Salesperson failure in SMC tan tao limited company

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business Nguyen Hung Cuong SALESPERSON FAILURE IN SMC TAN TAO LIMITED COMPANY MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business Nguyen Hung Cuong SALESPERSON FAILURE IN SMC TAN TAO LIMITED COMPANY MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: TRAN PHUONG THAO Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 PROBLEM CONTEXT 1.1 Company background 1.2 Symptoms of the problem PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION 2.1 Situation analysis 2.2 Potential problems 2.3 Central problem validation 14 2.3.1 Central problem identification 14 2.3.2 Central problem definition 15 2.3.3 The important of the problem 16 CAUSES VALIDATION 18 3.1 Lack of Salesforce training programs 19 3.2 Inappropriate criteria for sales performance evaluation 20 3.3 Poor skill in debt collection 21 ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS 24 4.1 Redesigning KPIs for salesperson 24 4.2 Develop training workshops about debt collection process 27 ACTION PLAN 29 CONCLUSION 33 SUPPORTED INFORMATION 34 7.1 Summary of methodology conducted 34 7.2 Summary of financial report 35 7.3 Detail of the Cause and Effect Diagram 36 7.4 Late – invoice payment survey 38 7.5 The structured interview 39 7.5.1 Interview guide 39 7.5.2 Summary of transcript 40 7.5.3 Transcript 41 7.6 The unstructured interview 47 REFERENCES 55 LIST OF FIGURE Figure SMC Tan Tao structure Figure Customer's payment status of SMC Tan Tao in 2016 Figure The initial Cause and Effect diagram 13 Figure The final Cause and Effect diagram 23 Figure Model of salesperson performance evaluation 25 Figure KPIs for salesperson of SMC Tan Tao 26 Figure Action plan 30 Figure Action plan 32 Figure Detail of the Cause and Effect diagram 37 LIST OF TABLE Table Net cash flow from operating activities in recent year Table Collection ratios of SMC Tan Tao compared to other competitors in steel industry Table Number of day overdue of customer Table Customer’ reasons for late-invoice payment Table Percentage of customer’ reason for their late-invoices Table Cost estimation for training program 33 Table Statement of balance sheet 35 Table Income statement 36 Table Cash flow statement 36 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the economy integration nowadays, credit relationships are becoming increasingly complex The emergence of debt is a natural factor in business operations, which includes both bank credit and commercial credit Debt and debt control need to be evaluated from both sides of the stakeholders: the credit provider (the creditor) and the borrower (the borrower) Many businesses are facing high credit risk, in which the risk of bad debt or late-invoice collection is one of the factors that need to be strictly controlled Particularly at SMC Tan Tao Limited Company, the unusual high of average collection period ratio comparing other competitors in the steel industry, the customer's receivable accounting for a large proportion of total current assets, the inappropriate credit policies contributes to the company result: negative operating cash flow in recent two years The company has made plans for debt collection and debt management are not effective During the time of working in this enterprise, I noticed some problems in the management of receivables from credit and business activities, especially those directly responsible for the recovery of debts: salesperson Therefore, the businesses management need to have a more accurate overview of the importance of salesperson in collecting debt task and have specific solutions to improve the efficiency of account receivable management Therefore, the businesses management need to have a more accurate overview of the importance of salesperson in collecting debt task and have specific solutions to improve the efficiency of account receivable management Therefore, the company leaders need to have a more accurate overview of the importance of salesperson in collecting debt task and have specific solutions to improve the efficiency of account receivable management Based on this actual requirements, the "Salesperson failure in SMC Tan Tao Limited Company" is the subject of master thesis graduation, the aim’s thesis will cover following contents: - The analysis of negative net cash flow from operating, high average collection period and late-invoice collection status at SMC Tan Tao through secondary data, survey, and depth interview with customers and others employees - Identify potential problems and central problem of three symptom in company, based on that content to validate causes of salesperson failure 1 PROBLEM CONTEXT 1.1 Company background SMC Tan Tao Limited Company is the company professional in trading and importing various types of steel, metal goods, construction materials, interior design materials and construction equipment of all kinds, mechanical equipment, and frame warehouses, factories with aluminum structures, steel and stainless steel SMC Tan Tao have 80 billion authorized capital with 64 employees located at Lot 33, Trung Tam Street, Tan Tao Industrial Zone, Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City Figure SMC Tan Tao structure - Based on the analysis of the internal factors, combined