Absentee Assignment

Case: Jindi Enterprise: Finding a new Sales Manager

Ruchir Gupta (160101080) Sec B Marketing

Understandings from Reading material: Staffing the Salesforce: Recruitment and

selection
Importance of Recruitment and Selection: Hiring the right person for the job of outmost importance as
it can be the difference between firms long-term success or failure. It is often considered hiring one
wrong person can create a huge impact on the entire team. The attitude and energy with the knowledge
of the assigned work are key factors to consider while hiring a new sales team member.

Cost assigned to a wrong choice are hard to determine, as it is divided into tangible and intangible costs.
The tangible cost would be salary, investment made in recruitment process, initial investment for
employee like training costs, hotel expenses etc. While the intangible costs are loss of market, poor
performance, presenting a poor company image in front of customer, divergence from company norms
etc.

Salesforce Socialization: It is a process of converting a new member to part of the team, the process
involves transfer of tacit knowledge, skills and values. It has been found out staffing and recruiting are
key factors leading to job satisfaction, job involvement and commitment. Sometimes, during recruiting
process the understanding of job for recruiter and you may be different leading to dissatisfaction with
the job at hand. Providing recruit with accurate portrayal of the job is called Achieving Realism, while
providing the responsibilities relevant with recruits capabilities is called achieving congruence.

Recruitment Process:

Planning Activities: Asking yourself the question what is the job, what are the expectations, what are the
measurable parameters for rating performance, what would be ideal candidate for the job look like in
terms of qualification, hard skills and soft skills. Then deciding what should be the steps involved in
recruiting and selection process. From a sales managers perspective, he should be aware of his current
position in recruitment process and accordingly plan for the current teams leaving the team beforehand.

Job Analysis: It is as much a responsibility of sales manager as much is of the applicant to know the job
profile being offered. The sales managers job is to explain the company specific functionalities while
other details of the job is expected to be known by applicant.

Job Qualification: Hard skills required for the job as well as soft skills like willingness to accept
occupational conditions, aptitude etc.

Job description: Based on the job analysis and job qualification a written summary of the job is made by
sales manager of HR. It contains Job title, roles and responsibilities, administrative head, performance
measurement criteria etc.
Recruitment and selection objectives: Objectives vary from ensuring equality in team by hiring equally
qualified team members, maintain the numbers and types of sales people etc. It is opportunity to
revitalize team in the area which Sales manager priorities.

Recruitment and Selection Strategy: The scheduling of the process plays a vital role, some times
company hire from college campuses which require them to follow a time schedule linked with college
schedule. While other time company must choose between time involved in the process or quality of
process.

Recruitment: Locating Prospective candidates

Internal sources are one of the most successful ways of filling up a position. It can be either transfer from
one department to other, ie re alignment of team or hiring using referral system where employee
suggests a person for the post and if hired is given a finders fee. This process has been effective as the
person within the company understands the job requirements very well and only stakes his reputation
on the new person if he is sure that person is good enough for the job. Major drawback is the limited
number of options in internal resources.

External Sources: Some times when company is looking to expand, add more people realigning a team is
not an option, larger number of people are required internal sources become a constrain. At time the
talent in market is better than available to you so its good to maintain a mix of Internal and External
sources.

1) Advertisement: Easy to approach large pool in short time, but many a times applicants apply
hopefully even when they do not meet the mentioned minimum qualification. Hence
expensive screening is required.
2) Online: The most inexpensive way possible. People can easily visit the job portals and identify
the jobs they can apply for making primary screening based on minimum criteria possible. Due
to large number of resumes arriving automated tracking system is required. The major
drawback is whether the talent pool uses internet, in case of India Online portals cannot be
taken up exclusively as the big chunck of population may not be searching for jobs online.
3) Private Employment Agencies: These can work from both sides, ie companies also hire such
agencies to outsource screening process at the same time candidates also join such agencies
to improve their resumes and presenting skills. Sometimes its difficult to judge a candidate
coming out of these agencies as the candidate in extensively prepared for interview but not
the job.
4) Colleges and Universities: Recruiter has the option to choose how much qualified does he
want. Plus he has the advantage of many qualified candidates in one place with internal
resources providing for process as well as the willing students to work at lower salaries
compared to lateral higher. Now a days to further facilitate process many colleges have video
conferencing to remove the necessity of visiting the campus.
5) Career Fairs and Professional Societies: Both offer opportunities for relevant experienced
people in the same market looking for jobs. Here one can obtain good references from
different professionals about prospective candidates.

