Enhancing the relationship between sales and marketing staffs a case of schneider electric vietnam

Industry Business products and solutions in Vietnam by product lines Sources: SE’s Company Profile 2018 In 2018 Industry Business in Vietnam was structured, as Figure 2 below, into thr

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Pham Le Xuan Toan

Enhancing the relationship between sales and marketing staffs: A case of

Schneider Electric Vietnam

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Pham Le Xuan Toan

Enhancing the relationship between sales and marketing staffs: A case of

Schneider Electric Vietnam

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF DR NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019

Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 6

LIST OF TABLES 7

LIST OF FIGURES 7

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Company background 1

1.2 Industry Business’s structure & mission 2

2 Symptoms 6

2.1 Low Voltage VSD Product line (IDVSD) and Vietnam market 6

2.2 The low growth rate of IDVSD sales in 2018 7

3 Problem analysis 8

3.1 Problem identification 8

3.1.1 Initial cause and effect map 8

3.1.2 Potential problems 9

3.1.2.1 Lack of market intelligence information 9

3.1.2.2 Inter-channel conflict 9

3.1.2.3 Poor marketing communications 10

3.1.2.4 Poor relationship between salespeople of Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team and marketing people of Pre-Sales & Marketing Support Team 11

3.1.3 Updated cause and affect map 12

3.1.4 Updated possible problems 14

3.1.4.1 Lack of market intelligence information 14

3.1.4.2 Inter-channel conflict 15

3.1.4.3 Poor marketing communications 16

3.1.4.4 Poor relationship between salespeople and marketing people 17

3.2 Problem validation 18

4 Main problem definition and consequences 20

4.1 Main problem definition 20

4.2 Main problem consequences 20

5 Cause analysis 21

5.1 Potential causes 21

5.1.1 Lack of discussion and sharing information between sales & marketing to support the business 21

5.1.2 Ineffective collaboration between sales & marketing to support customer 22

5.1.3 Conflict of interest between sales & marketing function to support each other 23

5.2 Cause validation 24

6 Alternative solutions 25

6.1 Alternative solution 1: Encouraging knowledge sharing between sales and marketing 25

6.2 Alternative solution 2: Creating an interactive information exchange system between sales & marketing 27

6.3 Alternative solution 3: Re-training sales & marketing staffs to reduce competencies gap and re-designing job descriptions of sales & marketing and their KPIs to enhance high performance business culture 29

6.4 Solution justification 33

7 Change plan design 35

7.1 Objectives 35

7.2 Target outcomes 35

7.3 Action plan implementation 36

8 Conclusion 38

9 Supporting information 39

9.1 Methodology 39

9.2 Interview guide 39

9.3 Transcript 41

9.3.1 In-depth interview the first group 41

9.3.1.1 Interview 1.1 41

9.3.1.2 Interview 1.2 50

9.3.2 In-depth interview the second group 54

9.3.2.1 Interview 2.1 54

9.3.2.2 Interview 2.2 59

9.3.3 In-depth interview the third group 62

9.3.3.1 Interview 3.1 62

9.3.3.2 Interview 3.2 67

9.4 Qualitative research findings 71

References 74

Schneider Electric Vietnam to enhance this relationship and improving the business performance in both short-term and long-term vision

promptly on schedule

I also would like to show may gratitude to my colleagues at work, my partner’s

customers and my classmates at ISB for their feedback and contribution for this thesis

I also send my sincere thankfulness to my parents and especially to my wife for their support and encouragement

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Industrial automation and drives in Vietnam – Market shared and CAGRs

analysis 2018

Table 2 Industry Business - Sales growth rate by product lines 2017 – 2018

Table 3 Costs for alternative solution 1

Table 4 Costs for alternative solution 2

Table 5 Costs for alternative solution 3 – Action 1

Table 6 Costs for alternative solution 3 – Action 2

Table 7 Costs for best solution

Table 8 Action plan

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Industry Business’s products and solutions in Vietnam by product lines Figure 2 Industry Business’s Organization Chart 2018

Figure 3 Industry Business - Sales contribution (%) by product line 2018

Figure 4 Industry Business - Sales of Low Voltage VSD by channel 2017 – 2018 Figure 5 Primary Cause-and-Effect tree

process in ways that are safe, reliable, efficient, productive and green From the

simplest of switches to complex operational systems, their technology, software and services improve the way their customers manage and automate their operation SE offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments in Non-residential & Residential Building, Industrial & Machines Manufacturers, Utilities & Infrastructure and Data Centers & Networks Its connected technologies reshape industries,

transform cities and enrich lives (1)

SE sells products and solutions through 4 main Business Units in Vietnam (2):

- Building & Partner Business, provided Low Voltage products, systems and solutions, is ranking number one Worldwide in Low Voltage and Building Automation

- IT (Information Technology) Business, provided Critical Power products and solutions, is ranking number one Worldwide in Critical Power and Cooling

- Industry Business, provided industrial automation & drives products and

solutions, is ranking number two Worldwide in industrial automation and control

- Energy Business, provided Medium Voltage products and solutions, is raking number one Worldwide in Grid Automation and Medium Voltage

SE has been operating in Vietnam since the 1990s, starting with the Vietnam’s 500 kV North – South Transmission Project in 1991 – 1993 and then opened its first

representative office in Ho Chi Minh City in 1994 Today SE Vietnam has 2 factories

in Dong Nai Province and 3 offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang and Ha Noi The company employs more than 1000 employees and works closely with more than 500 partners in Vietnam (2)

After 20 years doing business in Vietnam, SE has achieved its remarkable

performance record in 2017 with double-digits growth of all its business units in the country and become the top growing entity in the entire region (Asia-Pacific & Japan) (3)

1.2 Industry Business’s structure & mission

Vietnam’s industrial automation and drives is an attractive market The market’s revenue was 91 million € in 2017 and the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) was 8% year on year In recent year, as Table 1 below, SE’s products and solutions in this market have been accounted for just 5% market share with the CAGR is 12% in recent year The main competitors of SE in the market are ABB, Siemens, and Rockwell Their market shares were 12%, 9%, and 4% consecutively And their CAGRs were 9%, 3% and 15% consecutively, as showed in Table 1 below:

devices (IDSIG) and discrete sensors (IDSEN), as well as software for operations management and supervisory control systems (2)

Low Voltage VSD (IDVSD) is the main product line of Industry Business in Vietnam The product sales have accounted for more than 60% of business revenue with the growth rate is normally 25-30% year on year (Source: SE’s internal report 2019)

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Figure 1 Industry Business products and solutions in Vietnam by product lines

(Sources: SE’s Company Profile 2018)

