The document summarizes a study tour report from an EMBA program in Cairo, Egypt. The report provides an overview of the study tour to Rennes, France, including observations on culture, business environment, and human relations. It also summarizes visits to two companies - Menatel, a telecommunications company, and Legris Industries, an industrial fittings manufacturer. The report analyzes the sales management approaches of both companies and identifies areas for improvement, such as improving Menatel's compensation policy and expanding Legris' network in Africa. In conclusion, the author recommends another study tour in an advanced stage of the EMBA program to gain more experience observing and analyzing business practices abroad.

1. Rennes International School of Business
ESC RENNES
Executive Master of Business Administration
EMBA
COHORT 1 (2003 - 2004)
Study Tour Report
Conducted by:
Dr. Laurence Lambert
Study Tour
By
Magdy A. Sattar
July, 2003
Cairo, Egypt

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction & Objective II
Part 1. Visit Overall Overview 1
1-1 Organization 1
1-2 Culture 1
1-3 Human Relation 1
1-4 Business environment 2
1-5 Points Of Interest 2
Part 2. Sales Management 3
2-1 Fundamentals 3
2-2 Menatel Sales Management 3
2-3 Legris Sales Management 5
2-4 Points of improvement 7
Part 3. Conclusion & Recommendation 8
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EMBA Cairo
Rennes International School of Business

3. INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this report is to have an overall overview of the study tour to Rennes
(France) covering in the first part all its dimensions: cultural, business, organizational,
human relations…stressing my points of interest and also indicating what could be
transferred to my business environment at Egypt. In the second part I will identify the
main fundamentals for sales management I have identified in the visits and in the end
comparing sales management style for Legris and my company, and the points of
improvement for both companies.
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EMBA Cairo
Rennes International School of Business

4. Part 1. VISIT OVERALL OVERVIEW
1-1. ORGANIZATION
The beginning of this memorable trip was not so promising. As my colleague Abd El
Hameed and I were facing problems in getting our visa due to some clerical mistakes,
we went to the French embassy early this morning to solve this problem. After this
obstacle in our tour –way was removed, our flight took off from Cairo international
Airport at exactly 12:30PM. From this time, until we went back to the same airport
the most significant thing about the organization of the tour was time utilization.
Due to the occurrence of the weekend in our visit agenda, and to make sure that we
benefit from our tour, we had a very busy schedule –something we as mangers are
used to – sight seeing, lectures even leisure time or tours were according to this
schedule which was very impressive.
1-2. CULTURE
France is known as a homeland of arts and culture. My visit to Rennes, Brittany’s
historical capital enhanced this knowledge with the memorable personal experience.
One cannot help noticing the harmony between the modern buildings and the
historical ones, preserving the province’s historical identity. As much as preserving a
national identity seems to be a priority in the French culture respecting individual
variances and religious, political, and personal liberties is cherished as well. This
respect of individual variances is shown clearly in the diverse of races living along
with the French mingling with them to the extent that I found it very hard to
differentiate and identify French people among others.
One also cannot help noticing the high sense of the value of time. Work time or
leisure time, is very well planned and applied. Equality in rights and duties between
men and women is strictly applied to the extent that no consideration of gender is put
in mind when job tasks and nature are decided.
1-3. HUMAN RELATIONS
People of the Mediterranean are known for their warm feelings and mild temper. This
includes French people, the hospitality, and warm welcoming we have received from
Mrs. Nadine `s family on dinner in her house was very much touching and reflecting
the simple small French family’s image. The sense of humor and how to receive,
sometimes participate in a practical joke is also a characteristic of the Mediterranean
people. French people included, one of the waiters in a pizza restaurant we were
dinning in noticed how we were teasing our colleague Yasser he participated in a
funny and polite way to our joke, in a way that made us feel as if we were home in
Egypt.
One more thing reminded me of Egypt is the difference in the life style and human
relations between the Brittany province and Paris the capital. While the former has
the rather intimate, warm, and quite nature, the latter is distinguished by its speedy,
distantly and noisy style
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Rennes International School of Business

5. 1-4. BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS
 The effective presence of the Chamber of Commerce beside the academy in
Rennes reflects the belief in the integrated role of academic studies and the
practical application in the field of business.
 I was impressed- in fact, our whole group were impressed-by the reception
thrown on our honor by the city council of Rennes. This reception attended by
the person in charge of the external affaires reflects the government strategy of
global economy and communication through every possible channel.
 The technology by which historical castles such as Mont-Saint Michel and
buildings such as The Cathedral Of St. Peter and the house of Parliament of
Brittany are maintained and represented to the tourist is very modern yet it
preserves the epical spirit of the place. Maps, pamphlets, effective means of
transportation and special offers or promotions for tourists reflect the special
care given to tourism considering it as an important source of income, and to
the tourist as a customer which his loyalty and satisfaction from his tour must
be gained.
 In the two field visits to the factories of Legris`s Industries and La Française
Des Plastiques, I have noticed that working women from all age categories
outnumber working men, also the outstanding care given to maintain a clean
Environment as much as possible was very impressive.
 France being one of the modern world industrial countries the average income
is high but so is the living standard.
1-5. POINTS OF INTEREST
What interested me most in this visit are two points
 Time management to achieve maximum utilization
 Expressing and communicating culture to others in a very simple and modern
way yet preserving the unique and epical identity of this culture
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EMBA Cairo
Rennes International School of Business

