December 17, 2021

Environmental factors impacting sales The environmental factors that are affecting sales and marketing function can be classified into : Internal environment and External environment Internal Environment of Marketing This refers to factors existing within a marketing firm. They are also called as controllable factors, because the company has control over these factors : It can alter or modify factors as its personnel, physical facilities, organization and function means, such as marketing mix, to suit the environment. There are many internal factors that influence the marketing function, they are : Top Management: The organizational structure, Board of Director, professionalization of management..etc..Factors like the amount of support the top management enjoys from different levels of employees, shareholders and Board of Directors have important influence on the marketing decisions and their implementation. Finance and Accounting: Accounting refers to measure of revenue and costs to help the marketing and to know how well it is achieving its objectives. Finance refers to funding and using funds to carry out the marketing plan. Financial factors are financial polices, financial position and capital structure. Research and Development: Research and Development refers to designing the product safe and attractive. They are technological capabilities, determine a company ability to innovate and compete. Manufacturing: It is responsible for producing the desired quality and quantity of products. Factors which influence the competitiveness of a firm are production capacity technology and efficiency of the productive apparatus, distribution logistics etc., Purchasing: Purchasing refers to procurement of goods and services from some external agencies. It is the strategic activity of the business. Company Image and Brand Equity: The image of the company refers in raising finance, forming joint ventures or other alliances soliciting marketing intermediaries, entering purchase or sales contract, launching new products etc. In organization, the marketing resources like organization for marketing, quality of marketing, brand equity and distribution network have direct bearing on marketing efficiency. They are important for new product introduction and brand extension, etc.. External Environment of Marketing. External factors are beyond the control of a firm, its success depends to a large extent on its       adaptability to the environment. The external marketing environment consists of : Macro environment, and Micro environment Micro environment: The environmental factors that are in its proximity. The factors influence the company‘s non-capacity to produce and serve the market. The factors are : Suppliers: The suppliers to a firm can also alter its competitive position and marketing capabilities. These are raw material suppliers, energy suppliers, suppliers of labor and capital. According to michael Porter, the relationship between suppliers and the firm epitomizes a power equation between them. This equation is based on the industry condition and the extent to which each of them is dependent on the other. The bargaining power of the supplier gets maximized in the following situations: The seller firm is a monopoly or an oligopoly firm. The supplier is not obliged to contend with other substitute products for sale to the buyer group. The buyer is not an important customer. The suppliers‘ product is an important input to the buyer‘s business and finished product. The supplier poses a real threat of forward integration. Market Intermediaries: Every producer has to have a number of intermediaries for promoting, selling and distributing the goods and service to ultimate consumers. These intermediaries may be individual or business firms. These intermediaries are middleman (wholesalers, retailers, agent‘s etc. ), distributing agency market service agencies and financial institutions. Customers : The customers may be classified as : Ultimate customers: These customers may be individual and householders. Industrial customers: These customers are organization which buy goods and services for producing other goods and services for the purpose of other earning profits or fulfilling other objectives. Resellers: They are the intermediaries who purchase goods with a view to resell them at a profit. They can be wholesalers, retailers, distributors, etc. Government and other non-profit customers: These customers purchase goods and services to those for whom they are produced, for their consumption in most of the cases. International customers: These customers are individual and organizations of other countries who buy goods and services either for consumption or for industrial use. Such buyers may be consumers, producers, resellers, and governments. Competitors: Competitors are those who sell the goods and services of the same and similar description, in the same market. Apart from competition on price, there are like product differentiation. Therefore, it is necessary to build an efficient system of marketing. This will bring confidence and better results. Public: It is duty of the company to satisfy the people at large along with its competitors and the consumers. It is necessary for future growth. The action of the company do influence the other groups forming the general public for the company. A public is defined as ; any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on a company‘s ability to achieve its objective. Public relations are certainly a broad marketing operation which must be fully taken care of. Macro Environment Macro environment factors act external to the company and are quite uncontrollable. These factors do not affect the marketing ability of the concern directly but indirectly the influence marketing decisions of the company. These are the macro environmental factors that affect the company‘s marketing decisions: Demographic Forces: Here, the marketer monitor the population because people forms markets. Marketers are keenly interested in the size and growth rate of population in different cities, regions, and nations ; age distribution and ethnic mix ; educational levels; households patterns; and regional characteristics and movements. Economic Factors: The economic environment consists of macro-level factors related to means of production and distribution that have an impact on the business of an organization. Physical Forces: Components of physical forces are earth‘s natural renewal and non-renewal resources. Natural renewal forces are forest, food products from agriculture or sea etc. Non- renewal natural resources are finite such as oil, coal, minerals, etc. Both of these components quite often change the level and type of resources

