Brief point about the case and the highlights

1. Waters Chromatography
Division: U.S. Field Sales
(A)
Sumeet Baid(55)
Samyak Jain (43)
Jonny Paul(22)
Sentilkumaar(47)
Soumini Basu(53)

2. WCD
• Founded in 1962
• After 10 year “boom period” the company was sold to
Millepore Corporation
• Worldwide market for WCD was $350 mn
• Current year 1983, sales was $120 mn & next year forecast
was $142 mn
• Sales forecast for U.S. alone was $70 mn & formed 49.3% of
total sales, hence US was very important market

3. Products
• WDC were leaders in both major segments of the HPLC
market
• Product line
-Instruments like pumps, injectors, detectors etc.
-Chemical products including packed columns & disposable
accessories & supplies used in HPCL
• 62% sales was from instruments which could be facility–
installed as a new system, added to a new system or sold
separately
• Instruments: Installing a complete system cost between
$10,000 - $40,000
Chemical products: Unit prices ranges from $150 - $750 per
unit. The average order amounted to $900

4. Customer
• Catered to highly technical customer base
• Major markets were
- Pharmaceuticals
- Life sciences/biotechnology
• Mainly research & industrial laboratories

5. Structure of the company
• Employed 1485 people
• Divided into functional departments
• Equal number of sales & service personnel for each region,
both reporting to a regional manager
• Customer Support was responsible for
i. Telephonic support
ii. Provide information
iii. Taking orders telephonically or by email
• 75% - 80% of instrument orders & all of chemical product
orders were placed by email or telephone

6. Partial Organizational Chart

7. • Instrument orders were based on quotation given by sales
team
• Chemical product orders were from standard price list
• Questionnaire was prepared (”qualifier”) which was used for
follow up field sales