with the environmental factors, suggest the proposed solutions and action plan for the causes of salesperson failure 1.2 Symptoms of the problem - Negative net cash flow from operating activities Table Net Cash Flow from operating activities in recent year Unit: Million Dong Cash Flow Statement Item Net Cash Flow from operating activities 2016 2015 2014 -18,461 -86,235 -144,155 On SMC Tan Tao’s cash flow statement, the operational cash flow from 2014 to 2016 clearly is negative, this means the company cannot cover operations solely from running the business Negative operational cash flow also signify a growing company that is hiring personnel, or it could signify a collections problem or poor debt structure - High average collection period Table Collection ratios of SMC Tan Tao compared to other competitors in steel industry Item A/R Turnover Ratio Ave Collection Period A/P Turnover Ratio Ave Payment Period SMC TLH 2016 11.95 30.55 25.53 14.30 HMC 2016 16.24 22.48 19.56 18.66 2016 20.36 17.93 29.57 12.34 This table show the different time period between Ave Collection and Payment period of SMC Tan Tao (SMC), Tien Len (TLH) and Ho Chi Minh City Metal (HMC) Company in Steel Commercial Industry in Vietnam As a general rule, the average collection period should not be longer (1 + 1/3) of average payment period Comparing ratios of three companies above, there is a significant higher imbalance between two ratios at SMC than the other companies when the time to collect money from customers is nearly 15 days longer than time to pay the suppliers (4 days at TLH and days at HMC) Because the payment term of steel exporter is usually fixed, a longer collection period in this case will have negatively affect the short-term debt paying ability of the SMC’s business - Late-invoice collection The issue of high collection period ratio (or late – invoice payment) has been cited as a major problem facing business, and in the 2016 Debt Management Report of SMC Tan Tao, the unusually high rate of late payment of commercial debt has found when 67% of customers by revenue have invoices that pay later than the payment term The below chart will show average number of days overdue in 2016: Customer's payment status of SMC TT in 2016 Timely Payment Timely Payment 33% 4% 17% - 10 Days Overdue 11 - 20 Days Overdue 21 - 40 Days Overdue 29% 17% Longer than 40 Days Overdue Figure Customer's payment status of SMC TT in 2016 PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION 2.1 Situation analysis To determine whether or not average collection period (Table 2) results are good, simply compare average against the credit terms SMC Tan Tao offer their clients The company allows their 71 / 108 client credit terms less than 15 days (account for 72.40% of sales revenue), but the average collection period is 31.03 (Table 2) days, which is troublesome The below table will show detail of average number of days overdue in 2016 Table Number of day overdue of customer Unit: Number of customer In according to the information provided by planning department, only 33% of SMC TT’s customer have timely payment with their payable account This ratio, is significant higher than the average industry ratio, although the day of overdue is the same, usually less than to weeks According to Atradius Survey Reveals state that (7) nearly 40% of the value of B2B invoices in Western Europe paid late Overdue invoices paid on average within three weeks of due date in respondents paid their suppliers late due to B2B customer's late payment Furthermore, we conducted the survey and sent to all customers who have late payment to find out the reasons which resulted into the symptom “Late invoice collection” Finally, we found out and summarized three main reasons that customer usually argued as following: I: Could you explain it more clearly? days is not the short time X: Let me see… I usually see your invoice after 2-5 days after received goods then I have to check again and sent it to the accounting department If everything all right we’ll make the payment for supplier every Tuesday or Friday I: But why take up to days to get an invoice? X: I receive the draft invoice one days after you delivery goods via the email from Ms Trinh, your billing employee But you know, I have a lot of emails every working days so sometimes I haven’t check her email if she or salesman doesn’t make the follow-up call I: I can sympathize with your reasoning, but I just can't take for granted that it's completely sound X: And another reasons, it happen regularly There are the mistakes with draft invoice that lead to take another days to resolve After that, although all the paper were completely full, I even have to get my bill the next working days I: Ok I understand that issue days to get the invoice to your office is not the short time X: Thank for understanding I don’t want to make the late payment but you have to send to me the quality and accurate invoice If not, it will wasting time and money for both companies I: Yes I quite agree with you Do you think whether salesman effort is a factor that raise this problem? X: Um… I think your company’s salesman should have the responsibility in help me in tracking my payable He only remind me once a week about the late invoice I have, but he doesn’t list them more