• Complete the questions at the end of the case.

  Universal Control Corp.

  Background

  Universal Control Corp. is a leading supplier forprocess control systems and equipment used in a wide variety of production and distribution applications. You have taken a sales representative job with Universal, and having just completed training, you have been givena territory of your own. Your district manager has provided you with a list of accounts (shown below) as well as several boxes of notes and files that had been assembled and used by your predecessor. These are the accounts currently buying your products. You are expected to build these accounts and add new accounts to the list as you increase your territorys sales performance. You have summarized the account information into the summary set of account profiles, which follows.

  Account Name	Account Opportunity	Competitive Position	Annual Number of Sales Calls Last Year
  Mueller Distribution	High	Low	30
  Tri-State Specialties	Low	High	20
  Birkey Paper Co.	Low	High	26
  Normal Supply	Low	Low	12
  Darnell Aggregate Products	Low	High	21
  Reinhart Chemicals	High	High	26
  ACCO Manufacturing	Low	High	23
  Tri-State Manufacturing	High	Low	28
  Ideal Engineering	Low	Low	11
  Terracon	High	High	25
  Lowry Foods	High	Low	26
  SCS Industrial	High	High	27
  Lowell Services	Low	High	18
  Bowles and Sons	Low	High	21
  American Foundry	High	Low	22
  Hewitt & Associates	Low	Low	16
  Bright Metals Inc.	High	High	22
  Decatur Extrusions	Low	Low	14
  King Chemicals	Low	High	22
  Bears Steel Corp.	Low	High	20
  Hoffman Pharmaceuticals	High	Low	20
  Barlow & Clark Systems	Low	High	18

  Questions

  1. Develop a portfolio classification of accounts and assess the allocation of sales calls your predecessor made over the past year.
  2. What problems do you find with the previous allocation of calls on these accounts?
  3. Based on your account classification analysis, suggest a new sales call allocation strategy that would make better use of your time in the territory.