Pepsi Beverages Co.

(Sales Department: Tampa Region)

Presented by: Brittany Crawley

March 3, 2016

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 Table of contents

OVERVIEW Page 3

RATIONALE Page 4
Current condition Page 5

Ideal condition Page 6

FEASIBILITY Page 7
Resources Page 7

Organizational culture Page 8

Cost/Benefits/Assessment time frame Page 8

THE PLAN Page 9

Objectives Page 9

Target Audience Page 11

Sampling actions Page 11

Data collection strategies Page 11

Specifications for instruments/Protocols Page 12

PROCEDURES FOR IMPLEMENTATION Page 13

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 Overview

PepsiCo., formed in 1965, with the merge of the Pepsi Cola and Frito-Lay Inc., is one of the most
popular American multinational snack, food and beverage corporations in the world.
Headquartered in Purchase, New York, U.S., the company’s interests are as follows:
manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of grain based snack foods , beverages and other
products. PepsiCo has now expanded from its namesake product Pepsi to a broader range of
food and beverage brands, the largest of which includes an achievement of Tropicana in 1998
and Quaker Oats in 2001, which in turn added the Gatorade brand to its portfolio. Year-to-date,
more than 20 of PepsiCo’s brands generated retail sales of more than 1 billion a piece, in which
the company’s products were distributed to over more than 200 countries , yielding an annual
net revenues of 43.3 billion dollars. The different departments that make up the companies
structure is the Marketing, Operations, Products/Purchasing and the Sales department. The
company currently employs over 263,000 employees in which a fragment of that total is made
up of the sales department within the company. The mission of the sales department is to grow
and sustain revenue in all avenues of the business.

Below, in figure 1, is a visual organizational chart that allows you to view the organizational flow
of the company.

Figure 1: PepsiCo Organizational Structure

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 RATIONALE

Current Condition

The sales department is the one areas of major focus within the company because it is
here that is the heart of the business, (the Tampa location is one of the top 3 regions for the
company’s highest volume and revenue zones in the business) it is here that drives the volume,
sales, revenue, new and existing stakeholders and customers for the company. In other words,
the sales department is the bloodline of the company, it is here that the financial necessities
are overcome to maintain the company’s main objectives and goals. However, recently the
sales department has experienced a dramatic decrease in sales over the past 5 years-totaling 5
billion in revenue. While the decline has not been proven to majorly impact the company’s
overall goals, the sales leaders have determined that if the causes for the continuously decline
of performance gaps are not carefully considered, then the totals goals of the company will be
at risk.

The sales department staff, salespersons and Management team have noted they don’t
have the necessary time needed to perform day to day selling measures compared to their
competition. Sales representative’s especially feel they don’t have enough stretch, managerial
support and man power to complete the required amount of customer accounts scheduled in a
normal business day. The average number of customers scheduled for the competitor’s work
day has a massive advantage over that of the Pepsi sales team, which in returned in suggested
by the staff to be a major impact on sales due to the time allotted to spend with each customer.
Many of the Sales Representatives find it very difficult to make the profitable revenue and up
sell high end merchandise in so little time with the over numbering of accounts to service in a
day compared to the Sales reps at Coke, for instance. Inefficient time in scheduled accounts
also leads to missed volume and unsatisfied customers due to poor attention to detail and
customer needs.

Another impact in the sales department’s decline in sales is their support from upper
level management with help in the trade. That of which Reps have a limited range of
management to come help in the time of a customer concern, technical difficulties and

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different aspects of the everyday successes of the business that are needed to create a
supported environment for the ease of growth in selling productivity. Because of this major
influence in the trade, there has been a tremendous decrease in customer contracts being
created, renewed and managed, primarily linked to the company’s reputation in the respected
trade. The week to week sales hurdles have not been able to be met, sales reps gain more
irritated customers because initiated commitments are not fully executed due to the lack of the
support from management, and the incremental equipment for product takes extensive time to
arrive to store in a timely manner.