6. Part 2. SALES MANAGEMENT
2-1. FUNDAMENTALS
The basic two elements in sales management are building or designing the sales force
and managing this sales force or department.
2-1-1. HOW TO DESIGN A SALES FORCE?
To design a sales force we need to recognize the followings:
1- Objectives include prospecting, targeting, communicating, selling, servicing,
information gathering and allocating.
2- Strategy by choosing the mix of selling approaches that is most effective.
3- Structure is mainly depends on dividing territories by geography, product, or
market (or some combination of these elements).
4- Size estimating the total workload and how many sales hours (and hence
salespeople) will be needed.
5- Compensation mainly depends on determining what types of salaries,
commissions, bonuses, expense accounts, and benefits to be given, and how much
weight customer satisfaction should have in determining total compensation.
2-1-2. HOW TO MANAGE A SALES FORCE?
1- Recruiting, and selecting sales representatives.
2- Training, the representatives on sales techniques and on the company’s products,
policies, and customer-satisfaction orientation.
3- Supervising, how to supervise the sales force and help representatives to use their
time efficiently.
4- Motivating, how to motivate the sales force, and balancing quotas, monetary
rewards, and supplementary motivators.
5- Evaluating, how to evaluate individual and group sales performance.
2-2. MENATEL SALES MANAGEMENT
2-2-1. MENATEL
Menatel is a joint stock company under investment low number 8/1997 registered in
1998 under number 314030. Menatel is granted a ten years; renewable license, to
install, operate, and manage a telecommunication network of at least 33,000 public
payphone. Menatel is determined to achieve this target by the end of 2004. Egyptian
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Rennes International School of Business

7. shares are 51% and foreign shares are 49%. France Telecom (FCR) -providing
Menatel with the know-how technology and management- holds the main foreign
shares, which is 44 %. The main Egyptian company with 18% share is the National
Bank Of Egypt (NBE).
2-2-2. HOW DID MENATEL DESIGN ITS SALES FORCE?
1- Objectives.
Menatel sales force objectives are clear and communicated to all; the sales force is to
achieve the followings:
*Achieving the pre-set cards sales target.
*Maintaining and enhancing relations with the distributors’ network.
*To characterizes Menatel card by, availability, accessibility, and acceptability.
2- Strategy.
Menatel sales force strategy is to have a point of sales around each payphone and in
main public areas elsewhere.
3- Structure.
Menatel structured its sales into 75 % indirect sales through distributors and 25 %
direct sales through Menatel sales representatives. For both, direct and indirect sales,
territories are divided by geographical locations.
4- Size.
For indirect sales Menatel has 7 main distributors and 13 sub-distributors to cover 7
different regions all over Egypt, for direct sales Menatel has 120 sales representatives
reporting to 5 branches and the head office to fulfill the uncovered locations with
Menatel cards.
5- Compensation.
Menatel implemented compensation plan that combine fixed and variable pay which
all in all bear with the “going market price”, for the fixed amount, a salary is intended
to satisfy the representative’s need for income stability, for the variable amount,
commission and the annual profit sharing, are intended to stimulate and reward
greater effort, in addition to transportation allowances to cover the sales
representative’s car expenses and medical insurance.
2-2-3. HOW DO MENATEL MANAGE ITS SALES FORCE?
1- Recruiting.
At the heart of a successful sales force is the selection of effective representatives.
Menatel sales management developed its selection criteria and insist on choosing the
newly graduates or the ones with no sales experience before to buildup Menatel
unique sales force. The selection procedures start by examining all the applicant’s
documents through, then two or three interviews (HR, Personal, Sales Supervisor),
finally an interview with the sales manager.
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Rennes International School of Business

