The Balance of Traditions and Innovations, Research Paper Example

Executive summary

The offered report is presented in order to outline the potential factors of the external environment influencing the launching of a new product by the company and further recommendations regarding recruitment and training program and reward scheme for the company’s successful performance with a new product. In terms of the factors, the analysis of the existing market and its accessibility is required paying attention to market dynamics and their impact on a new product. Another factor to be addressed is Governmental legislative barriers of entering the market which would depend on the characteristics of a new product. Since the target market is the UK, socio-cultural and political aspect of the launching of the new product are to be taken into account. The role of NHS, local network of pharmacies Boots and supermarkets of Tesco should be addressed when sales strategies are developed.

The report also addresses the benefits for the sales team from the full review of training. It is suggested that trainings are aimed at explaining the personnel which standards the company requires from its employees. Employees benefit from the full review training because they get a chance to view their daily practices and techniques from a critical perspective. They can learn new, more innovative and up-to-date ways of doing the same job in a more efficient and productive matter. Regarding the knowledge of a new product, the incorporation of the sessions aimed at developing knowledge of a new product would benefit the sales team awareness of what a new product is and why the company developed it. The sales team full review of training also contributes to the improvement of individual self-perception in company’s performance and promotion of a new product.

In terms of recruitment and training program, it was suggested to mix traditional recruitment strategies together with innovative ones. The target candidates included both qualified specialists with extensive working experience and new talents with creative and innovative views on the posed objectives. Training program aimed at acquaintance with the company, its corporate strategy, the role of a new product in its development, suggestion of the ideas and development of project of further promotions and stimulations of purchases of the product. In terms of the recruiting aspect of the program, the main barriers include the lack of experienced candidates in the target area, the reluctance of experienced sales professionals to work with the creative young people, prolonged time of recruitment campaign. The main barriers of the training aspect of the program might include the dominance of traditionalist approach versus innovative and creative, inertia, different level of IT skills among personnel. Regarding the reward program is based on qualitative approach and creativity of the offered projects. Its measurement is based on offered criteria. Overall, the report concludes that the company can succeed by applying offered recommendations.

In the contemporary globalised and extremely competitive business environment, companies have to commit to their business more in their preparation rather than even in their actual performance. On various occasions, detailed analysis of market development and attention to marketing strategies can predict future success or outline potential barriers of entering new markets or launching new products. Thus, systematic investments in the preparation process might become vital for the success of a certain product and consequent cost-efficiency of company’s performance. The aim of the current report is to outline the main environmental factors that might effect a new product launch, the role of the sales force in its success; benefits for sales team from a full review of training, both in sales technique and new product knowledge; development of a recruitment and training program for the company; potential barriers for successful implementation of such a program; introduction of an appropriate measurement and reward scheme suitable for organisation’s objectives. Consequently, this report is divided to five sections of the main body, plus this introduction, conclusion and executive summary.

Environmental factors and the role of the sales force

When launching a new product aiming to make it brand leader in its specific niche, the company has to analyse the existing market and its accessibility. In this regard, the company has to conduct market monitoring in order to assess the factor of market dynamics and their impact on a new product. First of all, the degree of competition and accessibility of the target sector have to be analysed, In this regard, the potential governmental and legislative barriers particular for the UK and this specific industry have to be analysed and assessed in terms of their cost-efficiency and added to the cost of the final product. The correlation between internal high competition and low legal barriers can be conditioned by targeting a wider audience or widespread aim of the product’s application. For instance, pharmaceutical products that treat are widespread and have a high level of competition because there are a lot of alternatives to it produced by different companies. Consequently, their targeting a wider audience and relative accessibility explains the reason legal barrier imposed by the government are not very high for this type of products.

