CHAPTER 1 The Field of Sales Force ManagementNew Dimensi.docx

CHAPTER 1 The Field of Sales Force Management
New Dimensions of Personal Selling: The Professional
Salesperson
Personal selling today is quite different from what it was years
ago. The cigar-smoking, backslapping, joke-telling salesman
(and virtually all outside sales reps were men in those days) is
generally gone from the scene. Moreover, his talents and
methods would likely not be effective in today's business
environment.
Instead, a new type of sales representative has emerged—a
professional salesperson who is also a marketing consultant.
This new breed works to relay consumer wants back to the firm
so that appropriate products may be developed. Its
representatives engage in a total consultative, nonmanipula-tive
selling job; they are expected to solve customers' problems, not
just take orders. For example, Medtronics, a leader in the design
and manufacture of high-tech surgical devices, sells to
surgeons. These doctors often want the sales rep to be in the
operating room during surgery to advise them in the best use of
the product.9 The vice president of sales and marketing for
Lucent Technologies states that Lucent's overall goal is "to have
all of our customers say that we are vital to their business
success."10 Of course, this is difficult given the rising
expectations of customers.
The new-style reps also serve as territorial profit managers.
They have the autonomy they need to make decisions that affect
their own territory's profitability. Many decisions that in the
past would have been made by the sales manager are today made
by the salesperson. Salespeople are empowered to act in the best
interests of their firms. A recent survey of salespeople's
competencies found those salespeople who excel at aUgning the
strategic objectives of both customers and suppliers, and who

understand the business issues underlying their customers'
needs, are the most successful.11 To a large extent, technology
has empowered salespeople to increase the quality of contact
and service they provide to their customers by allowing them to
tap into huge data banks.
Whose sales forces best reflect this new professionalism? The
HR Chally Group surveyed over 1,000 customers in two
separate surveys—one in 1994 and one in 2002.12 The
customers identified the best sales forces according to the 10
factors that are shown on Figure 1-4. Only 13 sales forces were
f I6URE1-4 le Ten Host Important factors for Professional
Sales Forces
The Professional Sales Force ...
1. Provides service that solves problems and responds to
customer needs.
2. Has excellent product knowledge.
3. Serves as an advocate for the customers within the selling
firm.
4. Keeps customers up-to-date.
5. Sells a high-quality product.
6. Offers superior technical support.
7. Has accessible personnel that are available locally.
8. Sells a wide variety of products that offer a total solution.
9. Understands the customers' business.
10. Sells the product for a competitive price.
Source: The HR Chally Group, Ten Year Research Report,
2002.
Management of a Sales Force, 12th Edition
26
CHAPTER 1 The Field of Sales Force Management 25

leaders, district sales managers, regional sales managers) but
only a few executives in finance, production, personnel,
advertising, or marketing research. And the pay is usually much
higher in sales management jobs than in other areas of
management.
Within two or three years after graduation, you may be serving
as a sales supervisor or a district sales manager. Even as a
salesperson, you may engage in managerial activities, such as
visiting your alma mater to do employee recruiting. You may be
asked to do some sales forecasting for your territory or to offer
suggestions regarding a proposed compensation or quota plan.
All of these activities will require knowledge of sales
management.
Sales Force Management Challenges in the 21st Century
As explained earlier in this chapter, sales organizations must
learn how to adapt to a continuously changing environment that
revolves around customers with higher and higher expectations.
This presents several specific challenges that sales executives
must overcome to be successful. Specifically, sales executives
must develop greater expertise in the following areas. Each of
these areas is discussed in varying depth later in the book.
1. Selling by executives. Because customers are so demanding,
selling firms must increasingly rely on their top executives to
be involved in the sales process. Customers—especially
important customers—expect to interact and negotiate with the
highest levels of the organization. For example, every senior
officer and every vice president at Xerox is assigned to specific
major accounts, such as Kinko's and ADP.16 In fact, each of
these major accounts has a team of Xerox employees assigned to
it, and the top-level executive works closely with the team. This
structure is sometimes called strategic account management.
Using selling teams to manage major accounts is a trend that
has continued to grow since the 1980s, when firms began
embracing the principles of total quality management. Over

