1. What are, in your opinion, the main weaknesses and threats for Deodar?

* There is no defined structure on the sales team to generate new businesses. Jim has
his personal contacts, which he uses for getting information about new hotels, but there
is no formal structure of capturing leads for restaurants.
* There is no sales plan (not even the DSMs, which are a kind of specialized
salesperson on large accounts).
* Incentives are based on sales only. Might be little incentive to retain customers due to
the fact that customer spending drops to no more tan 5000USD after opening.
* Threat of losing costumers to our competitors because costumers value relationships,
and if Deodar does not make an effort to retain them, will go to somebody else.
2. What information and metrics you would like to have if you were Jim Heisser?
* Jim should have a sales visit report, detailing salespeople wise, number of visitis, type
of costumer visited (ABC New/old) and time spent.
* Also, a breakdown of Exhibit 2 detailing new and repeated business.
* Cause of loosing a customer.
3. Evaluate the sales force policies in Deodar. What changes would you propose?
Proposed changes:

* DSM should assign clients to salespeople, ensuring that the minimum number of
visits per client is reached but also leaving room for new customers visit.
* Get rid of the showrooms. It is costly and not aligned with the strategy of showing
samples on the client site.
* DSM should be in charge of the training of new hired salespeople and variable salary
also as a percentage of the performance of the assigned salespeople.

4. How would you organize Deodars sales force? What criteria would you use?
* New business opportunities are communicated by Jim directly to the DSM.
Salespeople will have a weekly route plan in order to visit all the clients. In this case,
new opportunities will be assigned to the salesperson that is available, but there will be
new client referral commission.

5. Do you think Jim Heisser should hire more sales people? NO.