On the other hand, specialised products that target to cover a specific market niche, might face various administrative obstacles on the way of its approval. In this regard, if the product is entirely novel in its outlined treatment and can be characterised as revolutionary, its approval would take longer since British governmental legislature prescribes a more severe analysis of previously unknown products that target new aspects of human health. In this regard, the situation could be eased a bit if the product went through European level approval or demonstrated to be functional on another market. The brand new product without any previous market experience in another country would require more time and funds for its evaluation and approval. Thus, for the sake of cost-efficiency of entering new market, it is better if a new product covers a gap where there are few competitors rather than the one where there are none and barriers of entrance are close to impossible to conquer.

Another essential barrier to consider in terms of the environmental factors is the specifics of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. In this regard, depending to which category the product will belong, it might require a prescription from a doctor or might be in a free public access. In the first case, the accessibility of a new product will be relatively limited. First of all, before getting the product customers will have to consult their doctor who might or might not prescribe the company’s product. Thus, doctors’ awareness of the benefits of the offered product has to be addressed by the sales team. This can be conducted through promotional representations on specific medical conferences and funding various analytical materials promoting and explain the target product. However, this would require additional costs and would increase the overall costs of launching a project. Consequently, unless the product is a unique treatment of the target illness, from the cost-effective perspective and easiness of its branding, it is better if the target product does not require a prescription. In this regard, the traditional advertising campaign can be launched emphasising benefits of the product to the target customers. In this regard, the usual TV, magazine, pamphlets in pharmacies and bus ads can be applied. In terms of roles of the sales team in this context, they will have to develop the most functional ads to attract the target customer’s segment and develop expertise analysis reports for medical conferences in the case doctor’s prescription is required.

In order to secure successful adaptation of a new product on the local British market, the research in medical habits of the local population would be beneficial, since it would be different from American or European ones. This research would provide the sales team with further ideas on how to sell the target product in the most effective way through understanding of values of the target customers and their medical behaviour specifics in contrast to other nations. For instance, targeting elder people for selling cold and flu products in the rural areas of the UK would be simply inefficient for two reasons. People are accustomed to traditional ways of treating cold mainly because it is very often in this country. On the other hand, local people are accustomed and trust medicine that existed on the market for a half of a century rather than the new alternatives. Consequently, socio-cultural perspective of the target market has to be taken into account by the sales team when advertising campaign is developed.

Another factor that might affect the launching of a new product is the symbiosis of place and location. In this regard, depending on the price and target niche of the launching product, the same team will have to analyse until which extent the difference in rural and urban buying capacity of customers will effect geography of sales. In this regard, if the product is of the category of “pharmaceutical luxuries” and not necessities of a better value/price balance than its alternatives, then its success in the rural areas will be much lower than in the urban areas with a higher standard of living and buying capacity of people.  Consequently, geographical and demographical mapping of sales is a must for sales team to prepare.

In this regard, it is also essential to consider which way of product distribution would be the most beneficial and cost-effective for sales. In the UK, the main chain of pharmacies is Boots; however, pharmaceutics are also sold in the main supermarket chain of Tesco. This knowledge is important because, both chains often synchronise their pricing on medical products and even introduce sales and discount at the same time, with Boots having more influence due to the diversification of products and accessibility of locations. Depending on how specialised the target customer segment is, the sales team will have to decide whether it would be more beneficial to expose the product to a wider audience in Tesco network or a more specialised in Boots. Although both options can be applied, in terms of the effectiveness of sales, the correspondence between niche and location of the product where the target customer is going to be is worth taking into account. Thus, sale steam would have to calculate which chain would be more beneficial and make required contracts regarding the final pricing of the product on supermarket shelves.

Finally, the sales steam has to take into account the challenge of the information age. Depending whether the product requires a prescription and the age group of customers it targets, online sales directly from company’s warehouse might be more beneficial. This consideration is conditioned by the fact that British people are shopping online more than any other nation in the developed world estimating 60 per cent of population which is twice the average across the Europe.  In this case, the sales team would have to calculate whether the profit from direct sales, which would include shipment and packaging, would be more cost-effective than selling through the third parties. It would largely depend on whether the company has a warehouse in the UK or not. If it does not than selling through the third parties would be more rationale. In any case, the sales team would have to some with a systematic evaluation of which sales strategy would be more suitable for this particular product.

