PLEASE ASSIST WITH QUESTION 6, CASE STUDY PROVIDED

Athena Software Athena Software develops communications software solutions for large enterprises and governments. The organisations is based in Cape Town, South Africa. The company was founded in mm and became the African leader in its market segment by 2019. In January 2022. Athena Software had a client base in over 20 counties in Africa. and expanded into the Middle East later that year. Revenues have been increasing in all the territories around Afiica, and initial growth in the Middle East looks promising, but during the 2021 financial year, two of the three South African regions have missed quota. South Africa contiibutes one third of the company's annual turnover, with the rest split predominantly between West and East Africa, and the new Middle Eastem market making up approximately 10%. Jeffrey Sisulu, Sales Manager for the South African region is concerned by this downturn in revenue for his region, and he is worried that he has increased the number of people in his organisation so fast that ithas become inefficient and pooriy managed. He is also concerned that his key regional sales managers in South Africa are more concerned with building their own careers, than with establishing and building profitable regions. Jeffrey decides it is time to make his team accountable for their regions. He also believes that to improve the periomiance of the South African regions. he must revaluate his strategies for setting quotas. the headcount of his teams, as well as the design and assignment oftenitories. Athena Software Company Profile: Athena's primary software offering is a tool which focuses on automating the management of IT infrastructure (including hardware, operating systems. networks and related applications]. The solutions improve the efciency of data centre resources by monitoring and adjusting applications and resources against pre-dened \fSouth Afn'ca achieved the highest sales total of the three regions. However, cunently it was the slowest growing region. In January 2021. Smith met with Sisulu to discuss the 2021 sales gures for South Africa, and he showed his disappointment, and told Sisulu the following: \"The performance of the South African region is not meeting my expectations. The year on year growth rate declined to #596 in 2022; which is down from 38% growth in the previous year (2021). As you have received budget to increase the size of your saiesforce, ineed you to show me that you are using our resources more eicienthr in 2023. You have no choice, as the quotas for your region are going up, the same as the quotas for the other regions": Jeffrey Sisulu: Sisulu has been with Athena since the organisation was started. He enjoyed and participated in the success of the company. His responsibilities expanded from manager of the Western Cape to National Sales Manager in 2014. The oombined South African Regions, consistently exceeded his quota by over 25%. Missing his quota tor the rst time at Athena, was very oonceming to him, thus the motivated 48- yearold Sisulu is highly motivated to tum things round. Sisulu knew that he needed to nd a wayto make his sales managers more productive and efcient. Drawing on his own expen'ence, he decided to re-evaluate his strategies for setting quotas, employing new salespeople. and designing and assigning tern'ton'es. Setting quotas was particularly important because compensation for sales managers and salespeople was performance based. For the salespeople a wide variation in achievement is possible. If exceeded, bonus compensation ranges between 80% and 200% of basic salary. Sisulu has given his sales managers the powerto assign quotas to their salespeople as they see t, resulting in the regional managers having power to inuence the salespeople's income. Furthermore. the regional managers controlled the number of salespeople {or headcount} to support their ten'itory and the territory size. Sisulu also knows that quotas may be difcult to achieve given the differences and resources in \fThinking about this process, Sisulu realises that this process is largely subjective, providing each manager a number based on his assessment of the situation. Sisulu knows that some of the regional managers divide their sales quotas equally amongst their salespeople. Sisulu however questions this simplistic approach. realising that equal quotas apply in certain types of industries. and in mature organisations. However, at Athena. there are clear patterns of buying in certain territolies. Challenges to the process for allocating quotas: Sandbagging This occurs when the regional manager downplays the sales expectations and attempt to convince Sisulu that they deserve a small quota. The problem with sandbagging, occurs in a compensation system where lower quotas can yield higher bonuses. When sandbagging, the regional manager does not provide accurate information to Smith, believing that they will be penalised if they provide detailed information. They thus disclose as little information as possible, until they receive their quotas. In January 2D1Q Nltulu demanded a quota that was 3D% below the quota that Sisulu had in mind forthe Gauteng region. Since then, Sisulu has been suspicious of Nltulu's tactics. Sisulu believes that sandbagging results in a loss of transparency into the region's pipeline, ultimately missing out on opportunities. Lobbying: Another problem that Sisulu faced when setting quotas was \"lobbying" from the regional managers, which was a technique used to drive down quotas. When sandbagging, managers would conceal sales opportunities. by describing factors in the marketthat were adversely inuencing theirability to succeed. During quota setting time. strange comments started appearing, such as: \"Some companies negotiate harder on price" \"The area goes on holiday during that time ofthe year\" \"The