specific I What did he talk to you? X “Could you please make the payment soon?” The boring question and he doesn’t know what really causes which make my company pay the invoice late I Could you tell me more specific about the role of salesman in tracking debt? 42 X I suggest maybe he should make more call to follow the debt, sent me the database for me every week to remind me which invoice is sent and make the payment soon I: So is there anything else that you would like to add? X: Nope, I think that about covers it I: Well, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today I really appreciate it Transcript Name: Mr Tien Days overdue: 21-35 days Position: Director Main reason: Company is in financial difficulty I: Hi Mr B How are you today? T: Hello Cuong, which issues you have any for me today? I: Thanks for understanding Today, I’m going to conduct the interview with you about my company’ problem, that’s late – invoice collection This problem occur very regularly, and you know it’ll affect my company operation You have been a valued customer for many years so I really want to know what reasons that make you make the payment later than the signed contract T: Um… About the invoice, how many days we make the payment for your company later than the signed contract? I: It’s between 21 and 35 days It’s too late than usual, which problems with the invoice you face to? T: The salesman offer me 15 days payment term in the contract, but you know my customer… I have not been paid by my customer yet, they pay the invoice for my company 30 days – 45 days Therefore, I think I need a longer payment term to make the payment on time I: Could you tell me more specific about this matter? 43 T: I have to buy in the materials costs money before the work is even started So I needs customers to pay promptly when their bills fall due But that doesn’t happen often, so almost 80% of the projects company’s worked on recently have been paid late I: But in the past, the salesman increase the payment term from days to 15 days for your company I think this’s your problem and you should balance you budget before deciding to purchasing materials T: Yes, I know By agreeing to the terms and conditions, I has an obligation to pay you within the time frame specified But you see… although I don't have the money right now but I will pay your company as soon as possible I: But why don’t you make an immediate partial payment and provide salesman with an exact date that he will receive the rest? T: Um… I did that several time You can see I’m the big client and we’re working together for many years My orders in huge quantities need an equivalent amount of money If the customer has not paid me, I have to disburse money at the bank so that I can make a replacement Disbursement in banks is quite troublesome so it is difficult to confirm the exact time I: So maybe your company was offered too much credit than ability so you cannot carry big orders? T: I agree with you in principle, but it is not as simple as it seems If you want to have the big deal you have to follow the order carefully Your salesman know this rule, without grating credit he can’t get order in bulk like that I: It seems I understand the reason But you said you have work with SMC Tan Tao for a long time so why your business still not overcome this problem T: Unfortunately we can’t grow the business We at best can stagnate where we are We had to let one of our apprentices go through a very difficult time that we suffered at the beginning of the year, and something we’re hopefully trying to push on from that, but we need to be on a steady firm footing to be able to that 44 I: So from what you’re saying, the situation is getting worse? T: I believe it is If I can give you an example, three years ago we had no money outstanding beyond fifteen days I hope it plateaus off and doesn’t become any worse because we certainly couldn’t carry on in business if it does I: So is there anything else that you would like to add? T: Nope, I think that about covers it I: Well, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today I really appreciate it Transcript Name: Ms Hang Days overdue: 11-20 days Position: Purchasing manager Main reason: They have other critical supplier I: Hi Ms C How are you today? H: Nothing much What’s up? I: I’d like to have the short interview with you Could you give me 15 minutes to make it? H: Ok Sure Which topic you want to talk about? I: Today, I’m going to conduct the interview with you about my company’ problem, that’s late – invoice collection This problem occur very regularly, and you know it’ll affect my company operation You have been a valued customer for many years so I really want to know what reasons that make you make the payment later than the signed contract H: Please tell me more specific about those late invoices, this is a common problem in the steel industry I: According to the information we received, you usually have the late invoice between 11-20 days, the value of each invoice is from 500 million to billion dong H: 11 – 20 days, that’s not significant time comparing with the amount of material we bought every month We’re big company but the budget can’t be pay for all the 45 supplier on time Therefore, we have listed out a few of the most popular ones below for both