Benefits for the sales team from the full review of training

The essence of training is the improvement of one’s skills and consequent performance. Trainings are aimed at explaining the personnel what the company wants and according to which standards. Without training programs, the company would have the failure in communication with personnel and improvement of employees’ skills according to company’s expectations. The main rationale for partial or full reviewing of training programs is conditioned by the necessity to grow and change together with the time and dynamics of the target field of company’s expertise. In other words, the change in training programs helps the company to innovate and adopt new practices in order to remain competitive in the target market. Full review of training programs is essential when company decides to enter a new market, changes its corporate strategy or decided on the implementation of new innovative practices or approaches. In this regard, the main benefit for the company is in improvement and modernisation of the performance of its personnel.

Realising the objectives of full training for the company and expectations from the employees, it may seem that full review of training programs might meet the opposition from the employees who are accustomed to the old practices and techniques. They might feel frustrated to be trained how to do their jobs in a different way, abandoning their know-hows and personalised approaches to certain tasks. However, irrespective of employees’ initial frustration, full review of training programs is more beneficial for them than even the company, because they get a chance to view their daily practices and techniques from a critical perspective and learn new, more innovative and up-to-date ways of doing the same job in a more efficient and productive matter. In this regard, the main benefit of the full review of training is that employees can optimise their performance with fewer efforts and according to the contemporary requirements. In terms of the selling techniques, they can learn that some of the traditional principles of selling tend to be less influential than a few decades ago. For instance, customers in the developed countries became more politically conscious about their purchases. They prefer not to buy products that used a child labour or which come from the countries that support illegal activities. In this regard, the universal principle of being able to sell anything to anyone does not work. In this regard, a more innovative approach would be to sell products in smarter and more conscious manner, to appeal to customers’ cognition and new motivations of purchasing goods.  The full review of training program would pay attention to such changes and emphasize the new skills and techniques required to be effective in the new selling environment improving the performance of the sales team.

In terms of the knowledge of a new product, the incorporation of the sessions about the development, difference for alternatives on the market, competitive benefits, specifics and motivations of the target segment of customers would benefit the sale team awareness of what a new product is and why the company developed it. Teams awareness is essential for knowing how to present the product to the target customer, where to place it on which shelves and in which city of the UK. It helps in understanding how the product fits the demand and how demand is conditioned by specific needs of the target customer audience. From another perspective, the more the sales team knows about the product, the more sophisticated it can be in promoting and selling it. From the perspective of individual members of the sales team, the full review of training contributes to the improvement of individual self-perception in company’s performance and promotion of a new product. It poses a challenge that innovative people would be eager to accept and use as an asset of their development and effective contribution to company’s success. In other words, full review contributes to the improvement of cohesion of the sales team and concentration on the target performance regarding a new product.

The suggested recruitment and training program

The medium-sized company like the current one would not be able to spend a lot of time and money for a long-term and multi-dimensional recruiting campaign. On the other hand, it can benefit from its size and capacities through the combination of traditional and innovative ways of recruiting. Characteristics of the target segment of candidates would be young innovative people in the age group of 25-40 preferably with sales and promotion experience. In this regard, the main criteria in the case of the lack of actual working experience would be sales or promotion specialisation of the academic degrees, innovative projects related to the company or its segment of the industry. In this regard, the emphasis is placed on talent and creativity.

On the other hand, the group with working experience would have to demonstrate the background in sales, project management, promotion or public relations. The main criteria for both groups would be full-time availability, innovative and creative approach to tasks accomplishment, experience of project development, customer service orientation, knowledge of basic marketing and sales techniques, proficiency in marketing software, strong analytical and critical skills. The main rationale of targeting diverse age range and two groups within the outlined segment of candidates is due to the diversity of skills required also two approaches in selling and promotion: traditional through supermarket network and online, innovative one. Candidates with diverse experiences and background would be able to combine these two approaches and contribute to a more systematic analysis of the market, problem resolution and consequent selling of the product.

