Baria Planning Solution

1. Overview of current situation Baria Planning Solutions (BPS) is a consulting firm that specializes in using spends analysis to help companies identify savings through reduced procurement costs and improved supplier performance. Management is concerned about the disappointing performance of the sales team in attaining new clients and renewing existing ones. The Sales directors feel they do not get the help they need from Sales Support to close new deals, while the Sales Support directors believe they could provide better support by organizing into industry-specific divisions. The consulting industry is becoming increasingly competitive and inefficiencies in the sales process at BPS may interfere with the company's ability to win new business. The recently hired director of North American Sales Support must analyze the current process flow for Sales Support and identify the problems facing the sales organization. The president of the company has asked her to present a proposal for improving the performance of the entire group. 2. Organizational and operational issues faced by Baria Baria was going through a number of issues, amongst them were Integration: there was lack of integration between the departments and divisions Baria had under control, such as dealing with the many different customers and diversified service made it difficult for the organization staff to work together along with that the mergers and acquisitions Baria had gone through that also brought the old staff along with them with their respective departments and no change at all which was causing communication gap Differentiation: As dealing with many industries and retailers there was a lot of differentiation in the structure as well as the strategies different divisions and group followed which made it impossible to align the organizations goals and strategies, most notable differences amongst them were Service delivery processes: the processes of delivering services amongst the divisions were far wide which caused panic in the interior staff which was working in the hybrid system of the organization. Technology: all the division lacked same technology; the acquired divisions had the same technology which they had before, since only a few steps had been taken to synergize the technology level in the whole organization, which was causing operational issues. Diversified customers: operational issues raised when it came to deal with the diversified although there were different approaches and different sales teams to deal with the mixed customer base but the real issue was with the internal operations carried on within the organization, as only one department was responsible for the support of the all other teams, which made it difficult and the operations costs also went high.

Cross training: the cross training of employees was a major setback to the organization as the productivity went down from best to worst and the costs went up which not only made the employees work worst but the sales to go down leading in the bad reaction on the balance sheets.

3. Factors contribute to the company decision to organize the sales team by industry The factors which contributed the decision to organize the sales team by industry include following: Vast customer base: because of dealing with many different levels of customers from retailers to federal agencies and governments and to meet their requirement they stick to the option of industry formation of sales team, which created far better results and increased profits. Competitive edge: another major factor is to have the competitive edge in the market which boosted the companys market share in all different division and they got a structural and strategic competitive edge by offering fewer prices to certain customers. Equality with competitors: because of dealing with different customers, such as retailers and the giant industries, it made the organization possible to be equal with all scale competition in the market ranging from small retail to huge organizations like SAP. 4. Factors contribute to the company decision to organize the sale support group in the hybrid structure Baria solutions had to deal with many aspects and thus while concerned with high costs and world facing economy inflation turnover and their industry focused policy made it essential to make the employees cross work thus this resulted as bringing the hybrid structure, further details and factors contributing to this decision are as following: Staffing constraints: to efficiently meet the staffing constraints Baria needed to go for hybrid structure, as they were dealing with vast portfolio of customers and to maintain their service quality along with expansion made it important to see staffing constraints, thus to deal with staff vacancies and their need at time at a particular division. More efficiency: another factor was to create more efficiency which forced the management to go for hybrid structure, they needed to increase their efficiency in terms of quality and service delivery

5. What aspect of sale process are most valued by customers Presentation or in other words the time of closing of the sale process is most valued by the customer, customers of Baria who seek for solutions were strict on the time schedule and were more concerned about the presentation, as if the presentation of the Baria people is good they had convinced the customer, which resulted as a deal 6. What alternatives are available for dealing with problem in sales support group and how did you evaluate the alternatives There are certainly only a few alternatives, Increase in staff: by increasing staff we can face solve the problem but it wont be long lasting as the number of customers increase the staff will need to increase too Training: heavy trainings for the employees of the sales support to meet the time and projects constraints they face Synergy: high level of communication between all the employee divisions to make faster proposals and increase the productivity 7. What actions should Christy Connor proposed to Brandon Ali Christy Connor should go for a fully dedicated sales support group to each industry, which will help increase the lead time and assist in generating more sales by giving the proposals to the sales team at the right time when needed. 8. How you think that the internal people Brandon Ali ,Chuck Dee , Jane Albright, the sales team and sales support group will react to your proposed solution Brandon Ali is certainly going to go for this solution because the closest possible way to get out of the whole (the current situation of the organization as mentioned in the letter) is to opt this structure Chuck Dee will be happy to know that his advice worked and as he already was dissatisfied with the current structure of the sales support group. Jane Albright also wondered the structure of staff he had under his command as this would please him Sales team would be accepting this solution because of the fact that they were losing their sales earlier Sales support group will be more productive and the employees would be relaxed

9. How external customer react to your solution External customers will be delighted to know this solutions as then the organization will start to meet their expectations and provide them timely services they need.