Sales force competency of passenger sales and promotion department at northern region branch

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY NEU BUSINESS SCHOOL GIANG THI THANH XUAN SALES FORCE COMPETENCY OF PASSENGER SALES AND PROMOTION DEPARTMENT AT NORTHERN REGION BRANCH MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: ASSOCIATE PROF DR TRAN THI VAN HOA HANOI - 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis is completed in order to fulfill the requirement from Master of Business Administration (MBA) program, Business School – The National Economics University (NEU Business School) First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of MBA professors of National Economics University, who have given me a lot of valuable knowledge as well as skills for my study and my work I would like to send my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Associate Professor, Dr Tran Thi Van Hoa who supported and guided me so enthusiastically to complete my thesis And, I want to send my thanks to top managers of NRB for their advices and directions to conduct the research I also thank to my colleagues and customer who support me for the job as well as for my thesis They have given the data, helped me to answer my interview and shared their experience to compete the thesis Last but not least, thank so much for my family and all my classmates who always help and encourage me to finish this thesis TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF CHARTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 10 1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 10 1.4.1 Research process: 10 1.4.2 Collecting data .11 1.4.2.1 Secondary data: 11 1.4.2.2 Primary data .11 1.4.3 Analyzing data 12 1.5 RESEARCH SCOPE 12 1.6 RESEARCH STRUCTURE 13 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ON SALES COMPETENCIES 14 2.1 COMPETENCY AND SALES COMPETENCY OVERVIEW 14 2.1.1 Definition, components and analysis process of competency 14 2.1.1.1 Definition of competency 14 2.1.1.2 Competency components 15 2.1.1.3 Factors affect competency: 16 2.1.1.4 Competency assessment 18 2.2 SALES COMPETENCIES 21 2.2.1 Sales function: 21 2.2.2 Competencies for sales force: 21 CHAPTER 3: REQUIRED COMPETENCIES FORSALES FORCE AT NRB 24 3.1 INTRODUTION OF NORTHERN REGION BRANCH (NRB) 24 3.1.1 Overview of VNA and NRB 24 3.1.2 NRB structure 28 3.2 REQUIRED COMPETENCIES FOR SALES FORCE AT NRB .29 3.2.1 Required Knowledge of Salesman 33 3.2.1.2 Required company strategy awareness 34 3.2.2 Required skills of Salesmen: 34 3.2.2.1.Communication skills: 34 3.2.2.2 Presentation skills: 35 3.2.2.3 Problem solving skills: .36 3.2.2.4 Required Time management skills 36 3.2.2.5 Required Customer care skills 37 3.2.3 Required Ability of Salesmen: 37 3.2.4 Conclusion of required competencies for Salesmen at NRB 38 CHAPTER 4: ANALYZE THE CURRENT COMPETENCIES OF SALES FORCES AT NRB 39 4.1 CURRENT COMPETENCIES OF SALESMEN AT NRB 40 4.1.1 Current Fundamental Knowledge 40 4.1.2 Current company strategy awareness 41 4.1.3 Current communication skills of Salesmen 42 4.1.4 Current Presentation skills of salesmen 43 4.1.5 Current problem solving skills of salesmen 45 4.1.6 Current time management skills of salesmen 46 4.1.7 Current customer care skills of salesmen 48 4.1.8 Current performance sales of salesmen 49 4.2 CONCLUSION OF THE CURRENT COMPETENCIES OF SALES FORCE AT NRB 50 4.3 REASONS FOR THE GAP BETWEEN THE REQUIRED AND CURRENT COMPETENCIES OF SALES FORCE AT NRB 52 CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS TO COMPETENCIES OF SALES FORCE AT NRB .54 5.1 THE BASIC SOLUTIONS FOR THE HR 54 5.1.1 Develop human resource strategy 54 5.1.2 Improvements of assessment criterion for Salesmen 55 5.2 SPECIFIC TRAINING SOLUTIONS FOR SALESMEN TO MEET THE REQUIRED COMPETENCIES 56 5.2.1 Training courses for salesmen .56 5.2.2 On the Job Training (OJT) for salesmen .61 5.2.3 Timing and selection of training providers 61 5.2.4 Training evaluation 61 CONCLUSION 63 REFERENCES 64 APPENDIX 65 ABBREVIATIONS HR Human Resource NRB Northern Region Branch OJT On the Job Training MBA Master of Business Administration PA Performance Appraisal LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 Collecting methods for Primary data 12 Table 3.1 Description of require competencies 31 Table 3.2: Required ‘Fundamental knowledge’ for salesmen 33 Table 3.3: Required ‘Company strategy awareness’ for salesman 34 Table 3.4: Required ‘Communication skills’ for Salesmen 35 Table 3.5: Required ‘Presentation skills’ for Salesmen 35 Table 3.6: Required ‘Problem solving’ for Salesmen .36 Table 3.7: Required ‘Time management skills’ for Salesmen 36 Table 3.8: Required ‘Customer care skills’ for Salesmen 37 Table 3.9: Required ‘Performance Sales’ for Salesmen 37 Table 4.1: Respondents of the research 39 Table 4.2: Current knowledge of Salesmen 40 Table 4.3: Current strategy awareness of Salesmen .41 Table 4.4: Current communication skills of Salesmen 42 Table 4.5: Current presentation skills of Salesmen 44 Table 4.6: Current problem solving skills of salesmen 45 Table 4.7: Current time management skills of salesmen 47 Table 4.8: Current Customer care skills of salesmen .48 Table 4.9: Current performance sales of salesmen 49 Table 5.1: Recommended