8. 2- Training.
Menatel buildup its unique training module for the sales force, the sales manager with
the help of all sales supervisor are in charge of implementing and adapting this
training module to all the newly representatives, also to recharge the old
representatives’ selling and personal skills through monthly workshop, to insure that
Menatel sales representative is not just a salesman, he is a solution vender. We sell
customer satisfaction.
3- Supervising.
The supervision role at Menatel is substantial due to the nature of Menatel sales force
objectives, also Menatel sales supervisors have important role in evaluating,
motivating and training the sales representatives. Menatel sales supervisors are
responsible for fulfilling daily, weekly and monthly reports to help their teams
understand how they manage their time and how they might increase their
productivity effectively.
4- Motivating.
In general almost all salesmen are motivated by pay (commissions) and less motivated
by verbal appreciation and job-security, unfortunately at Menatel sales representatives
are motivated by verbal appreciation and job- security, as Menatel commissions
policy is not clear or fair enough to the sales people that is why the sales annual
turnover for Menatel is considerably high.
5- Evaluating.
Good feed-forward (recruiting, training, supervision, motivation) requires good
feedback, which means getting information from the sales representatives to evaluate
their performance. At Menatel the sales reports (daily, weekly, monthly) are the tools
to collect information to measure the sales reps performance, in addition to the annual
appraisal form (designed specially for sales reps), Menatel can point key indicators of
sales revenue and sales representatives` performance, which enable Menatel to tune or
adjust the sales force performance to serve Menatel objectives.
2-3. LEGRIS SALES MANAGEMENT
2-3-1. LEGRIS.
Legris Industries is a diversified industrial group (Legris, Comap, Savoye) whose
expertise extends from design to production, engineering and marketing with a steady
increasing service component. Since its foundation in1987, Legris Industries has
pursued a business-to-business industrial strategy, investing new resources to build
leading position on European and worldwide markets. Backed by a worldwide
network of distributors, Legris designs, manufactures and markets value-added
solutions for the distribution of industrial fluids. Building on their core know-how in
instant fittings they have developed strong positions in three areas; Industrial Fittings
(Legris Connectic), Compressed Air System (Legris Transair) and Automotive
Fittings (Legris Autoline). Legris is number one worldwide in instant fittings for
compressed-air circuits.
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EMBA Cairo
Rennes International School of Business

9. 2-3-2 HOW DID LEGRIS DESIGN ITS SALES FORCE?
1- Objectives
Legris objectives are;
* To offer connecting solutions for industrial fluids.
* To be close to the market wherever in the world.
* To adapt their production to all the requirements.
* To meet the needs of numerous industrial fields.
2- Strategy
Legris strategy is to focus on international niche markets where they can stake out
leading positions to generate lasting profits. In addition, maintain extensive research
and products innovation in order to offer new solutions and wider applications for its
customers.
3- Structure
Legris structured its sales into 87 % indirect sales through distributors and 13 % direct
sales through Legris sales representatives. For both, direct and indirect sales,
territories are divided geographically.
4- Size
For Legris sales force size they have 22 sales subsidiaries in Europe, America, Asia,
Oceania, agents on the four continents, more than 1000 distributors and 2500 sales
points in the world.
5- Compensation
Clearly defined methods are applied to track labor market and wage trends with a
view to ensure that the fixed compensation of Group employees is at least equal to the
minimum in the relevant segment. Variable compensation is based on an equally
methodical approach to ensure proper recognition for both individual and joint efforts
through bonus, profit sharing, employee share ownership schemes and other
arrangements.
2-3-3. HOW DO LEGRIS MANAGE ITS SALES FORCE?
1- Recruiting
Legris industries are international group employing nearly 3,200 people from 30
countries. Initiatives to attract young talent to the world of industry include a presence
at trade fair plus ongoing contacts with schools, universities and training centers.
They are also very active in professional associations.
2- Training
Legris invest heavily in training- nearly 3% of total personal expenses- that covers not
only specific job qualifications, basic or advanced, but also opportunities for personal
development through the acquisition of management know-how and other skills
which add to the career potential within employees’ own division or another section
of the Group.
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EMBA Cairo
Rennes International School of Business

10. 3- Supervising
Legris put its sales force online with a software system that gives its sales people a
constant supply of information about the company and the people they are dealing
with. Using laptop computers, each salesman can access three types of programs; one
gives them a set of generic tools, second to provide them with products information
and the third to provide them with all customer information, in order to answer all
customer needs with a few keystrokes. This system in addition to the compensation
policy allows Legris to supervise their sales force remotely.
4- Motivating
At Legris the sales force are paid mostly on commission. This fact is what mostly
motivates the sales people in Legris. Legris also motivates its sales force and gains
their loyalty by insuring other benefits to their end (insurance, profit share and other
arrangements).
5- Evaluating
Unfortunately I have no specific data concerning how Legris evaluate its sales force
but for sure their policy of evaluation is based on three main points, the achieved
target, the sales reports (daily, weekly, monthly) and the normal annual appraisal.
2-4. POINTS OF IMPROVEMENTS
For Menatel the need to improve its motivation policy by improving Menatel
compensation policy and rely more on the most effective motivator for all sales
people whish is commissions. For Legris the need to improve the size of their network
and to have effective availability in the African market. Also they need to have more
face-to-face communication between the sales men and their supervisor.
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EMBA Cairo
Rennes International School of Business

11. Part 3. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
I strongly believe that this well organized and memorable tour came just in time for
me to enhance my professional skills as a manger, my conceptual skills as a person,
and my academic skills as a scholar with the personal and live experience of day-to-
day life of a foreign modern country such as France.
This is mainly why I strongly recommend another study tour in an advanced stage of
the EMBA. As we will be more able not only to receive as in the first tour but also to
participate and apply what we have learned.
I suggest that The Strategy module scheduled in the last of the EMBA should take
place in the academy of Rennes were we could participate in a workshop with French
mangers and perhaps share experiences with them professional, conceptual and
academically.
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EMBA Cairo
Rennes International School of Business