In 2018 Industry Business in Vietnam was structured, as Figure 2 below, into three sales teams (Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team, OEM & Medium Distributor Sales Team, and System Integrator & End-User Sales Team) and one Pre-sales & Marketing Support Team that help to support its five main customer types (aka Sales Channel) in Vietnam market that are (1) Industry Expert Distributor customers; (2) Original Machine Manufacturer (OEM) customers; (3) Medium Distributor customers; (4) System Integrator customers; and (5) End-User customers

Industry Expert Distributor (IED) channel is the main transactional sales channel of Industry Business in Vietnam This channel contributes to around 60% of the business revenue with the sales growth rate normally 15-20% year on year (Source: SE’s Internal report 2019) The IED channel is managed by the Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team that currently have 4 salespeople (aka Account Manager) and 1 Sales Manager that take care of around 16 official partners for doing the business in overall Vietnam market

IDSAF – OEM Safety &

Controller

IDSEN – Sensors

IDMOT – Motion Control

IDHMI – Human Machine Interface

Figure 2 Industry Business Organization Chart 2018 (Source: SE’s internal report 2019)

And the Pre-sales & Marketing Support Team is being responsible for supporting all three sales teams in terms of (1) technical support via two Product Application

Engineers (one dedicated for IDVSD product line, and one dedicated for the rest product lines); (2) marketing support via two Product Managers (one dedicated for IDVSD product line, and one dedicated for the rest product lines) The team was managed by a Pre-sales & Marketing Support Manager, who do coordinate his team with other sales team to support their daily business and consult/ support the Sales Director and the Sales Manager of each sales team in terms of achieving both the short-term and the long-term business ambitions of Industry Business in Vietnam market

According to SE’s internal report and the business plan of Industry Business in 2018, despite of the excellent double-digits growth in 2017, the Sales Director of Industry Business and the Management Board of Schneider Electric Vietnam have not satisfied with the current performance of Industry Business in Vietnam market The reports show that Industry Business has normally contributed to around 22% of SE’s revenue all around the world, but in Vietnam it has just accounted for 10% currently, so there will be a lot of potential areas for developing Industry Business in the very attractive Vietnam’s industrial automation and drives market today And the Industry Business’s

Industry Business Sales Director

Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team

System Integrator & End-User Sales Team Business Admin

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Sales Director has defined a five-year business plan from the beginning of 2018 to help the business team double its contribution for Schneider Electric Vietnam by 2022 One-year after implementing that business plan, the sales’ growth rate of Industry Business was just nearly a half of the previous year achievement The growth rate in

2018 was also 1% behind the worst scenario’s target that set for Industry Business from beginning of the year by the company and so that the result also too far away from its’ ambitions (Sources: SE’s Internal Report 2019)

According to the internal report of Industry Business in 2019, as Table 2 below, there are strong positive correlation between the sales growth rate of low Voltage VSD product (IDVSD, the team’s main products offer) with sales the growth rate of the business in the period of 2017 and 2018

Year Sales Growth rate by Product Lines 2017 2018

IDHMI - Human Machine Interface 44% 206%

IDMOT - Motion Control 586% -77%

IDPAC - Process Automation Control 66% -30%

IDSAF - OEM Safety & Controllers -7% 84%

IDSEN - Sensors 31% 8%

IDSIG - Control & Signaling -14% 14%

IDVSD - Variable Speed Drives 26% 15%

Table 2 Industry Business – Sales Growth rate by Product lines 2017 – 2018 (Source: SE’s internal report 2019)

And as stated in this internal report of Industry Business in 2019, IDVSD is the main distribution product of the sales team and represent to the sustainable growth of

Industry Business Other product lines, which just accounted for 20% to 30% of the Business, are mainly sold in project mode via the OEM and SI & EU channel So that, the positive or negative growth of these product lines has just reflected the business strategy in short-term or in some certain period of times to secure the business’ key projects and customers

Why couldn’t Industry Business achieve its growth target in 2018? What were the potential causes of reducing in sales growth rate of its main product line, IDVSD? Which channel has been impacted the most in this low sales growth rate of IDVSD? And how to help Industry Business solve these issues if any to improve the business’ performance and achieve its mission to double the business contribution in Vietnam by 2022? These questions have been raised among sales and marketing members, and the researcher have been investigated in detail with all the involved stakeholders to get the right answers and propose the practical solutions for the Industry Business team of Schneider Electric Vietnam

2 Symptoms

2.1 Low Voltage VSD Product line (IDVSD) and Vietnam market

Saidur et al.4 described a variable speed drive (VSD) as a device that regulates the speed and rotational force, or output torque of mechanical equipment And some applications of mechanical equipment that incorporate with VSD technology are pumps, fans, compressors and conveyors Because many types of equipment currently

in use are running inefficiently, manufacturers are introducing VSD’s technologies to save the losses of these mechanical equipment VSD helps to increases efficiency by allowing electrical motor to be operated at the ideal speed for every load condition In many applications VSD reduces motor electricity consumption by 30–60%

According to the recent report of Market Research Future5 there are some factors which drive the growth of VSD Market are (1) the increase in urbanization and

industrialization in developing countries; (2) increasing need for efficient utilization of energy; (3) increasing activities in construction, power transmission; and (4) reduction

in the production cost of VSD product And Asia-Pacific region is expected to witness the highest market share during their forecast period because this region has the largest market for infrastructure and industrial sectors Industries such as oil & gas, metals, and mining are adopted the drives’ technologies in order to help them reducing the energy consumption and to limit the CO2 emission All these factors will lead to increase in the growth of the VSD market in the region

The market growth is just 10% But the problem is our market share is very small So when our management team look at the PAM of the market and the number that we are delivering today they question us a lots about how to increase our market share… (A-2.5)

2.2 The low growth rate of IDVSD sales in 2018

As record showed in Figure 3 below, in 2018 the sales of IDVSD have accounted for 66-67% of Industry Business’ revenue but it’s growth rate, as demonstrated in Table 2 above, is just 15% across all channels

Figure 3 Industry Business sales contribution (%) by product line 2018 (Source: SE’s Internal report 2019)

IDVSD was sold in Vietnam mainly through Industry Expert Distributor (IED)

channel, as showed in Figure 4 below, which contributed for 73% of the product revenue in 2017 But in 2018 the channel has just accounted for 65% of the product revenue and the growth rate of this channel in terms of IDVSD product was just 2% compared with 30% in 2017 (Source: SE’s Internal report 2019)

Variable Speed DrivesIDPAC - ProcessAutomation ControlIDSAF - OEM Safety

& ControllersIDHMI - HumanMachine InterfaceIDSIG - Control &

SignalingIDSEN - SensorsIDMOT - MotionControl

Figure 4 Industry Business Sales of Low Voltage VSD by channel 2017 – 2018

(Source: SE’s Internal report 2019)