time, the selling teams have involved executives at higher and
higher levels. In a sense, everyone from the president on down
is a salesperson—or is at least part of a sales team.
Coordinating the efforts of these teams and motivating them is a
task very different from supervising and motivating the
individual sales rep.
2. Customer relationship management (CRM). By all accounts,
CRM is becoming mainstream technology for sales
organizations.17 CRM refers to software solutions that help
companies manage customer information. Salespeople input
much of this information and then use it to expand their
relationships with existing customers. This industry is growing
rapidly, led by companies such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite,
Oracle, Siebel Systems, and Microsoft. According to a recent
survey, about one-third of all organizations have already
deployed CRM and another third are in the process of
implementing such a program. This presents a challenge,
however, because more than a third of those who have deployed
CRM are not happy with the results.18 Problems often result
because salespeople do not understand how to participate in the
3.
Introduction to Sales Force Management
program, nor do they see the benefits. These issues can be
avoided through proper training and effective leadership by the
sales executives.
There are many CRM success stories. Wyse Technology doubled
its European sales just one year after introducing its CRM
program, and this was done without adding any additional staff.
Wyse was able to use CRM to generate more and better-
qualified leads through its Web site. The salespeople could then
follow up by calling on these prospective customers, much
better equipped to know their needs.
3. Sales force diversity. Over the past few decades, more and
more women and minorities have successfully pursued careers
in personal selling and are advancing into sales management

positions. In fact, over half of sales workers in the United
States are now women.19 This is surprising since sales was
once dominated by men. Sexual discrimination still exists in the
U.S. workplace, as evidenced by the over 20,000 sex-based
lawsuits filed each year. Yet great strides have been made.
A controversial issue in this area involves the criteria used for
hiring women into sales. Select industries, such as
pharmaceutical sales, have been criticized for emphasizing
physical attractiveness over professional qualifications. There's
a saying that youH never meet an ugly drug rep," says one
industry expert who charges that seduction is a deliberate
industry stragegy.20 Pharmaceutical companies deny that sex
appeal has anything to do with whom they hire. This is very
possibly true. Regardless, all sales organizations must be
careful that they do not perpetuate the negative stereotypes that
have long been associated with the selling profession.
Minority groups present another opportunity and a different set
of challenges for sales management because minorities have
been more difficult to recruit in large numbers for outside sales
jobs. The United States has long been a nation of ethnic
diversity. About one-third of American workers are minorities,
and the percent is growing every year. To remain competitive,
sales managers need to capitalize on the strengths of everyone
in our diverse population.
The bottom line for sales managers of women and minority
groups is this: These groups are here to stay in selling, and they
must be managed effectively. As a matter of self-interest, sales
managers cannot afford to waste the brainpower (and selling
power) of over half our population. Moreover, executives
simply will not be able to adequately fill the available sales
jobs in the foreseeable future unless they recruit qualified
women and minorities.
Additionally today's salespeople are much more educated than
in the past. Over 65 percent of salespeople have college
degrees, and the number holding postgraduate degrees has
increased as well to 6.5 percent.21 The more-educated

salesperson will desire challenges and rewards that differ from
those his or her less-educated counterpart desired in the past.
Finally, as our population grows older, sales managers will be
faced with managing a greater proportion of seniors in their
sales forces. In many cases, these senior salespeople will place
less emphasis on financial rewards than will their younger
counterparts, but they will still need to be motivated to maintain
and improve their performance.
4. Complex channels of distribution. Many sales managers will
be asked to manage increasingly complex channels of
distribution. They
5.
CHAPTER 1 The Field of Sales Force Management 27
will oversee a hybrid sales force, which includes field sales
reps, tele-sellers, and electronic sellers. Their work—organizing
and coordinating the efforts of these diverse salespeople—will
become more strategic. The successful sales managers of the
21st century will be adaptive enough to handle both complexity
and rapid change. Sony Electronics, for example, sells its
products through three distinct channels: (1) company-owned
retail stores with the Sony name; (2) traditional retailers such as
Best Buy, Circuit City, and Wal-Mart; and (3) online through its
company-owned Web site. Sony's president of consumer sales is
faced with the challenge of creating synergy among these
channels such that the sum is greater than its three parts.
5. An international perspective. Today the U.S. market has
reached the saturation point for many consumer and industrial
products. At the same time, many global markets are emerging
and growing rapidly. Growth for many companies in the coming
decades will come from their development of these international
markets. Some companies, such as Coca-Cola, Colgate-
Palmolive, and Avon, are already earning the greatest
proportion of their revenues outside the United States.
Differences in cultures and ways of doing business in foreign
countries pose real challenges for American sales management.