companies have altered their needs and are downsizing their spending" 0n the surface, these statements may appear very logical. However, most of the regional managers have some of these lobbying statements in their arsenal. which results in them not appearing very reasonable. Sisulu realises that excessive lobbying erodes his trust in his regional managers and challenges his ability to judge the reality of the situation. One of the regional managers had the abilityto hype "doomsday" scenaiios, and Sisulu believes thatthis is because oflosing touch with the region. Consequently, Sisulu felt the need to spend more time on this region, trying to understand the particular region, than the others. Gaming This occurs when the regional manager is attempting to inuence the outcome in their favour. An example is when the regional manager is pushing salespeople to try to close all of their deals in June and December in an attempt to malte their performance appear like a close call. Sisulu realises that some of his regional managers are not very analytical, and set their quotas based on gut teel, and are influenced by their salespeople. 55fyearold Gordon. for example, pays little attention to her spreadsheets, in tact, Sisulu suspects that she is not very fond oi technology. As a result, when it is time to set quotas, lGordon will make decisions based on a few simple rules. For instance, assuming her quota increased 10%, she will give a sales representative who reached quota, an increase of 14 percent, and a sales person who missed quota an increase of only 5 percent. Gordon has argued that being too analytical in her forecasts is wasting time, as there is typically too much uncertainty in the sales process to bother with getting very sophisticated with allocations. Consequences: Atthe end of2D21, the Westem Cape reached only 81% of its goal, and KZN achieved over 120%. Sisulu considers that this could be because of one region under, and another region overachieving. Question 6 TechPro is a multinational company that builds specialised engineering software for various industries across the globe. The CEO of TechPro wants a sales force with Not yet a well-equipped toolbox of classic sales skills or techniques. The existing salespeople may have had relationships and product knowledge, but he wants them to know answered how to thoroughly understand the principles of selling, not just treat clients with dinners and entertainment to keep them loyal. Marked out of 20 Flag TechPro developed an internal training programme for the existing sales force but found it challenging to retrain the existing salespeople to break their old habits, question which also encompassed concerning their enthusiasm, motivation, attitude and cooperation. A good sales manager will always use an evaluation or appraisal system to ensure that salespeople are aware of what is expected of them. For salespeople to break their bad habits, an appraisal system should be used to assist salespeople to in fact perform to their full ability according to the expectations of the organisation. Recommend to the TechPro CEO which KPI's he/she can measure to evaluate the current salespeople against their expected performance. Note: You will not be awarded any marks for general discussions of KPIs. You must specify which KPIs are relevant to TechPro salespeople and motivate why you have chosen the specific KPI's.Sisulu also realises that he must considerthe probability of his quota setting being at fault,with one region being set too high. and the othertoo low. It might also be possible that the performance in the regions were similar. whilst doing it with different goals. To add, the system only measured topline performance. If a manager who reached a quota of R27 million at a cost of R26 million would still be considered as reaching quota. Whilst a manager who reached a quota of R65 million at a cost of R4 million. would not have made goal. From a prot and loss standpoint. the reward system did not make sense. A lot of money had been spent on new headcount to help a team make their quotas, and in most instances they would do so. Sales teams were getting bigger and bigger each year, but the return on the incremental investment in headcount had fallen well below expectation s. Assigning territories South Africa was divided into 3 regions, each with a regional manager, and assistant sales managers. Gauteng accounts for 55% of the revenue, with the Westem Cape in bringing 35% of revenue, and the rest coming from KZN. Each ofthese regions are divided geographically, and salespeople called on all customers in their geographical allocated territory. The objective is for 5 salespeople, to report to 1 assistant sales manager. The goal in the regions is based on the customers' needs therefore, as the customer's needs increase (more customers], additional salespeople to be employed in orderto service the customers accordingly. Thus, for every additional 5 salespeople who are employed, there is 1 assistant sales manager to whom these salespeople report. The general rule of thumb is 1 salesperson for at) customers, but this varies per geographical region. Smith has allocated budget for sales growth and the relevant headcount to support this growth. which will be reected in Smith's new quotas. Sisulu had the tough task of assigning territories in the past. However, in 2019 he delegated this task to the regional managers. The regional managers thus are expected to increase quotas and shrink territories. 0n the one hand, it was a common problem among fast growing companies: they are forced to separater manage more and more territon'es as the cost of not doing so increases. On the other hand, Nkulu for one did not nd it easy to subdivide his region. This has resulted in the salespeople creating promising leads, but simply lacking lime and resources to deliver on them