3 Problem analysis

3.1 Problem identification

3.1.1 Initial cause and effect map

It is important to figure out the reasons for the low growth rate of Low Voltage VSD (IDVSD) sales through Industry Expert Distributor (IED) channel and its

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3.1.2 Potential problems

3.1.2.1 Lack of market intelligence information

Lack of market information about what competitors offers in the market, who are their main end-customers of IDVSD product, etc now are always the concern of the

Product Manager of IDVSD, Ms Thuy suggest that:

I need the support from the sales team to approach the big distributors of competitors and get as much as possible information about their business for me I want to know what VSD brand they are selling, how much VSD they can sell per year, which brand they sell most, which product range they are selling most, how much is their stock, which is their main market segment, how is their project business last year, …(A-6)

The lack of market information is also due to lack of relationship of the product

manager with their current partner customers, as she has answered, when being asking why she didn’t go direct to the current IED partners who also sell the competitor’s products to get more information about current competitor’s offer and support:

I don’t have time to do this, and I also not meet them frequently enough to have the relationship like the salesman in-charged of this account to ask for these sensitives information…(A-6.4)

The lack of market information from the distribution network and the market to define the right support for the sales team and the distributors also the big concern of the Pre- Sales & Marketing Support Manager, Mr Vinh, as he has shared the current situation

of selling IDVSD to the IED as below:

… what are we doing now is just distribute the product to our distributor partner, and let they do whatever they want to offer these products to the market So, we cannot control the end-market customer, we don’t know where or who our products have been sold to…(A-4)

3.1.2.2 Inter-channel conflict

According to Mr Loc, the Sales Director of A&E Engineering, the biggest IED partner

of Industry Business, about the new established distribution channel, Medium

Distributor, that focus on Medium range of IDVSD product, aka the new product line ATV310 and ATV610, that this strategy of SE not only effect the IDVSD business of A&E, but also effect all other product that currently A&E distribute for SE as:

… I feel not fair for current distribution partner of SE like A&E, who have been working with SE for a long time, maybe SE want to build up a new channel to expand the market but the new channel also make a lot of effect in A&E business…(A-3)

Mr Vinh, the Sales Director of Thien Son Technology, whom experience more than

15 years in selling SE’s IDVSD in Vietnam market, share the same insights about the difficulties of his company in selling the Optimum VSD today, due to Medium product and the way the Medium Distributor dumping in the market and also the tight

competition among IED distributors:

The competition is very aggressive, I’ve just said about the competition among SE’s distributor only But I don’t want to tell you in detail who do what, because maybe you can know! (A-5)

3.1.2.3 Poor marketing communications

Mr Loc, the Sales Director of A&E Engineering, shared his opinion about current sales of the Optimum VSD that it has been decreased due to the brand image of all SE’s VSD was damaged by the way the new Medium Distributor do in the market when offering the Medium VSD to their customer, it makes the end-customer think that all SE’s IDVSD brand now positioning as Medium product like LS or Mitsubishi This situation was also recognized by the IDVSD’s Product Manager, Ms Thuy, when talking about the current situation of Medium VSD and Medium Distributor channel:

In my opinion, the growth of medium product not like what we have planned when launching these products Maybe because, first a part of that growth is being getting from our optimum product Second the medium distributor when they signed the contract, they commit to reduce the sales of LS products to sales more our medium product But in the reality, their sales of LS product did not decrease…(A-2.7)

Mr Vinh, the Sales Director of Thien Son Technology, also complaints that the

IDVSD’s marketing team did not supporting him strongly when he feedbacks about the intensively competing of Mitsubishi and INVT currently in terms of their very low-price offer He has just got the answer that SE cannot compete in these cases because for Mitsubishi, the current low-price is just occasionally due to some internal competing in their current distribution partners, and for INVT they are offering the Minimum product that SE don’t have the same offer to compete He suggests that the marketing team of SE should work closely with sales team to supporting him in these

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case, if not SE will lose market share to these competitors soon The situation has been raised to the Pre-sales & Marketing Support Manager, Mr Vinh, and the researcher got the same answer as the Product Manager of IDVSD about current product

positioning of SE and an open leaving message about the upcoming strategy:

INVT is offering the minimum product that we don’t have the same offers to compete… but their yearly sales around 4-5 million € is very big…

There are also some problems about communication in terms of positioning the

product offer in the market, that make the Industry Expert Distributor (Optimum VSD Distributor) difficult to influence their customer to continues to buy the Optimum product they currently sell, as Mr Vinh, Sales Director of Thien Son Technology sharing:

The same product line (IDVSD), the same brand name (SE) but the price gap is so big between Optimum and Medium so that it’s difficult for distributor like us, who focus on Optimum

product For VSD in Vietnam market today, for pump & fan application, if customer use ATV610 with 1 level of power higher than ATV630 range, the price is also better, why they choose the ATV630 one? They are all SE’s product! (A-1)

3.1.2.4 Poor relationship between salespeople of Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team and marketing people of Pre-Sales & Marketing Support Team

As concerned from Mr Tram, Account Manager of IED Sales Team, about the

marketing team when asking about support needed from colleagues to help him sell more IDVSD:

I still concern about our marketing team capabilities! Do they know the competitors’ distributors

or not? Do they know the competitors’ price and commercial policies or not? I really need this support information from marketing instead of ask me to go to the customer site and ask them for these information before supporting them for their request (A-6)

And the feedback from marketing team about their need from sales people for the same question above help the researcher gets some insights about the relationship between them, as Mr Vinh, the Pre-sales & Marketing Support Manager, stated that:

We need to work as closely as possible Salespeople had to feedback the real information about customer need or demand, so that we can try out best to support… If salespeople did not provide

the real information or try to hide somethings behind, how can we justify this unreal information and escalate it to higher level for approval if needed (A-6)

The same message from the IED about the current problem of the relationship between sales and marketing team to support customer better as observed from Mr Vinh, Sales Director of Thien Son Technology, is that:

Marketing team need to work closely with their sales people to know what actually the market today to have the best support for us Because we (I and the Account Manager) are the one who compete with competitor in the market and our feedback are always seriously…

But the Product Manager of IDVSD, Ms Thuy, always confident about the

commercial policy for the IED Channel today as she has mentioned:

Currently, in Q2, A&E and Thien Son have achieved the target Basically, the target setting for our distributor is not high, but because the financial capacity of some distributors is not strong enough… for example… If Hop Long or Han My Viet can distribute the optimum products they can achieve the target easily! (A-3.3)