domestic and overseas suppliers, and turnaround capital for each vendor I: So this mean my company is not number priority? H: Well not exactly We pay back according to the turnaround policy, this time can be sooner and the other time can be later I: Are there any factors encouraging your company pay the supplier sooner? H: There are actually have some factor You means…my director usually rank the supplier based on the quality of material, time of delivery, others commission for paying earlier I: Commission for early payment? Does it means early payment discount? H: Yes, exactly An early payment discount is offered by some suppliers to motivate credit customers to pay sooner If the our company has adequate cash or a readily available line of credit, the 1% early payment discount for paying 20 days early equates to a very attractive annual return of approximately 18% If we does not have cash or a credit line available, the early payment discount may be small compared to a bank overdraft fee I: Not all sellers offer discounts for early payments? H: Just a few But the other suppliers usually have the awards for customer who have on time payment for a half of year or a year The discounts or awards add up over time to save company a significant amount of money, particularly if several of suppliers offer them I: I see, but your company can be claimed interest and debt recovery costs if business is late paying for goods Follow the invoice payment term in SMC Tan Tao sales contract, the statutory late payment interest rate can be up to 1% per month H: Do you think how your customers will react if you charge interest on late payments? Taking legal action for non-payment can be costly and irrecoverably damage relationship, and your salesman know that very clearly 46 I: May it simply be worth being selective about who you want as customers? H: If it happen, this’s the last time I choose your company is a suppliers for following order in the future I Ok, I got it Do you have other commentary for improve this problem? H: No, I think that’s enough for today I: Well, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today I really appreciate it 7.6 The unstructured interview Transcript Name: Ms Trinh Working at SMC Tan Tao for years Position: Billing employee I: Good afternoon How you to today? T: Thanks you, everything is still good thought I’m have lot of papers So what you want to tell with me? I: Today, I’m going to conduct the interview with you about your company’ phenomenon, that’s late – invoice payment Do you know about this problem? T: In the meeting, the management usually remind salesperson about customers who have late-invoices I So whenever salesman remind you to send the invoice as soon as possible? T: Yes They often urge me to send the invoice quickly but you know… I have hundreds of customer to contact and discuss about those invoice so how can I sent them in a days I really want to help salesperson to improve this situation but I don’t have the responsibility to send reminders for payments and contact customers 47 I: Tell me more about your job responsibilities? For example: T: Manage account balances to discover outstanding debts or other inconsistencies and collect all information needed to calculate bills receivable After that I check the data input in the accounting system to ensure accuracy of final bill, answer questions and handle complaints from customers regarding bills Next I issue invoices and bills and sent them to customers through various channels (mail, email etc.) and sent customer account statements periodically or whenever necessary Every day, I update all accounting records with new payments, balances, customer information etc…Finally once a week I report on activity to upper management and sales department I: How long the invoice was came to the customer? T: It’s depend on many factor The earliest is in days from the date of receipt of the goods if every is Ok I: Why it take even days if there’re nothing wrong? T: I must pass these bills from the operations department, where the liability was originally created, to the accounting department, where it must be recorded Finally, I show them to the deputy director to confirm the invoice There are three approval for each invoice That is too much! I: So it’s depend on your company procedure If the invoice got some problem, what is that? T: Sometimes I send the invoice to the wrong address or contact, that will probably be different from the person who ordered the work, because large organizations can be complicated and sending an invoice to the wrong address could lead to it being lost or delayed In addition, some company have the complicated procedure so I really waste time to complete all of them I: Some customer have tell me about the unclear on the invoice, so what’re your opinions? 