Buddys Snack free essay sample

The case mention on 3 persons. The first person is Lynda Lewis is a very laborious employee of the company. She gets herself fully involved in the work and doesn’t hesitate in seeking advice. She is always cheerful and focuses on giving more than 100% output. The second person is Michael Benjamin is satisfied with the company he is working with. And the last person is Kyle Sherbo had shown tremendous performance in the last three years by being among the top salespersons in the company. He had a good rapport with Buddy Jr. and was helpful to Mark when he joined the business. Kyle possessed the quality of being promoted as sales manager. 2. Case study descriptions 2. 1 Buddy’s Snack Company Buddy’s Snack Company is a family-owned company located in the Rocky Mountains. Buddy Forest started the business in 1951 by selling homemade potato chips out of the back of his pickup truck. Now, Buddy’s is a $36 million snack-food company that is struggling to regain market share lost to Frito-Lay and other fierce competitors. In the early eighties, Buddy passed the business onto his son, Buddy Jr. , who is currently grooming his son, Mark, to succeed himself as head of the company. Six months ago, Mark joined Buddy’s Snack as a salesperson and after four months was quickly promoted to sales manager. Mark recently graduated from a local university with an M. B. A. in the marketing, and Buddy Jr. was hoping that Mark would be able to implement strategies that could help turn the company around. One of Mark’s initial strategies was to introduce a new sales performance management system. As part of this approach, any salesperson who receives a below average performance rating would be required to attend a mandatory coaching session with his or her supervisor. Mark Forest is hoping that these coaching sessions will motivate his employees to increase their sales. This case describes the reaction of three salespeople who have been required to attend a coaching session because of their low performance over the previous quarter. 2. 2 Lynda Lewis Lynda is a hard worker who takes pride in her work ethic. She has spent a lot of time reading the training material and learning selling techniques, viewing training videos on her own time, and accompanying top salespeople on their calls. Lynda has no problem asking for advice and doing whatever needs to be done to learn the business. Everyone agrees that Lynda has a cheery attitude and is a real team player, giving the company 150 percent at all times. It has been a tough quarter for Lynda due to the downturn in the economy, but she is doing her best to make sales for the company. Lynda doesn’t feel that failure to make quota during this past quarter is due to lack of effort, but just bad luck in the economy. She is hopeful that things will turn around in the next quarter Lynda is upset with Mark for having to attend the coaching session, because this is the first time in the three years that her sales quota has not been met. Although Lynda is willing to do whatever it takes to be successful, she is concerned that the coaching sessions will be held on a Saturday. Doesn’t Mark realize that Lynda has to raise three boys by herself and that weekends are an important time for her family? Because Lynda is a dedicated employee she will somehow manage to rearrange the family schedule. Lynda is now very concerned about how her efforts are being perceived by Mark. After all, she exceeded the sales quota from the previous quarter yet had not received a â€Å"thank you† or â€Å"good job† for those efforts. The entire experience has left Lynda unmotivated and questioning her future with the company. 2. 3 Michael Benjamin Michael is happy to have his job at Buddy’s Snack Company, although he really doesn’t like sales work that much. Michael accepted this position because he felt that he wouldn’t have to work hard and would have a lot of free time during the day. Michael was sent to coaching mainly because his customer satisfaction reports were low; in fact, they were the lowest in the company. Michael tends to give canned presentations and does not listen closely to the customer’s needs. Consequently, Michael makes numerous errors in new sales orders, which delays shipments and loses business and goodwill for Buddy’s Snack Company. Michael doesn’t really care since most of his customers do not spend much money and he doesn’t think it is worth his while. There has been a recent change in the company commission structure. Instead of selling to the warehouse stores and possibly earning a high commission, Michael is now forced to sell to lower-volume convenience stores. In other words, he will have to sell twice as much product to earn the same amount of money. Michael does not think this change in commission is fair and feels that the coaching session will be a waste of time. He feels that the other members of the sales team are getting all of the good leads and that is why they are so successful. Michael doesn’t socialize with others in the office and attributes others’ success and promotions to â€Å"who they know† in the company rather than the fact that they are hard workers. He feels that no matter how much effort is put into the job, he will never adequately rewarded. 