In her opinion, in the current partner network there are just some partners (the IED) that have strong financial capabilities to get benefits from the commercial policy of IED channel, so that she proposed the strategy to attack the big distributors of

competitors instead of developing the new policy that fit to the current IED’s partners profile:

Yes, we just focus on analyzing the distributor who sell the most for the competitor and the official distributor of competitor, etc., because when they are the official distributor they have the good offers from the competitors and it also better when they buy much from these competitors Maybe we cannot convert 100% what they buy from competitor in to us from the first time, but

we can increase our share of wallet in them to 20-30% and decrease the competitor share of wallet (A-2.12)

3.1.3 Updated cause and affect map

From the result of in-depth interviews of six respondents together with literature review on growth, sales and marketing interface, and knowledge sharing, etc., the primary cause-and-effect tree has been developed as Figure 5 below:

From the Cause and Effect Map, four problems that lead to the low growth rate of IDVSD via IED channel are defined (1) lack of market intelligence information, for the right positioning of IDVSD products and competing with competitors in Vietnam market; (2) inter-channel conflict, especially the competition between traditional IED channel and the new “Medium Distributor” channel, that lead to more internal

competitive in selling Schneider Electric’s IDVSD products among these channel partners, (3) poor marketing communication from sales and marketing team to end customers and channel partners, to support the IEDs to sell the right IDVSD products that meet the end customer need and budget; (4) poor relationship between sales and marketing in terms of supporting and protecting the channel and their end customers,

to support the IED partners the right thing (Price, Pre-Sales/ After-Sales support, Demand Creation/ Demand Generation activities, etc.,) in the right time (to close the deal) to sell more Schneider Electric’s IDVSD confidently

Theories in industrial marketing and management related to these topics have been searched to help researcher updating and validating these problems, their

consequences and their causes in the next chapter

3.1.4 Updated possible problems

3.1.4.1 Lack of market intelligence information

Market intelligence as defined by Tsu et al.18 is a process of knowing what the

competitors are up to and staying one step ahead of them, by gathering actionable information about the competitors and ideally, applying it to short and long-term strategic planning

The need for information related to competitors’ offers to define the best policies to support the distributor, always the concern of Ms Thuy, the Product Manager of IDVSD, as she has requested sales to provide that information back to marketing:

I really want to know what these competitors have offered in terms of commercial policy, is there any change in their price structure, do they have discount by quantity of ordering, do they have any new promotion program, etc., I need the help from our sales force to get more information to develop new commercial policies for next year and acquire more competitors’ distributors (A-5.3)

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But that request from marketing also make sales concern about marketing capabilities

to support customer by leveraging their own market and customer knowledge, as Mr Trung, the Account Manager of IED Sales Team, feedback about his support needed from marketing team to help him sell more VSD in Vietnam market, that is:

I need more update information from marketing about product and market to support my

customer better, currently I have always been asked to provide the information back to marketing,

so I just shared what I have But in my opinion, marketing should have more information than sales to support us! (A-6)

From these above data and theories, researcher can conclude that the lack of market intelligence information, for the right positioning of IDVSD products and competing with its competitors in Vietnam market is one of the possible problems of Industry Business of Schneider Electric Vietnam, especially the problem of marketing team 3.1.4.2 Inter-channel conflict

Channel conflict is defined by Stern et al.17 as a situation in which one channel

member perceives another channel member(s) to be engaged in behavior that prevents

or impedes it from achieving its goals And the primary causes of channel conflict are identified by Webb14 as competition over scarce resources, drives for the autonomy, and divergence of subunit goals And the sociological view of conflict contends that it

is of concern to the organization only in so far as it has implication for performance From the interviews, the competition in distribution Schneider Electric’s IDVSD as viewed by the sales team, represented by Mr Tram, the Account Manager of IED Sales Team, is also de-valued the Schneider Electric’s brand name in the market, when

he has been asked about his opinion in the competition of distribution of VSD today:

Internally we also have competition among the same kind of distributors (among Optimum Distributor), and also between different kind of distributors (Optimum Distributor vs Medium Distributor) And in some case this competition effecting our brand image! (A-5)

The internal competition among the Industry Expert Distributor in distribution VSD product also been defined by Mr Vinh, the Pre-sales and Marketing Support Manager for the same interviewed question

So the inter-channel conflict, especially more competition between traditional IED channel and the new “Medium Distributor” channel beside the historical competition among these IED distributor themselves that has led to more internal competition in selling Schneider Electric’s IDVSD products in Vietnam market was also confirmed in this case

3.1.4.3 Poor marketing communications

An organization that possesses marketing communication capabilities can create successful communication programs and ensure long-term market performance There

is a positive impact between possessing strong marketing communication capabilities and organizational performance Jerman et al.19, in their study about model of

marketing communications effectiveness in the B2B markets, beside confirming the positive relationship between marketing communication effectiveness and business performance, have concluded that marketing communication objectives, bidirectional communication and communication channels do have the major impact or positive impact on marketing communication effectiveness

Beside poor marketing communication, as observed by the distributor partners in discussion section 3.1.2.3 above, in terms of product positioning and how to offer suitable product to specific customer need, there is also the poor marketing

communication in terms of marketing objectives between marketing and sales for some program that the marketing team need sales to do more to get the right

information from the distribution channel to support the channel better, as observed by the Pre-sales and Marketing Support Manager, Mr Vinh, when being asked what help him to sell more IDVSD into the market:

… but sometimes our salespeople don’t know why have we proposed these program, they’ve just claimed that we’ve force them to do this, to do that, etc., … but they don’t know that these program will help them working closely with their managed partners and know who or where their partner actually sell our product to and get more information about the end-market customer need or demand to support our partner better… (A-4)

But the from the view of sales team, the request information from marketing team are sensitive and from sales’ opinion, the IED partners are not willing to share, as

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feedback from Mr Tram, the Account Manager of IED Sales Team, when asking about the willingness of distributor customers in sharing their business information in terms of market, their end-customers, etc., for getting better support from Schneider Electric that:

I don’t think my distributor willing to share this sensitive business information! They’ve just want

to ask special discount for some specific range to buy If we can meet their request they will stock! (A-2.9)

Poor marketing communications from sales and marketing team to end customers and channel partners, to support the IED partners to sell the right IDVSD products that meet the end customer need and their budget and also the poor marketing

communications in terms of marketing objectives, two-way communication and

feedback between sales and marketing about marketing program effectiveness were possible problem of the sales team in this business case

3.1.4.4 Poor relationship between salespeople and marketing people

Cespedes6 stated that the marketing efforts in most industrial firms encompass three groups: product management, sales and customer service units and managers just tend

to manage effectively within each unit but not to coordinating across the units And the study of Meunier et al.7 found that there is strong support for the hypothesis that collaboration between sales and marketing has positive impact on business

performance

When being asked to share opinion about the current relationship between his

marketing team and sales team, Mr Vinh, the Pre-sales and Marketing Support

Manager has straightforwardly shared that:

Generally, the collaboration is not effective We are not working together for the same target… I think we should work together… not to deal with each other…

The current poor relationship between sales and marketing of Industry Business, may hasn’t defined in detail by the sales team but it’s presence can be observed via insights from the answers of the salespeople in the interviews, such as Mr Trung, the Account Manager of IED Sales Team, has mentioned about his best proof to get deeper price support from the marketing team is the feedback about the loss of projects or

customer’s purchase orders (A-4.1) if marketing team has not provided the right

support This is an abnormal practice in sustainable business where sales and

marketing had to secure the business together Mr Trung has just concluded the

current problem between sales and marketing are some “difficulties” that he has

escalated to his manager to solve the “difficulties” related to marketing team, as:

I know there are some difficulties, but I don’t define I try to solve it by myself if any, and raise the support to my sales manager if the difficulty need to be deal with marketing to be solved! (A-4.4)

And there is an open request for the better relationship between sales and marketing from Mr Tram, the Account Manager of IED Sales Team, that cooperate with

marketing to get market information together will help them confidently working and support their customer better and selling more VSD in Vietnam market:

Yes I also request our marketing team to go direct to customer site with me and study the market,

to know what currently happen in the market to define the practice program to support our customer (A-6.1)

From the interview and theories, researcher could confirm that there is the poor

relationship between sales and marketing staffs of Industry Business in terms of

supporting and protecting the channel and their end customers, to support the IED partners the right thing (Price, Pre-Sales/ After-Sales support, Demand Creation/ Demand Generation activities, etc.,) in the right time (to close the deal) to sell more Schneider Electric’s IDVSD confidently

3.2 Problem validation

Base on the cause-and-effect tree, in-depth interview from 6 respondents divided into

3 main groups (see Interview guides), secondary data from Industry Business

department, and theories in industrial marketing in terms of collaboration and

interaction between sales and marketing in industrial firms, especially in

high-technology firms, the researcher found that the current poor relationship between sales and marketing staffs of SE’s Industry Business is the main cause of the problem that need to be solved immediately

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Regarding to lack of market intelligence information, in this business case, the sales and marketing team just mention about their request for each other on collecting and distributing of competitors information on price positioning, policies, etc., and end- market or end-customer of their distribution partners to define best strategies and acquired more partners or to support their channel partners better In the researcher’s opinion, this information collection method can be achieved if the relationship of sales and marketing is in the good quality

Although inter-channel conflict is usually viewed as being dysfunctional and

unwanted, there are situations where it can be healthy and desirable As reviewed by Webb14, channel conflict often referred to as ‘‘functional conflict’’ and there is

evidence that it is a result of trust in a channel relationship But without any conflict, channel members will tend to become passive and lacking in creativity Conflict therefore motivates channel members to adapt, grow, and seize new opportunities Webb14 also stated that if the middlemen (aka sales and marketing managers) and salespeople are in harmony, the company may be getting complacent Indeed, some researchers view channel conflicts as an inevitable cost when a healthy company is trying to extend its market coverage However, because conflict is opponent-centered behavior, it can degenerate into actions designed to destroy, injure, or thwart another member in a channel relationship Such pathological conflict should be avoided at all costs Some researchers have also suggested the possibility of a threshold effect, whereby performance increases along with the amount of channel conflict up to a certain point, after which performance decreases as the level of conflict rises That could be a point that the researcher should take into consideration about inter-channel conflict in the future research to discover in more detail for better channel

management solution for the Industry Business, whereas it has more channel beside the Industry Expert Distributor, like Medium Distributor, System Integrator, Original Machine Integrators, etc.,

Webb’s research14 and reviewed15,16 has also shown that in order to achieve the

coordination necessary for an efficient distribution system, effective communication

is critical, both externally with channel partners and internally among the supplier’s

business units (e.g Sales team and Marketing team) This can be achieved or taken into more consideration after the relationship between sales and marketing are being improving So that for poor marketing communications, it is in the same situation of inter-channel conflict whereas improving relationship between sales and marketing will enhance their communication and that help sales and marketing can internally support each other better and externally support their customers better

4 Main problem definition and consequences

4.1 Main problem definition

Meunier et al.10 suggested that sales and marketing meant to be part of the same

function, marketing, but there has been growing realization that this relationship is not always operating as efficiently as it should And the researcher using this term

“relationship between sales and marketing” to mention about the quality of the sales and marketing interface In this business case of Schneider Electric Vietnam, the quality of this interface or relationship between sales and marketing staffs are (1) the quality of discussion and sharing information among them to support the business; (2) the quality of their collaboration to support the customer; (3) the quality of their

interaction to support each other And further, in this case the researcher will do

exploring in more detail some of elements that may influence the effective

collaboration of sales and marketing of this Industry Business of Schneider Electric and provide some alternative solutions to enhancing this relationship or improving the interface between sales and marketing staffs that may contribute to positive business performance when applied into practice

4.2 Main problem consequences

As above analysis, the main consequence of the poor relationship between sales and marketing staffs in this case is reducing the business performance of Industry Business

in 2018, especially the low sales growth rate of IDVSD product lines via the IED Channel If this problem cannot be solved immediately, SE will soon lose its market share in Vietnam’s Industrial Automation & Drives market to competitors

Other potential consequence of the poor relationship between sales and marketing staffs in this case is lowering employee engagement index of the business team This

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can be figured out from the company recently survey’s result, SE’s Internal Report

2019, the employee engagement index of Industry Business was just 54% in 2018 It was lower than the average 59% of the industry index and far from the company targeted of 64% for the average best employers in South East Asia index This survey also showed that 10% of the business’ staffs is disengagements in 2018 And the main engagement driver that got the lowest agreement from the respondents was: “I think that the cooperation between teams and entities is going well.”