48 T: In cases of newly incorporated companies or startups like SMC Tan Tao, internal accounting problems frequently pop up because of lack of proper departmental systems in place or simple because lack of employee Only I have to take over them is impossible I: So what you want to tell with the management if you have chances? I mean the changes to improve the invoice processing system T: In my opinions, they should have the automated invoice processing It can significantly reduce the time, cost, risk and complexity of capturing, routing and approving invoices By reducing invoice processing time, company can secure early-payment discounts and improve vendor relations, and also free up staff to work on business-critical activities With a documented, automated invoicing process, I’ll simplify audit response and gain greater oversight into bottlenecks or inefficiencies I: And last question, what you can to help salesman restrict those late invoice? T: As I mentioned above, the purpose of the monthly debt statement is to tell customers about their current outstanding balance This is to give a brief and clear report of the previous months, and finally to reminder the outstanding bills I: OK, thank you very much indeed Transcript Name: Mr Tung Working at SMC Tan Tao for years Position: Salesman I: Hi Mr D How you today? T: Thanks for asking, I'm doing fine though super busy What’s up? I: Today, I’m going to conduct the interview with you about your company’ problem, that’s late – invoice collection First, could you tell me about your customer, they usually have the overdue invoices? 49 T: They often have the late – invoice, almost 70% of my customer have this problem but it’s about 5-15 days Only a few of them have a payout date greater than 20 I So what did you to to resolve this problem? Do you remind them every day? T: The customer who have less days overdue, in this case, you better shouldn’t remind them about those invoices if you don’t want to break close relationship with them In the other hand, it’s difficult to detect less-than-7-days late invoice I have nearly 50 customer and customer’s payment progress system is too hard to use and control So if customer don’t make the payment until a week, I will be notified about this issue when the Planning Dep sent the payment report for every week I: What happen if the customer doesn’t even make the payment within a week? T: We put together all of the evidence, setting out the invoices, the due dates, the times it should have been paid, what the amounts were that we were claiming in accordance with legislation and our costs incurred in reclaiming those debts I: How long have you been kept waiting by them? T: Well, the longest one I can recall was about days Because of our experience now with them I don’t give them that kind of latitude any more We remind them that as in the law we are entitled to start charging interest from the date the invoice falls due, and we will tell them that we will start doing that unless they pay it very promptly I: The interest? Did you mean the late payment fee charge? In any case, you have to apply a penalty to them? T: Yes, the payment fee charge about 1%/month But the truth is interest on late payment is not rigorously enforced You know… if you’re a small business, the chances are there are many, many other suppliers, many other small businesses who sell the goods and services that you sell And if you go along to a large organization who is buying your goods and services and say, ‘You haven’t paid me on time,’ what you’re going to get is that the customer might actually pay you, but they might also then stop doing business with you, so this is the problem with the 50 power relationships in these kind of business to business relationships And what we found consistently is that small businesses are very, very reluctant in the main to actually exercise their rights, because they know they’re kissing goodbye to that business relationship I: How about the customer who have overdue day long than 20 days? Do they tell you the reason? T: It was very difficult, they were quite evasive We wouldn’t get emails responded to or letters responded to or we would get passed around phone calls, but no one actually coming back saying why they weren’t paying, and then you would have to keep chasing them We were then, you know another week further on and they still weren’t committing to why they weren’t paying I: And to be clear, from your point of view, there were no extenuating circumstances? T: There were no extenuating circumstances; there were no mistakes on my part The materials that were provided were fully qualified, finished and in terms of the service provided, they were fully satisfied There was no discussion over the quality of the work done I: So is there anything else that you would like to add? T: It’s about how company evaluate salesman’s performance SMC Tan Tao put KPIs in place to measure the relative sales performance of salesperson It then created league tables and rewarded the best performing sales quota The result was, the salesperson wants to sell to anybody and everybody, and be comfortable with the client’s ability to pay to receive incentives for closing sales I: Did you means salesperson should not involve in collecting attempt? T: Yes Exactly, credit department should be main responsible for this duty The salesperson is the one with the relationship with the customer and should be used to resolve conflicts or billing discrepancies between the two companies If you put the salesperson in the role of collecting money that gets over 30, 60, 90 days or whenever…, the salesperson starts to become a bill collector in the eyes of the 51 customer This starts to put the “wall up” that the salesperson has had to overcome in the beginning to gain the