Selection: Evaluation and Hiring

The process screening resumes according to qualifications and other categories set by company,
interviewing candidates based on their job skills and relevance to the profile as well checking soft skills
and ability to handle pressure at work place or testing his composure in difficult situation so that his
actions can be judged how he will perform in the job. Some other methods are using test or judging a
presentation, simulation or group discussion etc.

During my time as Accenture employee I was informed that a black list of candidates is maintained
across NASCOM who lie on their resumes or leave previous jobs without informing the previous
employer or previous suspensions due to sexual harassment cases or cheating company during
reimbursement or any other way. Hence a back-ground investigation about the candidate is essential
part of Selection process.

Guidelines for Sales Manager:

Understanding of Job analysis, Job qualification and Job description should be very clear and
should be clearly portrayed to prospective candidates
Always follow the best industry practices and company norms during hiring process. Give
company norms priority over industry practices during conflict
Avoid mental bias or try to maintain as unbiased process as possible

Case Analysis:
Established in 1997 in Xian, the company made heat exchanger units for the
residential/commercial market.

Founder and M.D Ma Rui was the former chief engineer of a state-owned enterprise (SOE), #4
Boiler Factory. Mas perception about any new product concept:

Should be personally comfortable with the product

Product must have significant market potential

Investment in fixed assets should be as low as possible (XPVF a bankrupted SOE took care of
production)

Demand for heat exchangers was high due to the Go West strategy of the mid-
90s.Connections, references, quality, manufacturing and customer support were key to get into
this market

Emergence of Yongda, a financially strong Jiangsu based enterprise with low price policy and
good service. Industrial market was less competitive due to technical barriers. Good profit
margins, roughly twice as much. Advantage of Jindi Enterprise is the exceptional ability in
engineering and the technical solution would be more efficient and economical. Due to the
shorter payment cycle, cash flow relaxation will be there. The only problem with immediately
moving into the industrial market would be that Jindi didnt own any production facilities.
Instead it contracted the production to its partner, XPVF.
 Contact Architectural
Low profile or small scale Building complexes developed Design Firms, Engineering
residential and by large developers and Companies and
commercial buildings investors Consulting firms

The contractors had
power to select HVAC
products
Price, delivery time as well
as geographic proximity
for getting orders
Job Title: Sales Manager
The architectural design firms
oversaw selecting the vendors
for HVAC customers
Connections and credibility
were main for getting orders
High Technical knowhow
Delivery time is fixed and
defined
Areas of concern
Quality, Customer
Loyalty, Connections,
References, Customer
support, Custom Designs
& Mfg.

Department: Sales/Marketing High Entry barriers

Location: North-West China (Lanzhou) region

Job Duties:

Manage key accounts in NW China (Lanzhou) Region

Acquire new customers (both in Residential/Commercial market and

Industrial Market) by increasing market coverage

Deal closure with complete negotiations

Address to customers concerns (manage customer service)

Strategy development to increase market coverage

Analysis of market potential

Develop technical know-how about the products and consult to customers accordingly

Increase and maintain profitability

 Hu Bin Bai Dong Qian Cheng Liu Xiaogang

Qualification UG in Mechanical Diploma in Masters in Engg and Economics

Engg Computer Software Executive MBA

Experience 7 Years in Jindi 4 Years in Jindi + 4+ years in SO 3 years as lecturer +

Start-up Designing institute private Radiator
firm

Interpersonal Skill Medium High High High

Retention High Low Medium Low

Probability

Selling Experience/ Yes/ Low Yes/ High Yes/ Very High None
Performance

Strengths Reliable, Technical Good sales record, Qualifications, Interpersonal Skills,

know-how, hard Organized, fast Impressive and Fathers
working, faithful, learner Management Skills, contacts
Steady, high morale, Good Contacts due
honest, good leader to previous
Experience

Weakness Low Selling skills Start-Up Complex, Overqualified & No sales

Low Age (shows low Applied for this job experience, Lacks
experience) only because of technical know-
Family constraints, how, Yongda was
will be required to trying to employ his
pay much higher father as advisor

For hiring any one of the above, it is essential to define their role, responsibilities, expected work etc, in
short building a Job Description ( JD). As the future of the company has not been decided it is vital to
hire based on the fact that who can work in either of the situations. This makes Qain Cheng the
candidate which would suit best under such conditions.

According to my understanding of the situation we suggest Ma to recruit "Qain Cheng" for this
position for the following reasons:

He has technical background with MBA degree. He is well experienced.

He has handled big position in the last organization so he is capable of that power.

He has outstanding past performance record.