Recently study of Meunier et al.9 has provided evidence that improvements in

collaboration between sales and marketing have a positive effect on business

performance And they also defined some antecedents and moderators of collaboration between sales and marketing that need to take into consideration for analyzing and solution providing, that are (1) management attitudes towards coordination; (2)

communication; (3) interdepartmental conflict; (4) organizational learning; (5) market intelligence So improving relationship or collaboration between sales and marketing

is critical to improving business performance.10

From the interviews with the Product Manager, Account Manager and the Sales

Director of Industry Expert Distributors, researcher has found some issues in the current relationship among these actors that need to analysis and validation in more detail That are (1) lack of discussion and sharing information between sales and marketing to support the business; (2) ineffective collaboration between sales and marketing to support customer; (3) conflict of interest between sales and marketing to support each other

business So that the implication about this cause have been implied by Mr Vinh, the Pre-sales & Marketing Support Manager, when answering the question about key success factor in selling more IDVSD in Vietnam market, that is:

So, the factors that key to success in selling more VSD is that knowing the distributor customer need and demand to help define the competitive commercial policies for every distributor and also acquired more competitor’s distributor in to us (A-5)

As boundary spanners, salespeople as cited by Auh et al.13, Arnett et al.20 have wide access to various sources of knowledge, information ranging from customers and competitors to suppliers And a finding of Beverland et al.22 stated that salespeople are reluctant to provide information to marketing, and marketing had an overly narrow view of sales’ potential, missing out on opportunities for future market opportunities and effective strategy implementation; and suggested that manager should attend to status difference between two functions by removing barriers between the two units, and providing sales with a strategic voice in the top management team

Salespeople of IED Sales Team has not shared much information back to marketing because as sharing from Mr Tram, the Account Manager of IED Sales Team, about his bad experience in getting feedback from marketing team and other support function like R&D when he proactively sharing his customer complaints about the difficulty in selling new product instead of the old and obsoleted one but cannot get the right

answer then:

Yes, I do But in my opinion, we are the one who manage the outcome of the product so that first

my feedback does not influence them much and the second it’s belong to the R&D team With the R&D team, there are must be somethings that make them offer the new products like this…(A-1.4)

So that lack of discussion and sharing information between sales and marketing to support the business and customer is one of the potential causes that need to be solved

to improve the relationship between sales and marketing

5.1.2 Ineffective collaboration between sales & marketing to support customer When has been asked about the ideas that could help Thien Son Technology and Industry Business of Schneider Electric to cooperate better, Mr Vinh, the Sales

And according to him, the current relationship between his company and the Account Manager from Industry Business (aka the salespeople) is still in the very good

condition today, and he confirmed about needed more trust and support from

marketing team of Schneider Electric and others supporting function behind the

salespeople to support his business effectively (A-7.2)

Feedback from the IED partner of Industry Business and theory in the collaboration between sales and marketing and business performance, etc., have helped the

researcher make the conclusion that another cause of poor relationship between sales and marketing in this case is ineffective in collaboration between the Product Manager (aka marketing) and the Account Manager (aka sales) in terms of supporting their customer for better business result

5.1.3 Conflict of interest between sales & marketing function to support each other

As proposed by Mr Vinh, the Pre-sales and Marketing Support Manager, about how to make marketing and sales work together, that is all about sales and marketing have to work based on the team target, and their managed customer target, and they have to work together to contribute all their best to the same business target together (A-3.4) But from his opinion, there is not any proactive action from them (aka sales staffs) to provide the specific information that related to their customer for marketing team to define the specific policies to support this individual customer as he proposed, what he have ask the salespeople below:

We have asked them to do customer platforming for all of their managed account from two years ago, and review its yearly From every customer platforming, sales will suggest what should we

do to sell more with their specific partner, so that they have to proactive to propose and note it in the file (A-3.1)

But as Cespedes6 has characterized marketing as more long-term and product oriented, while sales as being more short-term and customer relationship oriented The above suggestion from the Pre-sales and Marketing Support Manager has implied the conflict

in marketing and sales direction that his team has focused more on specifics customer

to solve their current problem as also daily business of sales And marketing also cannot give the specific support as requested from sales due to KPI conflict between sales and marketing as observed by Mr Trung, the Account Manager of IED Sales Team, about the current decision process cannot support him and his customer need promptly:

I think because the decision is not only from our marketing team, maybe from sales manager, sales director, etc., someone want to support, someone want to keep the margin, etc., It turn out the support result is in the middle point of what I want and their KPIs, if my customer can accept that point, it is ok, if not I find another way to support them, etc.,(A-4.2)

Based on these data and theories, conflict of interest between sales and marketing also needed to be taken into consideration to solve as soon as possible to help enhancing the relationship between sales and marketing of Industry Business in this case

5.2 Cause validation

From the above analysis, there are three potential causes that lead to poor relationship between sales and marketing staffs of Industry Business of Schneider Electric Vietnam today And because all the causes led to the main problem that impact the business performance so that all potential causes need to consider to be solved But due to limited in time and resources to finish this thesis on schedule, the researcher has to define one major cause out of these and find the best solution to solve it immediately First, according to Meunier et al.7 increased collaboration between sales and marketing will improving business performance and finding the effective way for collaboration between sales and marketing can eliminated some sources of conflict among them, and also enhancing sales and marketing interaction in sharing market information and customer support

Second, the ineffective collaboration between sales and marketing staffs of the

business team in this case was recognized, via the in-depth interviews, by all the

So that researcher suggests choosing ineffective in collaboration between sales and marketing as the main cause to prioritize to solve in this study

6 Alternative solutions

The main problem of low sales growth rate of IDVSD products via Industry Expert Distributor channel, that effect the overall sales growth rate of Industry Business of Schneider Electric Vietnam in 2018, is the poor relationship between sales and

marketing position of the business, especially between the salespeople of Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team (aka the Account Manager) and the marketing people

of Pre-sales & Marketing Support Team (aka the Product Manager) And the major cause that lead to this problem, as analyzed and validated above, is ineffective

collaboration between sales and marketing staffs that need to find the best solution to

be solved So that, this chapter would focus on giving possible solutions to solve this cause, and below would be some alternative solutions that can be applied for

enhancing the current relationship between sales and marketing staffs of Industry Business of Schneider Electric Vietnam

6.1 Alternative solution 1: Encouraging knowledge sharing between sales and marketing

The study of Meunier et al.9 indicated that finding areas of common ground to

facilitate sharing knowledge and skill is not only promotes collaboration, but also improve communication between sales and marketing in business to business selling organizations And the salespeople, as suggested by Arnett et al.20, because of their boundary spanning positions, is the prime sources of both customers’ knowledge and competitors’ knowledge By the close relationship with their key customers, they can gather both explicit knowledge (e.g., knowledge of competitors’ products and

strategies) and tacit knowledge (e.g., how their customers’ strategies interact with their own organizations’ strategies) This knowledge, to be useful, must be disseminated throughout the organization, especially between sales and marketing for marketing and business success

According to Anaza et al.21, in their study about salesperson knowledge withholding & hoarding behavior, lack of source motivation in the form of rewards and lack of

feedback resources impede knowledge transfer So that they gave some suggestions for managers to encouraging their salespeople’s knowledge sharing that are (1) managers need to treat non-sharing behaviors differently form sharing behaviors; (2) managers should realize the important of providing rewards (both recognition and monetary) if they want salespeople to share their market knowledge; (3) if the managers would like salespeople to share their market knowledge, then upper management has to provide feedback about receiving salespeople’s information and how it influences the strategy creation; (4) manager should consider priority in managing fairness and the shared transfer of knowledge among sales and marketing