Additionally, in the United States, American sellers face
increasing competition from many foreign firms. This
competition is bound to increase (1) as economies expand in
Asian and eastern European countries such as Korea, Taiwan,
Thailand, China, Hungary, and Poland; (2) as a result of the
European Union's becoming a unified trading market; and (3) as
a result of the general trend of the elimination of trade barriers
between countries. Sales executives must manage their sales
forces to meet foreign competition in this country and to
improve their company's personal selling efforts in other
countries.
6. Ethical behavior and social responsibility. "Salespeople are
dancing in the spot where there's the greatest likelihood for
unethical behavior," says a lawyer for PricewaterhouseCoopers'
governance risk management and compliance practice. Indeed,
salespeople have been involved in a number of recent financial
accounting scandals. In one aspect of the most famous case,
Enron salespeople were accused of using wildly optimistic
estimates for the forward price of commodities and other
factors. This created the appearance that deals were profitable
when they were actually losing money.22 In a case that is
similar, a salesperson for Kraft Foods agreed to what he thought
was a simple, harmless request from one of his biggest
customers, a grocery whole-seder. This customer wanted the
Kraft salesperson to sign a letter to confirm that certain
payments were to cover a "shortfall" in past accounts. In reality,
these payments were for something else. This allowed the
customer to appear to be more profitable than it was, which
misleads investors.23 Salespeople must realize that these
activities are not only dishonest and unethical, but illegal. The
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is becoming more
and more aggressive in pursuing these cases, and this includes
taking legal action against specific salespeople! Sales
executives have the challenge of first staying up to date on
these laws, and then informing their salespeople through proper
training.

7.
(
BBA 3221
)
PART 1 Introduction to Sales Force Management
For centuries, the institution of business, and especially its
personal-selling component, has been accused periodically of
unethical behavior. Yet it is commonly accepted that outside
selling today is on an ethical plane far above that of a few
decades ago and in a different world from that of a century or
two in the past. Today, sales managers have no choice but to
strive to maintain their ethical standards in personal selling and
sales management, for the alternative can put them out of
business or even into prison.
Summary Jjp
This is a book about managing a sales force—that is, managing
the personal-selling component of an organization's marketing
program. Specifically, this book deals with the management of
an outside sales force where the salespeople go to the customer.
Outside selling contrasts with across-the-counter selling, where
the customers come to the salespeople. By any measure—people
employed, dollars spent, or sales generated—personal selling is
by far the most important element in a company's promotional
mix.
In the face of intense competition, many companies today
practice relationship marketing or relationship selling, which is
very different from the traditional transaction-oriented selling
that focused on the one-time sale of the product. In contrast,

relationship selling focuses on developing trust in a few
selected accounts over an extended period.
There are a wide variety of sales jobs in which salespeople work
for a wide variety of companies, selling many different
products, and serving a wide variety of customers. The sales job
is also different in a number of ways from other jobs. Further, a
new type of sales representative is emerging, one who acts as a
marketing consultant for the customer and for his or her own
firm.
The role of the sales manager is also expanding. Today, the
most successful sales managers are seen as team leaders rather
than bosses. Sales managers are administrators, and
administration (management) is a distinct skill. Sales talent
alone does not make a good manager, but management can be
learned. There are several levels of sales management positions,
and sales managers' jobs also differ from other management
positions.
The importance of personal selling and sales management may
be viewed from the perspective of our total economy; individual
organizations; or you, the student. To manage a sales force
effectively in the coming decades, sales executives must
develop greater expertise in the following areas: (1) selling by
executives, (2) customer relationship management (CRM), (3)
sales force diversity, (4) complex channels of distribution, (5)
an international perspective, and (6) ethical behavior and social
responsibility.
Key Terms
Communications mix Complex distribution channels
Consultative seller Customer relationship management (CRM)
E-commerce Key account seller Marketing mix
Missionary salespeople New business seller Outside sales force