Sales Planning Process Setting objectives Clearly outlining your goal should always be your first step in planning a sales call – or any other business endeavor. Is your purpose to establish yourself as a trusted advisor? Close a specific deal? When you define your key objective, you can plan later steps around achieving it. Sales planning is going to start only when you have defined the objectives for the sales team. For example – The objective of an air conditioning company might be to increase the market share of the company. For this, it will have to penetrate a new geographic market. Thus the objective of sales planning is to penetrate a new market to increase market share. Determine the actions necessary It is done through an evaluation of the current situation. It involves an honest assessment of the situation, and it will relating it to the goal set in the first step. For instance If your objective is to expand your relationship with a customer, an evaluation of the current situation would consist of defining your present relationship. Since you know the objectives of your sales plan, you have to forecast what actions you need to take and the operations which are needed in effect before you implement the sales plan. This is a crucial step in the sales planning process because if you do not forecast the correct operations strategy, then in future you will face operational difficulties which will hamper you in meeting your sales objectives. Organize actions It entails ordering various activities that will be required in facilitating sales planning.Once you know the operations that are necessary, you need to organize them. For example – The first priority of the air conditioning company in new territory will be to have a service setup. Than to have a sales setup and the necessary channel in place. Once that happens, they will have to bombard the new territory with aggressive marketing tactics. Implement Once you have your actions planned and organized, implementing them is the next step. Although it may sound easy, there are many real time and real world problems you may face while implementing a sales plan. For example – The customers of the new territory might not respond to the new air conditioners entering the market. On the other hand, the product might be picked up readily by the customers and you might not be able to adapt. Measure results As in any planning process, the fifth and very important step in the sales planning process is to measure the results. Unlike advertising, sales results are very easy to measure because everything is documented and recorded. For example – the air conditioning company will measure the total sales of the geographic territory in study. At the same time it will find out the competitors sales as well for record keeping. Re evaluate When you have the sales records in hand, ensure that you analyse the sales records to know whether or not the sales planning process has succeeded. The analysis will tell you what you did right and what went wrong. Thus, based on the analysis you can know the good work that has to be repeated as well as the bad work which has to be avoided.

Characteristics of effective sales planning Systematic-Before setting a plan, all the priorities are identified and arranged. After this, the respective allocation of necessary resources is done. The managers ensure that the allotted time and resources are used until the desired goals are achieved. Team work–involves developing strong working teams and strengthen their internal and external partnerships. This will help the company to easily share necessary information as well as its resources and then advertise new and improved business products. Budgeting-Plan the budgeting process in advance and check if the process is predictable or not. Corresponding adjustments in budgets to include various expenses, revenues are also calculated in this step. Creating an experienced team that has already worked on a similar project and is familiar with all the processes involved Continuous process. A good sales plan establishes goals, priorities, timetables, and necessary resources. Sets measurable, specific, vivid, and motivating goals. Where do you intend to be in one year? What measures will you use to gauge your achievements: Number of buyers contacted? Percentage of sales to certain types of customers? Sales volume? Profit? Ranking among your peers? Identifies the enabling objectives necessary to achieve ultimate goals. What objectives must you reach on the way to the intended outcome? What new work habits must you develop? What values will you need to embrace? Outlines a logical order among the intermediate steps. What is the logical sequence for achieving your ultimate goal? What must happen first, second, third, and so on? Establishes a reasonable yet challenging time line. When will you achieve your ultimate goal? When will you jump the intermediate hurdles? Pinpoints the barriers between you and your objectives. Why haven’t you been achieving your objectives? What are the constraining forces, either in you or in the environment? What has stood in the way? Specifies strategies, procedures, and tactics. What actions will overcome the barriers that have kept you from achieving your objectives? Summarizes the resources needed. What money, materials, supplies, equipment, facilities, information, education, training, support, counsel, or staffing do you require? Establishes accountability. What will you do to hold your feet to the fire? Is in writing. Plans not written are dreams. Plans written become vows. Don’t just dream about success, vow to succeed. Is shared and negotiated with those responsible for implementing it. The more people who see your plan, the more pressure you’ll feel to make it happen.