To note as well, national percentages of sales have been reported due to the decline of
Americans that are trying to avoid the drinks that have been in popularity for over decades now
due to the idea of maintaining a healthier way of living. Thus, sales in different avenues astray
from the carbonated soda route like bottled water have shot up over the past few years in
which bottled water is now on track to out power the soda sales in the trade. So not only do
Pepsi sales representatives have to deal with the everyday challenges of the trade of selling
carbonated soda primarily, but now the reps are forced to even compete with healthier
beverage companies, especially water brands which are now taking up majority to the cold
vault space (designated for all beverages in the customers’ store; giving the highest/fastest
selling items the most space in the beverage section) because of the high traffic it receives. This
limited amount of space creates urgent selling difficulties among the Pepsi Reps selling sodas
beverages etc. because with certain limitations, it can be very hard to up sell or maintain
current space available in the account which in return decreases sells because there is nowhere
to placed desired new product suggested to come into accounts. Consequently, customers will
decline the need for the innovative items to come in the store that are critical to the impact on
meeting sales goals.

Hence, PepsiCo’s upper Management (sales department) authorities, by a new

investigation have determined:

A. Sales rep fail to have the advanced equipment to successfully perform daily tasks

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 B. The appropriate training needs are not being met as far as the appropriateness
of how to sale merchandise in to accounts.
C. Delivery DBAY team are not properly giving sales reps the support they need
while replenishing store to set sales reps up for next visit of service.
D. Sales reps including local management are not efficiently communicating
concerns for quicker response reactions.
E. Lack of physical support from management/field teams in the trade is also
putting too much responsibility on reps, thus leading to discouragement in service
from the sales reps perspective.
F. Resources; materials needed to utilize for daily activities and duties are not
available at all or in a timely manner.
G. Sales reps are not properly utilizing time available to achieve targeted goals.
H. Customers have complained that products/ services are not selling as well as the
competitors.

Ideal Condition

The superlative goals of the department are as follows:

a. Achieve all targeted volume, revenue, and net financials for the week, period,
and year; year-round.
b. Use innovative food and beverage products as key to driving force for growth in
the North American region.
c. Promote still beverage categories (bottled water, Gatorade) which will offset the
declines in carbonated soda sales due to the drive in healthier beverage options by
consumers.
d. Build, maintain, sustain; grow customer business including but not limited to
business contracting, initiating/renewing contracts.
e. Create efficient avenues for communication through local management, sales
reps to drivers (on delivery team) as well as higher level management’s availability;
to respond to urgent concerns form local sales teams.

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 f. Training programs are strictly enforced to adhere to the standards of the
frontline guidelines (sales teams).
g. Annual volume has a growth of 10% vs. prior year in all different categories of
tracked merchandise.

In relevance, the sales department leaders in addition to the upper level management
officials have requested that a needs assessment be performed in order to detect the
gaps between the sales department’s current performance and the ideal performance
that pertains to the mission of the department. After the review of the investigation
performed by higher officials on the department, it was agreed that there are various
potential areas that are of concern in which were identified among the review(s) of the
department.

FEASIBILITY

In my opinion, this needs assessment would be greatly beneficial to the sales

department for a matter of many critical reasons:

Resources-

I. The plan will be executed using the available resources provided by the company.
II. The principal elements or methods of data collection will be employee interviews,
online surveys, questionnaires (for employees/customers) and small group team
meetings, feedback hotlines, support teams and mystery shopping experts to
evaluate close up action of performance/productivity.
III. With use of medium and cost efficient resources provided by the company’s
department staff/Designers is a vital point in the benefit of the assessment being
performed

Organizational Structure

I. The organizational structure of the company is that of a very diverse and well-
rounded group of individuals; specifically in the sales department, teams have been
waiting to see a revision to the department as a whole.

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 II. Along with the sales department, even higher officials have an opportunity of the
benefits of the needs assessment (growth).
III. Every individual in this department and even others in relevance will have a valued
position in the productivity of this needs assessment.
IV. Higher level officials have agreed that the assessment will be a benefit to the
company as a whole