training courses for Salesmen .57 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1.1: Research process 10 Chart 2.1 Competency components 15 Chart 2.2: Sales competency assessment process 20 Chart 3.1 NRB structure 28 Chart 3.2: Required competencies for the salesmen at NRB 38 Chart 4.1: Gap between required and current fundamental knowledge 41 Chart 4.2: Gap between required and current strategy awareness 42 Chart 4.3: Gap between required and current communication skills 43 Chart 4.4: Gap between required and current presentation skills 44 Chart 4.5: Gap between required and current problem solving skills .46 Chart 4.6: Gap between required and current time management skills 47 Chart 4.7: Gap between required and current Customer care skills 48 Chart 4.8: Gap between required and current performance sales of salesmen .50 Chart 4.9: Current competencies of Salesmen at NRB 51 Chart 4.10: The gap between required and current competencies 51 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Northern Region Branch (NRB) was established in 1996 It is Vietnam Airlines’ (VNA) representative and coordinator of sales activities in passenger, luggage, cargo and package transportation of VNA in the northern cities and provinces (from Ha Tinh province northward) Its growth of revenue from passenger and cargo services has reached over 15% annually, and kept increasing over years Now, the NRB has continuously grown both in scale and in quality, risen and maintained one of the leading units in domestic regional offices in VNA sales channels, taking account of 25% total revenues of VNA’ sales network They take in charge of controlling sales network as well as Carrying out researches, evaluate the effectiveness of sales policies and current service standards to promote sales, improve VNA' service quality So the sales force plays a key role in NRB Consequently, sales force competences are required as perfect as possible In order to help NRB find out the competency of Salesmen, my thesis focus on analyzing the current competency and give the solutions for improving competencies of Salesmen More specifically, my thesis is designed to answer four questions below:  Which are the requirements of competencies for sale staffs at Passenger Sales and Promotion department – VNA’s NRB  What are the current competencies of sales force at Passenger Sales and Promotion department?  What are the gap between current sales force’s competencies and requirement need at Passenger Sales and Promotion department  What are solutions to improving sales force competencies? Basing on the Theoretical framework of competency, competency model, competency assessment process, I carried a research using in-depth interviews and questionnaire surveys to study the competencies of Salesmen at NRB CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE Nowadays, in both domestic and global economies, selling is increasingly becoming more vital Personal selling involves direct interaction between salespeople and customers It requires good interpersonal skills and training because of its highly professional nature Salespeople are pre-occupied with creating value for both their firms their customers Sales force can build long-term exchange relationships that benefit both their customers and the company it represents Sales force is critical to the sale of many goods and services, especially major commercial and industrial products as well as consumer durables (Dalrymple, 2004) Therefore competency for salesman in the company is an important issue In fact, although the salesmen were recruited with a good profile met with the NRB’s recruitment’s requirement, when doing the real job, some of them not satisfy the needs of work These staff could not have enough competence to satisfy the work or have less knowledge about the selling skill, inactive attitude Another side, the sales volume always increases per year and the competition is fiercer Further more, the customer’s evaluation on NRB’s sales staff every year still low, it is about 3.8/5 From these rationales, the writer has chosen the topic “Sales force competency of Passenger Sales and Promotion department at Northern Region Branch (NRB) – Vietnam Airlines” 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS To match and gain the above objectives, the writer sets out some questions that need to find the answers to solve the problem:  Which are the requirements of competencies for sale staffs at Passenger Sales and Promotion department – VNA’s NRB  What are the current competencies of sales force at Passenger Sales and Promotion department? ... competencies of sales force at Passenger Sales and Promotion department? 10  What are the gap between current sales force? ??s competencies and requirement need at Passenger Sales and Promotion department. .. requirements of competencies for sale staffs at Passenger Sales and Promotion department – VNA’s NRB  What are the current competencies of sales force at Passenger Sales and Promotion department?  What... chosen the topic ? ?Sales force competency of Passenger Sales and Promotion department at Northern Region Branch (NRB) – Vietnam Airlines” 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS To match and gain the above objectives,