Improving sales management and performance the case of thyssenkrupp materials vietnam’s hanoi office

Lunghwa University of Science and Technology Department of Business Administration Dissertation for a Master’s Degree Improving Sales Management and Performance – the case of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s Hanoi office Researcher: Le Thi Thuy Supervisor: Nguyen Phu Hung (Ph.D.) Supervisor 2: Shih, Chiao-Wang Lunghwa University of Science and Technology Approval Certificate of Master's Degree Examination Board This is to certify that the Master’s Degree Examinations Board has approved the dissertation Improving Sales Management and Performance – the case of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s Hanoi office published by Ms Le Thi Thuy in the Master Program of Graduate School of Department of Business Administration Master’s Degree Examination Board Board Prof.PhD Tsan Chia -Chi Members： Assoc Prof PhD Nguyen Van Dinh Dr Doan Thu Trang Advisors： Shih, Chiao-Wang Nguyen Phu Hung (PhD) Chair： Prof.PhD Tsan Chia -Chi Date: 24/11/2018 ABSTRACT Dissertation Title: Improving Sales Management and Performance – the case of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s Hanoi office Pages: 52 University: Lunghwa University of Science and Technology Graduate School: Department of Business Administration Date: July, 2017 Graduate Student: Le Thi Thuy Degree: Master Advisor: Nguyen Phu Hung (PhD) Keywords: Sales management; performance management The dissertation is to evaluate the competency of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam and discuss the implications to how Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam could improve the performance The research helps to understand the current situation, advantages and difficulties of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam at the moments The research found challenges in sales management from the sales force and from the environment The research propose groups of solutions – the first is to improve the sales management control, and the second is to improve the sales I would like my proposals would provide valuable contribution to COMA2 to make its business better i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It is a great pleasure for me to work with this dissertation I would especially like to thank all teachers, professors for all knowledge, skills and information I received It is very wonderful chance to work with so excellent and enthusiastic professors I am also very grateful to my tutor, Professor Nguyen Phu Hung, for his support I appreciate all his time and efforts to encourage and guide me during my dissertation writing I would like to thank my colleagues, my customers for helping me to support me information to complete this dissertation and answer the questionnaire for my research This dissertation cannot be done without their help Finally, I would like to thank and dedicate this dissertation to my family for the unconditional support, who consistency motivated me to complete the dissertation Best regards, Thank you! Le Thi Thuy ii TABLES OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii TABLES OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii BACKGROUND OF THESIS 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Problem statement 1.2.1 Introduction to Thyssenkrupp 1.2.2 Key issues Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam is facing and the necessity of this research 1.3 Dissertation objective 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Scope of research 1.6 Structure of dissertation 1.7 Plan of implementation 10 LITERATURE REVIEW 11 2.1 Introduction 11 2.2 Sales management – definition and concept 11 2.3 Components of sales management 11 2.4 Sales Force Performance and Methods to improve sales results 13 2.4.1 Behavioral performance 13 2.4.2 Outcome performance 14 2.4.3 Sales Management Control System 14 2.4.4 Sales Force Performance Ratings 15 2.4.5 Methods to improve sales results 16 2.5 Factors affecting sales management performance 17 2.6 Framework to analyze this case study 18 METHODOLOGIES AND DATA 20 3.1 Methodologies 20 iii 3.2 Data 20 3.3 Survey description 20 3.3.1 Target respondent 21 3.3.2 Questionnaire 21 DATA RESULTS AND FINDINGS 22 4.1 Introduction 22 4.2 Survey results 22 4.2.1 Sales analysis 22 4.2.2 Sales management analysis 26 4.3 Discussions of the results 29 4.3.1 Challenges in production affect the sales performance 29 4.3.2 The quality of workforce should be improved 29 4.3.3 Price risk in the competitive market 30 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT 31 5.1 Introduction 31 5.2 Solution to enforce the sales management control to improve outcome performance 31 5.2.1 Reevaluate and Rebuild the performance measurement system 32 5.2.2 Improve the behavior-based sales management systems 32 5.2.3 Give sales managers higher authority and room to monitor, direct, evaluate, and reward salespeople to create high-performing sales forces 33 5.2.4 Improve skill of sales managers 34 5.2.5 Conduct internal research to identify useful predictors of salesperson performance 34 5.2.6 Build the Sales Territory Design for each salesman 35 5.2.7 Manage sales knowledge 36 5.3 Solution to improve sales results 37 5.3.1 Promote the organizational commitment of salesforce 37 5.3.2 Improve recruitment process and selection to get better employees 37 5.3.3 Strengthen the role at any level of customer-centric 38 5.3.4 Training sale representatives 39 5.3.5 Create sales scorecard to track and review performance 40 CONCLUSION 42 iv 6.1 Contribution of this research 42 6.2 Future research 42 LIST OF REFERENCES 43 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The assessment of different challenges/risks involved to Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam business 23 Table 2: Problems from external business context 24 Table 3: The average age of workers 24 Table 4: The comparative quality of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s employees compared to others competitors 25 Table 5: The main causes of the spread of certain cases of poor production performance 26 Table 6: The factors affecting the profitability of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam company 27 Table 7: Example of metrics by timeframe 40 Table 8: Example of a weekly table Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam can use 40 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Development of Thyssenkrupp Material Vietnam Figure 2: Material facility Figure 3: Products of Thyssenkrupp Material Vietnam in Mechanical Cateogry Figure 4: Plant products of Thyssenkrupp Figure 5: Cutting machines Figure 6: Products of Thyssenkrupp in Plant category Figure 7: Services the company provides .4 Figure 8: Customers of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam Figure 9: The new and Sleeping Customer FY2016-17 Figure 10: Structure of the Thyssenkrupp Material Vietnam Figure 11: Business result for years Figure 12: Business result for years - output by industry .7 Figure 13: Business result for years, cycle of using cash .7 Figure 14: Components of sales management 13 Figure 15: Analytical framework to assess the sales management performance of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam company 19 vii BACKGROUND OF THESIS 1.1 Introduction This dissertation will study the case of the Thyssenkrupp AG and Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam In this Chapter, I will briefly review the status-quo of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam, the problems it is facing that necessitate to be solved 1.2 Problem statement 1.2.1 Introduction to Thyssenkrupp Thyssenkrupp possesses engineering expertise in the three areas of Mechanical, Plant and Materials that enable customers to gain an edge in the global market Thyssenkrupp focuses its actions geared towards long-term value growth Figure 1: Development of Thyssenkrupp Material Vietnam 4.3 Discussions of the results With the survey results above, the research come up to the following discussions 4.3.1 Challenges in production affect the sales performance If the production units cannot produce products in time schedule, the sales would badly impacted The overall degree of challenges/risks facing Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam in business is very high Almost half of the workforce contended that the business is in threats That high risk is a result of several elements First, Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam must invest to upgrade the technologies because the problems relating to technique and technology-related have been affecting manufacturing productivity (see first column of Table 1) 4.3.2 The quality of workforce should be improved As much as 38% of responses contend that this factor affect Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam a lot (see second column of Table 1) The strength of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam workforce:  level of education of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam staffs is good Compared to other types of businesses, the level of education of workforces in the steel manufacturing sector is generally higher The rate of laborers managing intermediate and primary secondary education is 32%; the rate of middle and primary level managers is 32%  The results of a study of 92 field sales managers and back-office staffs in Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam indicate that sales force with high behavior and outcome performance experience a greater extent of sales manager monitoring, directing, evaluating, and rewarding than those with lower performance The highperformance sales forces also have greater commitment to their organizations, and their sales managers are more satisfied with their units' sales territory design The weakness of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam workforce:  The compliance of worker to internal operational procedures is also problematic almost 30% of surveyees contend that this is a big problem 29  The average age of workers is over 40 years old The steel businesses not attract young people with high level of knowledge Most managers after a period of work show their capacity, accumulate more experience and relationships are moving to better positions; or some management, although very enthusiastic with their job but the income from steel production is too low to meet the minimum living standards That is the reason why they leave the current position for other businesses or corporations paying higher wages  The langue skill of staff is weak Globalization will force sales managers of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam to represent the company to a wide variety of diverse clients This means that the importance of foreign language skills and cultural experience will increase significantly for both sales managers and sales representatives of company Threat of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam workforce: 4.3.3 Price risk in the competitive market This reflects risks associated with changes in the price of output or of inputs that may occur after the commitment to production has begun In steel-related product production, generally the manufacturing is a lengthy process, typically requires ongoing investments in materials and equipment that may not produce returns for several months or years Because markets are generally complex and involve both domestic and international, profit of the Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam may dramatically affected by abnormal events For example, recently, the U.S has taxed steel products imported to protect its domestics steel industry, that makes steel-product prices become higher 30 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT 5.1 Introduction The interviews presented in the previous Chapter has revealed problems of high focus on the areas of (l) the impact of technology; (2) the increasing influence of globalization; and (3) the need for more highly trained and qualified sales and marketing personnel This Chapter recommends solutions to address these problems The Chapter also identifies limitation of the research The solutions below are put into groups One is for improving sales management The other is for improving sales 5.2 Solution to enforce the sales management control to improve outcome performance Certain units of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam has not had Behavior-Based Management Control system Managing salesperson performance increasingly places more emphasis on the role of the sales manager in helping salespeople perform well As suggest in the literature review, the sales