Cost/Benefits

I. In great respect to the department, due to the major decline in sales over the past
few years, the benefit of the needs assessment is due to promote a much more
costly growth than that of which it will cost to perform the needs assessment, in
which in turn- will yield greater potential for the entire departments’ environment.
II. It is suggested that the project can take up to but not limited to 5 months to collect
all appropriate data.
III. Special financial teams will be hired to review high sources of lost revenue (does the
majority of the lost revenue come from breakage, OOD, stolen merchandise,
saleable returned merchandise warehouse malfunctions etc.
IV. Support teams (including 6 individuals) will be hired to help reps in their daily
routines of work; that will be available for 8 hours a day M-F. Total costs by end of
evaluation for entire support team is an estimated: $20,000.
V. 5 Merchandisers will be assisting in weekend replenishing services for sales reps that
are paid over time by the company (estimated at $18/hr. Saturdays and Sundays
only) for 5 hours a day: 3,600/ merchandiser in total 5 month period).
VI. More essential training provided by department management/leader roles free of
charge that is added in their weekly routine.
VII. Questionnaires; online surveys can be conducted by the HR/ designer team while
only paying designers if help is needed in constructing surveys as HR representatives
get paid hourly at a rate of $25 per hour. Their time needed on the project are as
totals: 100 hrs; estimated at $2,500.

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 VIII. Small group meetings for feedback are free of charge because groups meet every
week to discuss volume/ hurdle goals (sales teams are commissioned) and now will
be advised to start asking feedback questions pertaining to needs/ gaps of their daily
routine in effect of the goals being met.
IX. Special sales experts will be hired to promote innovation items/ seal; negotiate solid
sales contracts which will total an amount of $10,000 per the plan.
X. Key informants: 10,000.
XI. Total projected cost of plan: $60,500

THE ASSESSMENT PLAN

Objective

In order to improve the desired goals of the sales department at PepsiCo (Tampa), this
needs assessment will need to achieve the following:

i. Ultimately determine potential avenues of revenue.

ii. Classify the gap between the ideal performance measures and the current performance
measures of the sales department in relevance to the targeted goals and projected
forecast of the departments objectives designed by the higher officials to sponsor
anticipated revenue for the company’s mission.
iii. Determine measures of gaps that are caused by lack of training, skills; support from
management in trade, availability of time, availability of space in trade and other critical
factors that are influential to the tasks of the sales reps that may be affecting loss of
sales/revenues.
iv. Determine the gap caused by lack of materials; essential functions that promote
successful day to day routines in the trade.
v. Detect how much of a gap is caused by merchandise misconduct; breakage and or
preventable loss of revenue/product.
vi. Identify gaps caused by environment of employees; desire to do the job their doing

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vii. Identify gap caused by employees that could possibly be underpaid and thus may have
lack of performance due to appreciation needs.
viii. Potentially help sales department team acknowledge how future change will advocate
new outlooks and performance needs grounded on the new growth of the department.

Target Audience

The aim for audience of the needs assessment can be listed below:

Sales Department management (decision makers) and the employee staff (performers) of the
sales department

a. The sales department group will comprehend the warehouse Operations manager for
terms of warehouse shortages, who is in control of product entering and leaving the
Pepsi plant premises. The production manager will be involved to some extent due to
the access needed to locate possible malfunctions that could occur in the process of
making the product in an efficient time to reach the sales reps electronics for view to
ordering purposes. The operations manager (ASM), who is in control of the operations
of the entire sales facility, will be essential in the assessment because the dictate the
local rules and regulations of the sales department as well as they will be able to get the
plan approved if needed from board members. They know the ends in and outs of the
trade and the sales operations as they are the head official in this department and they
will also be the means to the willingness of the information collected alongside time,
money and employees involved. The Territory Sales Managers (TSM) and Sales District
leaders (SDL) will be next in line as they control/ manage all the sales teams directly in
the department as have the ability to be a great resource in the assessment. Dbay
(Transporting) supervisor’s will be critical as well as they control the sales reps that
actually deliver the product ordered or finished goods to the scheduled accounts.

b. The assessment will also include a group of performers which will include the frontline
sales representatives: energy reps, bulk sales reps, small format reps, dbay reps, and
merchandisers. This group of performers will be able to offer valued and up-to-date

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 feedback on the life of the sales field as it is pertained to the reality of the business. This
group is not limited to the contact with employees who also work indirectly with the
sales department in the importance of the needs assessment.