trust of the customer At this point the salesperson is not as welcomed during the visits with the customer because the customer is not knowing what to possibly expect for that visit/ call I: OK, thank you very much indeed Transcript Name: Mr Thanh Working at SMC Tan Tao for years Position: Sales manager I: Hi Mr Thanh How’s your work today? T: Oh, same as usual A lot of work but I still can manage I: I knew you were busy with your job Could you give me 15 minutes to make the interview with you T: OK I’ll give you 15 minutes, so what you want to talk about? I: Today, I’m going to conduct the interview with you about what causes of lateinvoice collection You know there are 70% of invoice is paid late by client, so I think that is the big problem that you need to discover So base on company’ job description, who is responsible for the debt collection task? T: Uh… that’s belong to the sales department My company don’t deliberate to put the task of collecting on the salesperson but, you see they are people who talk with customer more than others, so they can use their close relationship to and get things resolved quickly I: Are there any other department helping them in collecting late-invoice? T: Our planning and accounting department While planning department provide a monthly summary about debt status to each salesperson for showing their customers overdue invoices This helps generate clear communication about payable receivable of customers Furthermore, accounting department is also in 52 involved in the collection effort They check the delinquency number of customers on the company's ERP system If the number of days is over 10 days or significant increases than the credit limits, will have alerts by email for salesperson In addition, salesperson are generally asked for information they might have about customer’s business to provide for planning department to re-assess the credit limit if necessary I: Does debt collection impact on salesperson commissions? T: Actually, no As soon as an account is aged 10 days beyond terms the sales team should be alerted and asked to contact the customer as a matter of a customer relations gesture – just to make sure everything’s OK In addition, at this point, the sales team must be cautioned to avoid any contact with the customer, regardless of their commission situation I: How about the training program? How does salesperson have skills for better debt collection? T: We not have any training program for salesperson for collecting debt They have to learn everything themselves by observation how other people work, we are a friendly team and everyone is happy to support each other I: But some companies have it all wrong They invest a lot in product innovation, marketing and R&D, but not in their current Salesforce… especially when the competition is fierce T: Yes I have the same ideas with you, salespeople can play a very useful role By using their personal relationships combined with their knowledge of the internal workings of the debtor company to bring additional pressure to bear on the right person or department There are times when customers would rather have a comfortable conversation with their sales rep than a conversation with the financial/credit personnel They are more apt to give up why they are slowing than have to make up lies or excuses on why they cannot pay I: Are there any gaps between your sales & collections department? 53 T: It’ depend on sales effort How long they spent to read and analyze the credit report every day Time is money in sales In the working hours, salesman have to make many calls to have the order and handle other procedures If he want to manage debt well, he spend more time after working hours to detect which customers have late –invoice and remind them soon I: So with customer who can’t track their payable like that, what action salesman should to do? Could you tell me your solution? T Salesperson need to have more attention for this kind of customer than others They certainly have the schedule to follow-up them regularly and notify customer that they have an upcoming overdue invoice Plan to remind customer before and after the payment date will become a part of standard operating procedure In addition, depending on how customer relationship is close, if email, phone or even debt reminder letters are not powerful enough to make them get paid… in this case the last choice is salesman may have to others receivables management methods such as invoice factoring, or collecting agency and capture the attention of anyone who is primary in a position to pay those late invoice I That’s sound an appropriate solution So what other commentary? 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OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business Nguyen Hung Cuong SALESPERSON FAILURE IN SMC TAN TAO LIMITED COMPANY MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR:... symptom in company, based on that content to validate causes of salesperson failure 1 PROBLEM CONTEXT 1.1 Company background SMC Tan Tao Limited Company is the company professional in trading and... work in batches and it may take them a week or more to invoice their customers Ms Trinh, the billing staff, has the duty that include combining and processing the vendor invoices into bills or invoices