Promotional mix Relationship marketing Relationship selling
Role ambiguity Role conflict
Role stress Sales engineers Sales force diversity Sales support
Selling by executives Telemarketing Transaction selling Value-
added components
CHAPTER 2 Strategic Sales Force Management 41
In addition to these seven macroenvironmental forces, a
company faces a set of three external forces that are a direct
part of the firm's marketing system. These are the company's
market, its suppliers, and its marketing intermediaries
(primarily middlemen). While generally classed as
uncontrollable, these three elements are susceptible to a greater
degree of company influence than are the macroenvironmental
forces. Note the two-way flows between the company and these
three external elements in Figure 2-1. The company receives
products and promotional messages from its suppliers. In return,
the company sends out payments and marketing information.
The same types of exchanges occur between the company and
its market. Any of these exchanges can go through one or more
intermediaries.
Internal Variables
To reach its marketing goal, management has at its disposal two
sets of internal, controllable forces: (1) the company's resources
in nonmarketing areas and (2) the components of its marketing
mix. Figure 2-1 shows these internal forces in relation to the
forces in the external environment. The result is the company's
total marketing system set within its environment.
Recall from Chapter 1 that the term marketing mix describes the
combination of four ingredients that constitute the core of a
company's marketing system. When effectively blended, these
four—product, price, distribution, and promotion—form a
marketing program designed to provide want-satisfying goods
and services to the company's market. Also recall that

promotional activities form a separate submix in the company's
marketing program that we call the promotional mix or the
communications mix. The major elements in the promotional
mix are the company's advertising, sales promotion, and
personal selling efforts.
The Marketing Concept and Marketing Management
As businesspeople have come to recognize marketing's vital
importance to a firm's success, a way of business thinking—a
philosophy—has evolved. Called the marketing concept, this
philosophy holds that achieving organizational goals depends on
the firm's ability to identify the needs and wants of a target
market, and then to satisfy those needs and wants better than the
competition does. In order to do this, all activities throughout
the entire company must be coordinated with one another and
focused on the customer. An effective and efficient
implementation of the marketing concept results in profitable
sales volume and long-run success for the firm. Thus, as seen in
Figure 2-2, the marketing concept is based on three fundamental
beliefs:
1. Company planning and operations should be customer or
market oriented.
2. Marketing activities in a firm should be organizationally
coordinated.
3. The goal of the organization should be to generate profitable
sales volume over the long run.
4.
(
PART
1 Introduction to Sales Force Management
)42
le marketing concept's three
FIGURE Z-Z
stones

□I
Customer/market orientation
Coordination of marketing activities
Profitable sales volume
Evolution of Marketing Management
Marketing management is the process of planning,
implementing, and coordinating all marketing activities and
integrating them into the overall operations of the firm. In most
successful firms, this process is the responsibility of the chief
marketing executive and is guided by the marketing concept. In
other words, the needs and wants of customers should be at the
center of marketing management, but this is not always the
case.
Marketing management evolves through four stages: production
orientation, sales orientation, marketing orientation, and
relationship orientation. As explained below, the marketing
concept is embraced by firms in the third and fourth stages, but
not by those in the first two stages. The stages have direct
implications for how salespeople deal with customers.
Production orientation
Sales
orientation
Marketing orientation
Relationship orientation

Production-Orientation Stage
During the first stage, a company is typically production
oriented. The executives in production and engineering shape
the company's objectives and planning. The focus is on taking
advantage of economies of scale and mass-producing a limited
variety of products for as little cost as possible. The function of
the sales department is simply to sell the production output at
the price set by production and financial executives. With this
stage, marketing is not recognized. In fact, the top "marketing"
executive is the sales manager, who leads a sales department
that is essentially within manufacturing. Salespeople are mere
order takers. This stage is more likely to exist when demand
greatly exceeds supply. For example, Ford Motor Company
embraced this orientation one century ago when selling its very
popular Model T automobile. Henry Ford famously quipped that
customers could buy the Model T in any color, "as long as it's
black." No automobile maker could be successful today with
this same attitude!
Sales-Orientation Stage
When supply catches up to demand, the first reaction of many
companies is to engage in the aggressive, "hard sell" approach.
In this stage, companies focus on selling their product to any
and all prospects, regardless of their needs. Salespeople do not
take "no" for an answer, and might even engage in trickery to
get the sale. Of course, this style of high-pressure selling
continues to
CHAPTER 2 Strategic Sales Force Management
give salespeople a bad reputation, even though most modern,

