Page 147 - International Marketing

NPP

BRILLIANT'S Managing International Market 149

service and value for money are rising simultaneously. In order to
keep pace salespeople need constantly to be aware of this
through intelligence-gathering, and feed it back to their organiza-
tions.
 Consumer Avoidance of Buyer-Seller Negotiations: Consum-
ers frustrated by negative experiences of sales people, are turn-
ing to alternative channels, e.g. the internet and fixed price deal-
ers, especially for high value items.

 Expanding Power of Giant Retailers: Due to their increasing
power, dominant retailers are by passing, wholesalers and dis-
tributors to buy direct from manufacturers who give them ‘key
account’ status. In the USA, companies such as Wal-Mart (www.
walmart. com), Kmart (www.kmart.com) etc. have grown bigger
and more powerful than the manufacturers that supply them and
are now dictating the buyer-seller relationship.

2. Technological Factors
 Sales force Automation: New sales and service-oriented com-
puter software is transforming the way sales people carry out
their functions. Time-consuming administrative tasks are being
reduced through computer software and developments in hard-
ware, e.g. notebook computers means that salespeople have a
virtual mobile office.

 Electronic Sales Channels: The internet and world wide web
have enabled organizations to reach a larger number of prospec-
tive customers. Salespeople have taken advantages of these
developments and the technology has also enabled the provi-
sion of customer support for basic and self help service.
3. Managerial Factors

 Moving to Direct Marketing Alternatives: The drive for effi-
ciency is a strong incentives for sales manager to seek alterna-
tives to personal selling, such as telemarketing, directonael and
teleselling. In Business to Business (B2B) marketing in particu-
lar, field sales forces increasingly find themselves as part of a
combination of a selling personnel, who include telesales repre-
sentatives, and field sales representatives for negotiation and
relationship-building purposes.