In terms of exact hiring strategies, it is suggested to combine the traditional techniques with more creative ones which are conditioned by the diversity of the target candidates. In this regard, in terms of traditional strategies placing ads in the local newspapers and recruitment websites, taking part in job fairs are advised as passive practices of finding the right candidates. On the other hand, active and innovative practices demonstrate to be more cost-effective and timely than the passive ones. It is often advised to see future candidates in their group interactions during relatively informal open event. In this regard, one of the options is to host that event, which would cost money, or to arrange such an event at a local university and talk to potential candidates in an informal environment observing their behaviour and whether it fits posed characteristics for a candidate. Then the usual CV and in a face-to-face interview can be arranged.

Another relevant hiring strategy would be contacting people who already have a job in the field and would be attracted by a better offer from this company. However, this strategy would require profound knowledge of other companies and also the availability of resources for attracting people from other companies. In terms of using new innovative recruiting strategies, it would be also advised to use social networks and launch a campaign aimed at finding the most creative sales person. In this regard, participants can be asked to develop selling or promotional project and the most creative and inventive one would receive a prize with further opportunity of hire. Such hiring strategies would attract the right candidates and do not require extensive funds or a lot of time. It is also advised to hire from the local UK population since it would ease the socio-cultural and transportation issues.

Regarding the training program, it is suggested to run initial one-week training.  The first few days would be devoted to the explanation of the history of the company, its corporate strategy, innovation approach and marketing objectives. This part is aimed at the overall acquaintance with the company and its goals. Then, the next day would be devoted to the presentation and understanding of a new product, its pharmaceutical characteristics, and benefits over the alternatives and target expectations in the British market. After the acquaintance with the company and its new product, the new employees would be given a day of creative evaluation of the product in terms of its potential difficulties in the British market and how they could overcome them through selling and promotional techniques. In this creative training, they will be also asked to develop functional solutions of maximising revenues of launching a new product. In this regard, the new personnel will be provided with the outlined above considerations of the potential factors influencing the launching of the product in the UK. They will be also asked to develop their own projects of further improvement of sales of the product on the national market and potential expansion to other markets. Finally, the last few days of the training would be devoted to teaching of the most advanced selling and promotional techniques and contemporary principles of conducting business in the sphere of pharmaceutical enterprise.

Overall, this recruiting and training program will provide the company with the qualified, motivated and proficient employees for the target campaign within a relatively short time. The outcome of training and the processing of the suggested ideas will immediately provide the company with diversity of alternatives in maximising its revenues and the future development of the product. It will also provide the company with a creative sales team which will be able not only maximise the profit for a new product but also be prepared for its further expansion and the development of another one.

Potential barriers of this program  

In terms of the recruiting part of the program, the main barriers include the lack of experienced candidates in the target area, the reluctance of experienced sales professionals to work with the creative young people, prolonged time of recruitment campaign. The problem of finding the right personnel in the required area was originally foreseen in the diversification of the recruitment. In this regard, the rationale for concentrating both on experienced and creative new talents was based on the assumption that if the required experienced candidates will be found in the target area then the creative new talents who would be more flexible in terms of transportation and relocation would cover the existing gap and overrule the problem of the lack of experienced people in the target location. The only additional requirement in this case would be the necessity of bringing someone from the head office or the local branch in order to conduct training and to set standards for the initial couple of months of unit’s performance. This solution would be most cost-efficient than spending extra costs on the encouragement of relocation of candidates with extensive professional background. Another way to overrule this problem is to concentrate business in the locations of medium size and above which are characterised by diversification of candidates’ skills and higher purchasing capacity of the customers.