professional salespeople are not at all like this. This orientation
is much more likely to be found in transactional (one-time)
selling than in relationship selling.
Marketing-Orientation Stage
The marketing concept first emerges in the marketing-
orientation stage. In this third stage, companies use a
coordinated marketing management strategy directed toward the
twin goals of customer satisfaction and profitable sales volume.
Attention focuses on marketing rather than on selling. The top
executive is a marketing manager or the vice president of
marketing. In this stage, several activities traditionally the
province of other executives become the responsibility of the
marketing manager. For instance, inventory control,
warehousing, and aspects of product planning are often turned
over to the marketing manager.
Ideally, a marketing-oriented firm goes beyond its own
boundaries and coordinates its marketing activities with a select
group of customers and suppliers. After all, customer needs and
wants can be more easily understood and responded to if the
selling firm has developed a close working relationship with its
customers.
Relationship-Orientation Stage
The relationship-orientation stage is characterized by
relationship building and is a natural extension of the
marketing-orientation stage. Relationship-oriented firms
continue to embrace the marketing concept. At the same time,
the buyer and seller make a commitment to do business with
each other over a long time. Thus, a given sale is not viewed as
a discrete transaction. Because of this ongoing relationship,
salespeople better understand their customers' business and can
become more like consultants. Their goal is to improve the
customer's overall profitability rather than just to sell products.
Over time, salespeople earn the customer's trust, which adds
significant value to the relationship from the customer's
perspective.9 As noted in Chapter 1, this process of close
cooperation and collaboration between the selling and buying

firms is called relationship marketing.
Interestingly, the evolution of marketing management has not
necessary progressed in a uniform, chronological manner. There
are still firms today in the early production- and sales-
orientation stages. This tends to vary by industry. For example,
emerging in the finance sector are companies that specialize in
making home loans to consumers with poor credit history. Some
complain that the salespeople in this industry engage in high-
pressure tactics and fail to disclose all fees to the borrowers.10
In other words, these companies are alleged to be squarely in
the sales-orientation stage.
Evolution of Selling in the United States11
Selling has evolved along with marketing management. Over the
past two centuries, American businesses have put forth
extraordinary effort toward organizing, training, and further
developing their sales forces. Increasingly, "salesmanship'' has
been approached as a science, as opposed to an art. That is, U.S.
firms systematically have adapted and refined their business
PART 1 Introduction to Sales Force Management
62
BBA3221
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BBA3221
many new e-commerce tools and capabilities that are now
available.
Although respectful of Mr. Evans's bold, future-oriented
thinking, Sarah Miko still believes in the merits of many aspects
of the current system. She feels that Mr. Evans's e-commerce
initiatives are too extreme and should be down-scaled and better
integrated with the existing multiple sales channel strategy. At
the same time, she knows it will take a convincing argument to

persuade the very strong-minded Mr. Evans to consider
anything else!
Mr. Evans has called another meeting in a few days to discuss
the specifics of his strategy. Of course, Ms. Miko is greatly
troubled by the thought of eliminating Cardinal's direct sales
force. She is proud of the effort and accomplishments of her
salespeople—many of whom she has personally trained. But in
addition, Ms. Miko truly believes that Mr. Evans's e-commerce
strategy is not in the best interests of Cardinal Connectors Inc.
Consequently, she wants to come to that meeting prepared to
make a case for the benefits of their current strategy.
Questions:
1. What are the pros and cons of Mr. Evans's e-commerce
strategy?
2. What is the best argument that Ms. Miko can make to keep
her sales force intact?
3. In your opinion, should Cardinal Connectors Inc. eliminate
its sales force? Explain.
62
BBA3221
62
BBA3221
CASH-2
MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC CORPORATION OF AMERICA
62
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BBA3221

Sales Force Strategy
John Cunningham was the national sales manager of the
Lighting Products Department, Special Products Division, of
Matsushita Electric Corporation, a huge industrial complex in
Japan with total sales worldwide of ¥6,660 billion ($60 billion).
He was immediately concerned with the operational sales
strategy for a new line of compact, energy-efficient, fluorescent
light bulbs (lamps) for both the consumer and industrial
markets. The company had many years of experience selling
lamps in the Orient, where it was a major factor in the market.
For strategic reasons, Matsushita marketed its wide line of
consumer and industrial products in the United States under the
trade name Panasonic.
John Cunningham, after graduation as a marketing major from
the University of South Florida in 1988, began his career selling
light bulbs (lamps) for Westinghouse and subsequently North
American Philips when it purchased the lamp division from
Westinghouse. His outstanding sales record attracted the
attention of Mitsubishi, which was trying to build distribution
for a new line of energy-efficient light bulbs it had developed.
However, that venture was terminated when the new bulbs were
found to infringe on patents held by Phillips. Mitsubishi
transferred John to selling its gigantic Diamond Vision
television screens now seen in most of the sports stadiums in
the country. His outstanding performance attracted the attention
of the managers of Matsushita's light bulb operations, who were
looking for someone to manage sales and distribution in the
United States. After much conversation, several interviews, and
a thorough investigation, John was hired. While his previous
experience working for a Japanese company, combined with his
knowledge of the Japanese business culture, were important
factors in his selection, his outstanding sales record and
establishment of a distribution network with Mitsubishi's
compact fluorescent lamp operation was instrumental in the
hiring decision.
Matsushita's basic marketing strategy was to introduce compact,