2. 4 Kyle Sherbo For three of the last five years Kyle was the number one salesperson in the division and had hopes of being promoted to sales manager. When Mark joined the company, Kyle worked closely with Buddy Jr. to help Mark learn all facets of the business. Kyle thought this close relationship with Buddy Jr. would assure his upcoming promotion to the coveted position of sales manager and was devastated to learn that Mark received the promotion that he thought was his During the past quarter, there was a noticeable change in Kyle’s worked habits. It had become commonplace for Kyle to be late for appointments, miss them entire entirely, or not return phone calls or follow up on leads. His sales performance declined dramatically, which resulted in a drastic loss of income. Although Kyle had been dedicated and fiercely loyal to Buddy Jr. and the company for many years, he is now looking for other employment. Buddy’s Snacks is located in a rural community, which leaves Kyle with limited job opportunities. He was, however, offered a position as a sales manager with a competing company in a larger town, but Kyle’s wife refuse to leave the area because of her strong family ties. Kyle is bitter and resentful of his current situation and now faces a mandatory coaching session that will be conducted by Mark. | | 3. Question and Answer 1. You have met three employees of Buddy’s Snacks. Explain how each employee’s situation relates to equity theory. 2. Explain the motivation of these three employees in terms of the expectancy theory of motivation. Lynda Lewis’s Case In Lynda’s case, she is upset with the reward that she get after her sales. She always uses all of her effort in every case but still, she doesn’t get as much reward as her expectation. According to the equity theory, Lynda’s feel under reward because even in the previous quarter that her sales met quota but she didn’t get any extoller from her boss. For the expectancy of motivation, Lynda has high in E-to-P expectancy and P-to-O expectancy. She put all of her effort in order to get a high performance also high performance will lead to high outcome. However, her outcome valances are low because of external factors likes bad economic etc. In order to motivate Lynda, the first thing is to give her some admire because she feel slight that her hard work doesn’t get any admiration. Mark may also can make she feel comfortable about her sales that didn’t met quota because of external factors. The second thing that Mark need is to make her schedule more flexible in order to give her a free time with her family during weekend. Michael Benjamin’s Case In Michael’s case, he is an easy going person. He has a low effort and performance of work. He chose this job because he thinks that he doesn’t need to work hard and he will has a lot of free time during day. However, after the change of a commission structure, he was forced to sell more than efore to get the same paid and he think this system is unfair. According to the equity theory, Michael feels’ that he was under reward but in our opinion, we think he is in situation that neither under-reward nor over-reward because sales is the job that get paid as much as the work. Michael doesn’t has a good performance at first before the company has change commission structure, when it change, he know that he need to do more work but he doesn’t want to. Michael has low in all E-to-P, P-to-O and the outcome valances Kyle Sherbo’s Case Kyle has been number one salesperson for many years. He was the person who works with Mark and Buddy Jr. when they work as a salesperson. He also has close relationship with them. He has aim to be sales manager for a long time so he was very upset when Mark got this position instead of him. His work habit change after that. He became lazy and lost effort of work. He also looking for the other company instead of Buddy’s Snack but the only reason that he still stay is because his wife doesn’t want to change place. According to equity theory, Kyle feel that he was under reward. He put much effort in order to become a sales manager but Mark got this position instead of him. By the Expectancy theory, Kyle also change very much. Before Mark becomes sales manager, his E-to-P and P-to-O are high and outcome valances is not as high as the other two. But after Mark becomes sales manager, Kyle’s E-to-P and P-to-O are low because he has lost his goal to other. He lost motivation to continue working with Buddy’s Snack and he feel that all that he has done are for nothing.