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Written for a module in the Marketing Implementation course (second-year MBA elective). Offers a framework for considering relevant factors that affect sales force deployment and criteria for measuring sales effectiveness and the conduct of field marketing efforts.

Written as an introduction to a module concerning channel management for the second-year MBA elective in Marketing Implementation. Discusses: 1) reasons for the growth of multichannel systems in marketing efforts, 2) key components and choices in channel management, 3) major factors that affect producer-reseller relations, and 4) a framework for analyzing common trade-offs between control and resources in most distribution systems.

Written as an introduction to a module in the second-year MBA course, Marketing Implementation. Discusses issues encountered in the selling and management of major accounts. The topics covered include: 1) reasons for the increasing importance of major account management in sales management and marketing strategy, 2) a framework for account selection, 3) a review of concepts useful in analyzing buying behavior in major-account sales situations, 4) an overview of stages in the development of buyer-seller relationships, and 5) key issues in sales coordination.

Selling industrial goods has become more complicated in recent years. It is more likely to be the domain of teams that handle large accounts by coordinating their efforts across product lines. Even without formal teams, greater coordination is often required to land the sale and keep the customer. Three concerns have the most serious effect on coordination with an account-sharing strategy: compensation systems, goal setting, and staffing and training.

Discusses certain general issues that affect sales-management requirements in most companies: 1) the nature of the salesperson's "boundary role" in the organization, and 2) the relevance and limits of compensation policies as a key means of affecting the salesperson's effective performance of that role. Also presents concepts and perspectives useful in analyzing sales situations encountered in case studies and on the job.

Discusses the typical strengths, vulnerabilities, and key management skills associated with three common forms of marketing organization: a product-focused organization, a market-focused organization, and a functionally-focused organization. It considers how the nature of marketing activities varies in each form, the types of skills that are (and are not) developed in each form, and key success factors required to manage within each organization of marketing activities.

Gray markets may be the result of natural forces like maturity in a product life cycle (when price emerges as the key factor in purchases) or dislocations in foreign exchange rates. Gray markets are also convenient channels for distributors and producers, and so represent opportunities.

Focuses on the compensation plan for Fieldcrest sales representatives. Management is reviewing the structure of the plan and must decide how to establish compensation goals and guidelines for the following year so that sales efforts are allocated among products and/or accounts in the best manner. Provides information about the industry, the competitive environment, recent market developments, and the details of the compensation plan as well as comments by managers and salespeople.

Concerns negotiations between managers of Becton Dickinson's (BD) VACUTAINER division (which manufactures and sells blood collection products) and managers of a large hospital buying group. Recent changes in the health care industry are the background for the negotiations, which involve the buying group's attempt to negotiate both lower prices and different distribution terms with BD. The case provides background information about important industry changes and the previous history of purchasing and negotiations among BD, the buying group, and important distributors. As well as a pricing-negotiations case, it is a good vehicle for raising issues concerning what factors affect the balance of power in channel relations.

In July of 1985 the managers of Alloy Rods (who recently purchased the company through a leveraged buyout arrangement) find that their chief competitor (a company more than 6 times as large as Alloy Rods) has introduced a new product clearly aimed at Alloy's most profitable market segment. Management must frame a response, and a prime focus of the battle will be among distributors. Provides an excellent vehicle for comparing very different channel strategy and channel management philosophies, and also confronts students with the necessity of developing implementable marketing programs within the context of a financially-constrained organization.

In mid-1985, the vice president of marketing for a large manufacturer of disk drives is considering how to deal with a growing "gray market" for his company's products. The case provides good background material on the evolution of gray markets throughout the disk drive industry, and raises related issues of pricing policies, distribution strategy, and sales force management. A condensed version of Note on the Disk Drive Industry, and Peripheral Products Co.

In June, 1984, a vice president at Turner Construction Co. must decide whether to approve a construction project being considered by one of Turner's territorial offices and how to manage that territory general manager's apparent reluctance to pursue another account that has important strategic value for Turner. A key issue is the appropriate marketing organization for the firm: Turner is highly decentralized geographically (in order to maximize operating efficiencies and presence in local markets), but buying behavior in some important market segments is increasingly national and centralized. The case also provides much information about the selling process and account/project management tasks in the general contracting business.

Describes a process for forecasting market demand for an emerging technology--cellular radio. The student must critically evaluate the demand model and the market estimates, and modify them as appropriate in order to develop a marketing plan and budget.