Beside considering in creating a reward system to encouraging knowledge sharing behavior of sales and marketing, the researcher suggests that the Sales Director of Industry Business should create the knowledge exchange culture among sales and marketing team members in which (1) co-worker are trusted; (2) quality inter-

functional communication is the norm; (3) social networks between sales and

marketing are common; and (4) knowledge exchange between sales and marketing is valued That can be achieved quickly via develop a cross-functional selling team for supporting Industry Expert Distributor sell out the IDVSD to their targeted market and customer in 3 months, with clear sales of IDVSD target and requirement about

knowledge exchange among the team members (aka sales and marketing staffs) The team has to share the achievement to entire Industry Business team after finishing the project

Cost of forming and running this cross-functional selling team (led by the Sales

Director, consisted of one Product Manager and two Account Managers) can be

estimated around VND 24,000,000 as detail in Table 3 below, which has been

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consulted by the Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) Team that support for Industry Business at Schneider Electric Vietnam In this estimation, the researcher and HRBP team has just considered only the logistics cost that support all the meeting needed when forming and running the cross-selling team in 3 months, because this initiative can be considered as a part of sales and marketing quick action plan that must be implemented to bring the sales growth of IDVSD via IED channel back to the ambitious performance, but this initiative required a lot of effort from the Sales

Director in personally leading this team, give his suitable support and frequently providing his clear guideline that knowledge exchange is an important part of being a member of this cross-functional selling team, beside the required sales’ target

achievement

1 1st meeting to form the team and define action plan (8

hours – 4 peoples)

5,000,000

2 Weekly meeting for action follow up, updating and

modification if any (12 meetings, 2 hours/ meeting, 4

Table 3 Costs for alternative solution 1 (Author synthesis)

Benefits of this cross-functional selling team can be foreseen that (1) this is an

opportunity for sales and marketing personal developing social connection and trust in supporting business and customers together; (2) sales and marketing personal can help each other a deeper developing their understanding of the product’s market, the

competitors, and the customer’s buying and selling process via join action plan to make better sales and marketing supporting decision; and (3) enhancing the knowledge exchange culture that will help improving business performance via innovativeness, efficiency and effectiveness sales and marketing program

6.2 Alternative solution 2: Creating an interactive information exchange system between sales & marketing

To improve the collaboration between sales and marketing, Meunier et al.7 suggested that senior managers need to reducing conflict of interests, create effective

communication, promote organizational learning, share marketing information and undertake joint marketing planning Their study also contended that sales and

marketing need to collaborate and has established a link between increased

collaboration between sales and marketing and improved business performance That mean, the Sales Director of Industry Business in this case plays a very critical role in creating an effective interface between Account Manager (aka sales) and Product Manager (aka marketing) in his team to improving the business performance of

IDVSD via IED channel Meunier et al.10 also suggested two ways to improve the interface that are (1) through culture and (2) through senior management buy-in the concept of improving the interface The Sales Director need to work closely with his Account Manager and Product Manager staffs to improve their operational efficiency

by focusing on: (1) creating effective communications and learning culture (formal and informal) between the Account Manager and the Product Manager via monthly or quarterly meeting for target marketing, sales forecasting, customer account selection, value proposition development, customer messaging, promotions, etc., that will

enhance the collaboration activities and expertise sharing activities between the two groups related to IDVSD and IED channel; (2) creating interactive market intelligence exchange system via Microsoft Offices tools and services (e.g Microsoft Team

Application or Private Group on Yammer Application that currently are encouraged to

be officially used at Schneider Electric globally to enhance the effectiveness of

business team management and interface, as suggested in SE’s 1st Internal

announcement letter in 2018) whereas the Product Manager can share their updated about competitive analysis, market research, market segmentation, product

development, product positioning, pricing, packaging, advertising, etc., and the

Account Manager can give on-time feedback about competitive market intelligence, personal selling, distributor management, account management, merchandising,

installation, after-sales service, etc related to IDVSD and IED channel in Vietnam market

Benefits of designing and using the new Market Intelligent Exchange System by and for all Industry Business members (aka sales and marketing staffs and others support functions) and scheduling more frequently sales and marketing meetings for

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collaboration and expertise sharing can be foreseen that (1) improving collaboration among all business members, especially sales and marketing staffs; (2) improving the market intelligence information collecting and sharing process among business

members that help to improving the business and marketing strategy success; and (3) help the Sales Director and Management Board to evaluate and do reward or

corrective action promptly to support sales and marketing in effective collaboration behaviors and performance

Cost of implementing these initiatives is estimated around VND 55,000,000 as detail

in Table 4 below:

1 Meeting between Sales Director, Sales Manager,

Marketing Manager, HRBP and IT team to share the

vision of implementation the exchange system, defined

the system interface between Account Manager and

Product Manager and KPIs of information sharing

needed per group (8 hours, 6 peoples)

5,000,000

2 Allowance for IT expert/ designer to establish the

exchange system via Microsoft Yammer/ Microsoft

Team application (5 business days, 2 IT staffs)

20,000,000

3 Communication and Training Cost for using new

Exchange system for Product Manager and Account

Manager (4 hours, 10 peoples)

10,000,000

4 Cost for 4 collaboration & expertise sharing meetings (1

meeting per quarter) between Product Manager and

Account Manager with the supervise of Sales Director &

Sales Manager (4 hours/ meeting, 10 peoples)

20,000,000

Table 4: Costs for alternative solution 2 (Author synthesis)

The costs have provided with the consultation from HRBP Team of Schneider Electric that internally support the Industry Business today, but it requires a lot of efforts from the Sales Director to buy-in and develop himself with the concept and practicing it daily in managing his team for the better business performance

6.3 Alternative solution 3: Re-training sales & marketing staffs to reduce

competencies gap and re-designing job descriptions of sales & marketing and their KPIs to enhance high performance business culture

As Cespedes6 has characterized marketing role as being more long-term and product oriented, and sales role as being more short-term and customer relationship oriented

That differences in roles or thought worlds of marketing and sales have been forced Homburg et al.11 to answer their study question about “How do differences between the thought worlds of marketing and sales affect their organizational outcomes?” And the result of this exploratory study suggest that difference orientations between

marketing and sales have a positive effect on overall market performance, whereas difference competance have a negative effect on overall market performance That mean marketing and sales should have similar competence and different orientations –

in other words, similar people with different missions Their summarized on

managerial implications, as below, support the researcher to find the way to reducing and maintaining the thought world different between sales and marketing staffs that enhance the high performance business culture and collaboration between them:

