other companies. The Naive Bayes classifier algorithm is one of the algorithms included in the classification technology. The application of the Naive Bayes method is expected to predict paint purchases from suppliers. From 60 paint purchase data tested with the Naive Bayes method, the results reached 80% of the accuracy of the predictions. Of the 60 tested paint purchase data, 48 paint purchase data were successfully classified correctly.