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MIDLANDS STATE UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF COMMERCE
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT (VISITING SCHOOL)
ESTELLAH CHAWANDA
REG NO. R11085E
Level 2 Semester 1
Sales and Marketing (MM 202)
LECTURER: Miss Ngwenya ([email protected])
Assignment; With the aid of examples discuss how the Micro and Macro environmental factors
have affected Sales Force Management from 2000 to date in Zimbabwe.
Marketing environment refers to forces and actors that affect the company’s ability to develop
and maintain successful transactions and last relationship with its target customers. Marketing
environment consist of two environmental factors which are the micro and macro.
The Micro-environment Factors
This refers to the forces that are close to the company and affect its ability to serve its
customers and this is the environment that management can influence and control. This
includes suppliers, competitors, employees, customers, marketing intermediaries and the firm
itself and this affected the sales force management as follows;
Suppliers form an important link in an organization that is when there is a good relationship in
terms of supplying and paying. During 2000 sales force management faced challenges with
suppliers. The Zimbabwean economy started to fall and suppliers failed to provide resources
needed by the firms. In 2002 organizations started to get shortages of supplies from their
suppliers for example in the manufacturing industries, raw materials were a challenge to get
due to the continual rise of prices from their suppliers. This forced many organizations to shut
down for examples
companies like David Whitehead, Zimcast etc as they were not in
production due to the shortages of raw materials and foreign currency to import and paying
foreign suppliers and some were forced to retrench and downsizing their employees. Some
suppliers not even be able to supply due to the shortages of fuel. Sales force management
were facing challenges as the suppliers sometimes have the product but can not be able to
deliver and this forced the customer to look for his/her transport.2marks
In 2005 there was a crisis of shortage of cash in Zimbabwean banks. People were forced to
withdraw a maximum of $500 per day and companies $1 000.00 which was not going to buy
anything by the time you finish withdrawing. This scenario affected sales force management as
customer would not have enough money to pay their debts and on time. This situation also
forced other companies to shut down as the Zimbabwean dollar started to loose value and
others lost their valuable customers for example in scenario of Zimglass, the manufacturers of
glass packaging lost its major customer Delta due to its delaying in making bottles for them.
2marks It was as a result of shortage of foreign currency to purchase raw material which were
not locally produced. Fuel shortage in 2006 caused havoc to sales force as they were not able to
travel from one point to another to find new customers to push their volumes. Marketers also
faced problems with their customers as they wanted their orders to be paid in foreign
currency.2marks
From 2007 to date Zimbabwe faced serious power cuts both domestic and industry and
remained the biggest challenge faced by sales force management . Organizations started to
produce less and less products and services due to power cuts. The power cuts forced other
organization to lower their production and sales and marketing team ended up spending the
whole day in their offices with nothing to sell and those who were paid in commission were
seriously affected as they were not able to meet their target.2marks
The Macro Environment Factors
Is the broad environment in which there are many and highly variable factors obtaining in the
current macro economic environment and its influence on the business environment. The
macro environment consist of factors that the management have no control over but can only
be able to influence. The PESTELI model an acronym for political factors, economic factors, ,
socio – cultural factors, technological, ecological/environmental factors, local government and
legal factors commonly affected Sales force management since 2000 to date .
Political factors such as sanctions resulted in the instability of the economy as the country is still
struggling to attract foreign investment to help the economy to recover from a decade of
recession coupled with new indigenization act of 51% local shareholding on all local
investment.1mark The land reform program of seizing commercial farmland in 2000 to give to
blacks reduced export earnings, and caused shortages of food and foreign exchange.
Most
organizations found it difficult to do business with other countries and market their product .
Instability of the economy affected infrastructure such as rail and road.
Most roads in
Zimbabwe are now full of pot holes due to due to lack of maintenance as government does not
have enough funds to maintain them. Poor roads affect sales force as they will not be able to
go as far as rural areas to market their products even to have road shows in some parts of
Zimbabwe.2marks
Zimbabwean President His Excellency Cde Robert Mugabe signed a power sharing agreement
under the Global Political Agreement (GPA) with opposition party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai
in February 2009 with the aim of solving problems in Zimbabwe. After this agreement the
situation in Zimbabwe started to improve. Sales force management started to be active as we
can now even see Merchandisers from Dairiboard a back in some of the supermarket and on
roads selling ice creams, yoghurts and cascades. Some of the companies are now even
exporting. 2marks
Economic Factors include interest rates, taxation changes, economic growth, inflation and
exchange rates. In February 2009, Zimbabwe adopted a multicurrency system through which
any convertible currency - British pound, US dollar , South African rand and Botswana pula.
The multi-currency system helped prices of commodities to go down and sales force
management are now able to get orders and calculate discounts on goods purchased. The
Interest rates and exchange rates since the introduction of multi-currency system remain high
and is affecting many organizations in Zimbabwe. 2marks
These high interest rates and
exchanges rates are failing to attract foreign investors and forcing remaining operating firms to
produce in small quantities than anticipate. Production of local goods is still very low and this
has resulted in sales force management to loose their jobs as most of the goods are now
imported. Price control over a number of agricultural and food products has seen most of the
suppliers falling to supply their product as they were no longer making profits from locally
produced goods???. The price control contributed the black market . Most of the basic product
were found in the street with high prices and caused starvation of people. The period 2007 –
2008 many sales force lost their jobs especially in the furniture manufacturing industry as
people were concentrating in buying basics necessities. 2008 has recorded high staff turnover
in the country.
Inflation – Zimbabwe’s inflation has reached a point of hyperinflation and was recorded at the
rate of 1 281% yearly in the month of February 2007. Zimbabwe inflation was a threat to sales
force management as they were facing challenges in their marketing plan and strategic plan.
Payment plans became waist of time as the Zimbabwean dollars was loosing value almost every
hour. Some companies like Dairiboard ended up removing their merchandisers from shops like
OK. TM, Spar as they were no longer able to pay them. Sales force were no longer meeting
targets in terms of selling in volumes.2marks
Social factors – the brain drain which occurred 2000 to 2008 in Zimbabwe left firms with no
choice in recruiting ageing employees of 50 -60 years as young age group had left the country
for greener pastures in other countries. This resulted in low production in many firms. Sales
force were highly mobile, moving from one company to another as there was no employee
satisfaction and of the sales force their contracts. Human resources has faced challenges in
sales force planning as there were recruiting everyday due to unsatisfactory of salaries.2marks
Technological factors – sales force management faced some challenges as they were lacking
new technologies for example buying and selling online, bar coding and computer aided design
for improvement of their sales. Due to the lack of technology organizations were found
incurring more cost in production of goods and services and also ended up producing poor
quality due to the economic hardships faced by Zimbabwe. Some of the sales force are still
using traditional ways of selling, where they move door to door and using phones looking for
customers whilst sales force of today uses internet when receiving orders and others send
reports to their heads using e-mails.2marks
Because of the existence of sales and marketing team, organizations are able to conduct
promotions, competitions and advertising used as business strategies that enhance company
profitability.
References:
Kotler,P. and Armstrong G. Principles of Marketing (2008), Prentice Hall
Morden, A.R, Elements of Marketing (1991), Shepherds Bush Green, London
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