People in the marketing and sales organization should be qualified to work in either a marketing

or a sales environment It can be achieved through training policies in the short run, job rotation

in the mid run and hiring policies in the long run

Based on this approach, for quick-win in the short run, the researcher advises the Sales Director of Industry Business should do two actions: (1) define a six months training plan for sales and marketing staffs that supporting for selling IDVSD via IED channel

to reduce their competencies gap and improve their performance; and (2) re-designing job descriptions of both sales and marketing and their KPIs to enhance high

performance business culture

First, about defining a 6 months training plan to reducing the competencies gap

between his marketing and sales teams in terms of market knowledge, product

knowledge and interpersonal skills that related to sell IDVSD products & solutions in Vietnam market Whereas, Homburg et al.11 has defined the requirements that are: (1) Market knowledge of marketing (sales) as the extent to which a typical employee in marketing (sales) is knowledgeable about competitors and customers; (2) Product knowledge of marketing (sales) as the extent to which a typical employee in marketing (sales) is knowledgeable about the products and internal processes; (3) Interpesonal skills of marketing (sales) as the extent to which a typical employee in marketing (sales) is able to sustain conflicts, to communicate, and to convince

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Cost of 6 days training (1 training day per month, in 6 consecutive months) for the above topics for 8 peoples (2 from marketing, and 5 from sales, and the Sales Director for observation) and operation cost of following on the job training of these sales and marketing staffs by the training institute with the supervision of HRBP Team of Schneider Electric and the Sales Director was estimated around VND 400,000,000 in detail by the HRBP Team as Table 5 below:

1 Cost for defined the specific training program and the

evaluation test (before and after joining the program)

targeted audiences (8 hours)

10,000,000

2 Cost for 6 days training date for 8 staffs (8 hours/ date) 360,000,000

3 Allowance for 6-months follow up from the training

institute for result evaluation and reporting to the

management team

30,000,000

Table 5 Costs for alternative solution 3 - Action 1 (Author Synthesis)

Benefits of reducing the thought world different between marketing and sales in terms

of competencies are: (1) Product Manager and Account Manager have the same

knowledge of IDVSD product and its market, competitors, customers, etc., so that they can better support their customer and the business; (2) Product Manager and Account Manager have the same knowledge about business process in selling, marketing, pre- sales & after-sales support, go-to-market strategy, channel management, market

intelligence data collection, etc., so that they can better support each others and have the same and consitent feedback to customer’s concern related to IDVSD; (3) Product Manger and Account Manager have some same interpersonal skills in handling

conflict, better communication and convince each others and their customer to achieve the team’s business goals

Second, for enhancing the business performance, the Sales Director should also review the current job descriptions of the Product Manager of IDVSD (aka the marketing role) and the Account Manager of Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team (aka the sales role) and work with other related stakeholders of the two job functions and the interface such as the Sales Manager of Industry Expert Distributor Sales Team, the Pre-Sales & Marketing Support Manager, and the Human Resource Business Partner Department to re-design or re-assign their marketing and sales tasks efficiently within

these job descriptions That updated job descriptions with clear KPIs and effective bonus scheme (if any) will enhance high performance business culture of Industry Business, in which marketing people of Industry Business plays the long-term-oriented advocate of product profitability and the salespeople of Industry Business plays the short-term oriented avocate of customer relationship porfitablility

Cost was estimated around VND 30,000,000, as detail in Table 6 below, by the HRBP team:

1 Meeting between Sales Director and HRBP, SE’s HR

Agency Partner to review the current job description of

Account Manager and Product Manager of Industry

Business with best practice consult in the industry

market from agency partner (8 hours, 3-4 peoples)

10,000,000

2 Meeting to re-design the new job description for

Account Manager and Product Manager of Industry

Business with updated KPIs and bonus scheme (required

for Sales Director, HRBP, Sales Managers of 3 sales

team, Pre-sales & Marketing Support Manager) (4

hours, 7 peoples)

10,000,000

3 Meeting to align and execute the new job description for

Account Manager and Product Manager of Industry

Business for all business member (4 hours, 20 peoples)

10,000,000

Table 6 Costs for alternative solution 3 - Action 2 (Author Synthesis)

This spending is used to re-design the job descriptions for Account Manager and Product Manager of Industry Business with the consultation from HRBP and/or the current HR agency partner of Schneider Electric and the support from Manager and Sales Manager of sub-team of Industry Business To achieve the desired benefits, that will be stated in detail in below, beside the proposed cost, this action also requires a lot

of efforts from the Sales Director and Manager/ Sales Manager of the sales and

marketing team of Industry Business to creating and developing a knowledge sharing culture and effective knowledge exchange system among the business members for fast response to the market need/ change and best support for channel partners and customers

Benefits of maintaining the thought worlds different between sales and marketing in terms of tasks orientation: (1) The different goal orientation and different time

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orientation of Product Manger and Account Manager are bad for the cooperation qualilty between marketing and sales but good for the market performance of the IDVSD product and Industry business unit The Product Manager should champion the product dimension of the business (IDVSD’s 4P), and the Account Manager should champion the customer dimension of the business (selling IDVSD via IED, End

Customers) Likewise, the Product Manager should champion the long-term dimension

of the business (yearly sales of IDVSD, market share, market intellligence and market strategy ) , and the Account Manager should champion the short-term

go-to-dimension of the business (monthly, quarterly sales of IDVSD via IED, End

Customers and collecting market feedback information); (2) Combine with developing the knowledge sharing behaviors culture between Product Manager and Account Manager, the team can get more accuracy information in terms of market intelligent data and customer feedback related to IDVSD product & solution in the market to make the right decision the right way in the right time

6.4 Solution justification

From three alternative solutions above and the researcher’s observation of current internal resources and ambition of Industry Business in the rest of 2019’s business year (Source: SE’s Internal report 2019), to help the Sales Director both enhancing the relationship between sales and marketing in his team and bringing the sales growth rate of IDVSD via Industry Expert Distributor Channel back to the track as much as possible to close the year of 2019 with the best result for Industry Business, the

researcher suggests that the Sales Director should better combine the proposed first alternative solution with the second alternative solution to have the best solution to implementing first in Quarter 4 of 2019 and planning for more resources to

implementing the third alternative solution in 2020 and onward

The best solution is the combination of (1) established a project team called Functional Selling” team, that promotes knowledge exchange between its sales and marketing members, to improving the IDVSD sales via IED Channel in Quarter 4 of

“Cross-2019 and (2) developing and applying the interactive “Market Intelligence Exchange” system, to be used by this “Cross-Functional Selling” team, to improving the sales and