energy-efficient, fluorescent lamps. A 15-watt fluorescent lamp
would provide the same lumens (light) as a 75-watt
incandescent lamp, thus yielding significant savings in power
consumption. Such savings were important in the Far East
markets where electricity costs were much higher than in the
United States. Further, the life of the lamp was about 10
CHAPTER 2 Strategic Sales Force Management
61
61
CAsn-i
CARDINAL CONNECTORS, INC.
61
61
61
61
E-Commerce and a Multiple Sales Channel Strategy
Ms. Sarah Miko, a sales manager for Cardinal Connectors Inc.,
is suddenly frightened about losing her job! She just stepped out
of a meeting with her company's president, Mr. Bill Evans. In
the meeting, Mr. Evans outlined a revolutionary e-commerce
strategy that would dramatically alter Cardinal's distribution
channel in the name of enhanced efficiency and overall
productivity. That is, Mr. Evans has begun to believe that
Cardinal's customers might be better-served through a company

Web site that actually replaces its current sales force, as well as
its network of intermediary wholesalers.
With 100 employees and $10 million in annual sales, Cardinal
Connectors Inc. is a relatively small manufacturer of custom-
design circuit-board connectors. Cardinal has a loyal base of
customers, which consist of firms in the telecom, networking,
and auto industries. Currently, these customers are serviced
through a multiple sales channel strategy. The bigger customers,
which represent about 60 percent of total revenue, are dealt with
directly through Cardinal's 15-person full-time sales force. The
remaining 40 percent of revenue is generated from smaller
customers, which buy the product indirectly through one of five
intermediary electronics wholesaler firms.
Ms. Sarah Miko has been a loyal and successful sales executive
for Cardinal Connectors for over 20 years. She began as a sales
representative with Cardinal right out of college, and eventually
came to be one of Cardinal's most consistent sales performers.
Seven years ago, Ms. Miko was promoted to sales manager and
has received consistently high evaluations from Mr. Evans, the
company president.
Ms. Miko prides herself on her ability to train and coach young
sales reps into being professional, consultative salespeople.
Above all, Ms. Miko preaches about the importance of
relationship selling, and says that Cardinal sales reps are not
doing their job unless they are adding value to the interfirm
relationship between buyer and seller. For a Cardinal sales rep,
most of the creative selling effort involves showing existing
customers how they can solve their problems through the
purchase of more Cardinal products. Thus, the emphasis is on
increasing customer share—as opposed to market share.
Cardinal's sales force, however, does not service all customers.
As stated above, a significant portion of revenue is generated
from smaller customers who buy Cardinal products through
intermediaries. But again, Ms. Miko believes that these
intermediaries provide end-user customers with a host of
valuable services that Cardinal could never offer itself through

any Web site. These services include access to inventory, parts
delivery, engineering support, and chip programming.
Mr. Evans is not so sure that either the direct sales force or the
intermediaries are truly adding value. Evans believes that
Cardinal circuit-board connectors are unmatched in quality and
performance, and, thus, current customers will remain loyal to
Cardinal as the sales function is moved to the Internet. Evans
says this will be especially true since the e-commerce strategy
will result in cost savings that can be passed on to the customer.
The savings will stem from two sources. First, Cardinal can
eliminate the high costs of paying for salesperson compensation
and benefits; and, second, it will no longer have to offer
margins to intermediaries. In addition, Mr. Evans thinks that
customers will prefer dealing with a well-designed, interactive
Web site, which (unlike salespeople and intermediaries) can be
reached from anywhere at any time! And because a Web site is a
great way to organize information, customers can find out all
they want about Cardinal products simply by surfing and
chcking.
Further, Cardinal Connectors' competitors have started to move
toward selling product through their company Web site.
However, Mr. Evans is convinced that it is just a matter of time
before that happens, and he wants to be the first in the industry
to capitalize on the

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