Sampling Procedure

The type of sampling that will be used for the purposes of the assessment will be the
Stratified sampling in order to guarantee that all respective positions involved in the needs
assessment are reflected and addressed. The assessment will also reach out to on target
locations in the SWR (Southwest region) to perform a simple random sampling to determine
what they are doing that is different than that of the Tampa region being that they are on
target for performance. Furthermore, this means of sampling will cover the population of the
sales department in terms of different job classes, classified levels, structured and geographic
related sites. Located below is a visual diagram of how the structure of the data collection will
be monitored.

Data collection and strategies

Figure 2: Chart of collection methods

Type of data collected Persons participating

Online surveys Performers
Interviews Stakeholders/ support teams/ merchandisers
Unidentified resources Informants interviews
Questionnaires Customers
Online surveys (outreach to other regions Performers/ Decision makers
included)
Mobile Interviews (outreach to other regions Surrounding SWR
included)
In person interviews Sales experts
Focus groups Performers

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Reports Financial teams
Feedback surveys Customers; performers
Direct observation of work Department managers

Pease note:

o Online surveys will be for the use of the performers “Salespersons” and customers
as well based on improvements the department can make.
o Interviews will be conducted for stakeholders and leaders as their support is
critical in the process and they will determine any or all approvals as well as
changes to the department.
o Unidentified sources to the performers will assist the leaders in providing the most
unbiased feedback via direct interviews.
o Questionnaires will be delivered to customers (support teams) for potential
feedback on how to improve the service in the accounts most beneficial to them.
o Phone Interview surrounding SWR officials and leaders for their support and input
on the assessment.
o In person interviews will be held for experts in the field to review what tactics
work best to be a successful salesperson.
o Focus groups will be held for the total involvement of all performers involved in
process to be understanding vital needs and wants to better assist them
o Reports meetings will be held with financial teams to ensure accuracy of all
monies involved in process and the departments’ findings are in the respective
means of precision.
o Feedback surveys will be in place to assist all persons involved in process to
participate with the will have an anonymous open door avenue for input

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Instruments

• Proposal Letters for the purpose of the instructional needs of the department will be
sent out from the designing team to major stakeholders/ department leaders; that will
entail assessments’ reasoning of instructional needs .
• A detailed form of questions that will be performed in interviews.
• Detailed information on all participants (including local SWR locations) that will
help aid in the needs assessment.
• Comprehensive description of the obligatory duties needed to create successful results
for the needs assessment.
• Guideline to follow for the desired timeframe of assessment to be completed.
• Questionnaires designed specifically for the sales department leaders to address will
also be utilized for the use of direct feedback for assessments needs

Protocols

o The designers will work directly with key stakeholders including department managers
during the entire process of the needs assessment.
o Proper protocol will be in full enforce throughout the duration of the assessment
engaging the key leaders of the department.
o Surrounding SWRs will be also contacted with appropriate etiquette in terms of how
information will be collected as well as their approval of all information collected and
how it will be used.
o All results will be reported to the department leaders including the warehouse,
production, Dbay and Plant managers.
o If desired, periodic reports will involve whom it may concern at any given time in the
process of data collection, by the any department head with the approval of so.
o Results will be reported in the most efficient and ease of reviewing methods preferred
by the department heads.

Implementation

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The designers, department leaders and higher officials will plan for the needs assessment to
be implemented in a dated period of 5 months in which the process will gather the
following information:
Formal request for the approval of the assessment to be conducted.
The report will be directly delivered to the department leads and higher official via their
choose of deliverance
Designer team and department heads will collectively work concisely determine data
collection needs.
Schedule appropriate training teams
All participating department leaders will be scheduled for interviews.
Gather any department specific measures previously generated that can help aid in the
current process of data collection.
Work with support teams to gather data pertaining to the work environment via interviews
Direct observation with managers of sales teams closely reviewed for accuracy of leadership
involvement
Create and monitor online surveys and feedback questionnaires for all participating
performers, leaders and subgroups involved in the assessment.
Implement specific methods of collecting all data sources including ones not local.
Hold follow-up interviews for strategic personnel involved in assessment.
Gather follow-up written statements from key informants involved
Create a immediate statement on the findings of the report
Included in the summary will be costs involved
Summary will also entail recommendations for new actions to take going forward

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