In terms of the potential reluctance of professionals working with younger and more creative team members, this barrier can be overruled in a few ways. First of all, the atmosphere of cooperation should be established. The main role of management will be to explain the personnel that it is not completion of old traditional ways of sale and the new innovative ones, it is about combining both and making benefit for the project and the company. In this regard, the aim of sales team should be in combining old and new and make it work for the company’s and project’s objectives. If managers emphasise this in their daily practice and assessment of team’s performance, meaning through the application of participative management style, the problem of reluctance to cooperate will be eliminated, contributing to the increased cohesion of the team. Regarding the potential prolonged time of the recruitment campaign, this problem can be resolved through the simultaneous implementation of the suggested above recruiting techniques, which will maximise the outcome and minimise time-consumption for recruitment.

The main barriers of the training part of the program might include the dominance of traditionalist approach versus innovative and creative, inertia, different level of IT skills among personnel. The dominance of traditions and inertia in learning can be eliminated through the demonstration of the efficiency of innovative skills and their time-efficiency for the employees. In this regard, if the new technique is demonstrated in terms of personal benefits for an employee then, he/she will be more motivated in order to apply the new practice rather than an old one. For instance, if the traditional approach of data collection required only working with statistics on the screen of one’s computer and did not require any interactive activities, the new practice of interactive polls and communications with customers, stakeholders and third parties would not only make the analysis more systematic but also will diversify employee’s activities making them less tiresome and would improve employees’ attention and orientation on the result rather than the process.

The problem of the different level of IT skills in the increasingly IT demanding new program can be overcome  by introduction of the advanced course for the employees that require  additional skills learning of the new trends in application of the new software. This solution would require time and consequent costs of training. On the other hand, a more functional and cost-effective solution of this problem would be the experience and qualifications-based segmentation of the sales team. In this regard, team member who are more qualified working with online content would be responsible for it, while traditionalists could apply their skills in the exploration of the market and statistics analysis. In the end, the findings of both types of specialists can be discussed and analysed in terms of systematically paying attention for improvements and potential alternatives. This solution of the problem also corresponds to the initial objective of involving people with different backgrounds in order to achieve systematic and creative performance. On the other hand, in a long run, it is advised to incorporate a few days or a week-long training program of advanced IT skills for the sales and promotion purposes. It would assist in the future implementation of the innovations.

Measurement and reward system

The offered measurement and reward system is based on the qualitative approach with implications on the sales number. In this regard, employees’ performance will be measured in terms of their offered projects of modifying sales in each geographical department, if the implementation of the project results in the increase of sales the employees will receive a substantial financial reward. In order to make the reward system more encouraging the top 10 functional suggestions of the improvement of sales will be encouraged with various bonus system of discounts from the partner branches or certain vouchers. The main rationale for the qualitative approach to the reward system is conditioned by the necessity to stimulate creativity and unconventional thinking. In the case of the quantitative approach to the reward system employees will begin to think in terms of the numbers and the amount of work they can do in order to achieve the desired reward. In such a situation, employees will be interested in the quantity rather than the quality of the work performed.

On the other hand, in order to make the reward system more transparent and easy to understand, it would require set criteria for the assessment of performance and the evaluation of the submitted project before their implementation. In this regard, it can be suggested that the criteria should include creativity, correspondence of the project to the posed objectives of the company, innovative approach to the promotion of a new product, calculation of the potential boost of sales, suggestion of replications in the different locations and market characteristics, cost efficiency, calculation of costs for potential failure of the project and the probability of its success. On top of these criteria, various local branches can add their case-specific requirements for the assessment of the quality of projects and their correspondence to the reward system.

Overall, from all mentioned above it can be concluded that the launching of a new product contains diverse environmental factors of uncertainty. For this company to succeed with its new product it has to study socio-cultural, legal and political aspect of the British market and apply consequent actions for making advantage of these factors. Through the full review of training program, the company will be able to improve its performance and correspond to innovative trends in business conduct. Through the suggested recruiting and training program, the company will be able to get qualified personnel with a diverse background that will result in a systematic analysis and multi-dimensional project assessment. It will help the company to maximise its revenues from a new product. Finally, the suggested qualitative approach to the reward system will keep employees focused on quality of their performance rather than statistic calculations of a quantity.