In: Computer Science
What are the most common methods of structuring a sales force?
This will depend on the type of operation and on any current trends. If you require your students to interview a salesperson, you can have them include a question about sales force structure in their interview. Usually the most common methods of structuring a sales force are territorial, product, or customer sales force structured.
There are advantages to each type of sales force structure. The sales force structure decision is simple if the company sells one product line to one industry with customers in many locations. In that case the company would most likely use a territorial sales force structure where the regions are divided up. Clearly this defines the salesperson’s job, and because only one person works the territory, they get all the credit or blame for the territory sales. If the company sells many products to many types of customers, it might need either a product sales force structure, where the sales force sells along product lines, or a customer sales force structure, whereby the sales force is organized along customer or industry lines (the latter is most common in hotel sales departments).