management control components include:  the extent of monitoring,  directing  evaluating  rewarding As found in the literature review, the extent of sales manager monitoring, directing, evaluating, and rewarding is significantly different between the high- and low-outcome performance A sales manager must score in these activities substantially for the sales teams to be high-performance groups If sales managers not exercise enough behavior-based control or not have required skills in performing the activities, the 31 incentives or forces that make sales teams to work harder may be absent, leading to sales outcomes would be less than it could be 5.2.1 Reevaluate and Rebuild the performance measurement system Most sales managers base their performance assessments heavily on the sales results of salespeople Sales managers of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam should continue to keep score using sales results but should also should recognize the importance of the salesperson behavior that leads to higher sales results Specifically, sales managers should also emphasize the importance of customers relationship management to sales Sales teams who can build long term relationships with customers should be given higher attention (in terms of higher sales budget, carrier path, compensation, etc.) because they would play important roles in making customers loyal to Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam 5.2.2 Improve the behavior-based sales management systems The Table shows that the Compliance of workers to operational procedures is having problem, and the Table shows that the Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s quality management system is of poor quality As found in the literature review, the organizational commitment is one of major drivers to improve the sales results The salesperson's commitment to the sales organization should be higher when working under a behavior-based management control system Moreover, sales force behavior performance should also be higher Therefore, Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam should pay attention to the behavior-based sales management systems Anderson and Oliver propose that salespeople in management systems that are more behavior-based will better in meeting organizational goals and serving customer needs but will perform more poorly on traditional output measures of performance The actions of a behavior-based management control system may include: First, Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam must establish the long-term goal of selling and make salesforce to plan consistent with such goal There is empirical support that salespeople with plan consistent with company goal would display higher outcome 32 performance because the supports system of the company will fit/match with the sales activities and efforts Second, Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam must communicate the meaning to salesforce to make people understand why they should that When they understand and accept the goal, salespeople would improve their technical knowledge, adaptive selling, teamwork, sales presentation, sales planning, and sales support performance to higher levels so that they could reach higher outcome performance That solution is expected to bring about higher behavioral performance that leads to higher outcome performance in sales organizations where behavior-based management control is employed 5.2.3 Give sales managers higher authority and room to monitor, direct, evaluate, and reward salespeople to create high-performing sales forces Recently, due to shortage of personnel in time of economic crisis that made many sales managers to quit the Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam, the company does not have enough sales managers, therefore does not perform sales management activities to the needed levels In addition, most of the managerial decisions of sales managers need approval from higher management to become effective Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam mostly let salespersons to work by their owned Salespersons are to selfmanage their sales activities because most of the current sales managers not have enough time resources or knowledge to manage and direct the sales activities of the whole company In addition, many sales managers are considered by their subordinates not experienced enough to control them However, in appropriate management control could make troubles Because there are somehow causal impact of behavioral-based sales management control on sales force outcome performance, when the extent of sales manager monitoring, directing, evaluating, and rewarding is less, outcome performance tends to be lower That empirical fact shows that behavior-based control may enhance outcome performance This recommendation is based on the finding of Grant and Cravens (Grant & Cravens, 1996) The sales managers should use situations – negative as well as positive – as learning opportunities to help develop sales people 33 5.2.4 Improve skill of sales managers Both the extent of performing sales management control activities and the manager's skills in performing the activities are important to the Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam Behavior-based control requires focus on coaching and leading rather than commanding Coaching involves working with salespeople so that to help and support them to develop their selling skills and relationship strategies with customers In addition to the traditional command and control style, sales manager that is good coaches would provide more motivation to his sales team member The literature review shows management practices that highlight the trends toward new kind of management, which calls for  collaboration rather than commanding,  coaching rather than criticizing,  empowerment rather than domination,  sharing rather than withholding information, and  adapting management practices to individuals Though for many sales managers, such practices are more a dream than feasible actual practices, this trend does attract new attention in global companies like Thyssenkrupp In such case, the importance of sales managers' coaching skills has implications for both manager selection and training To make this approach to perform, it would take Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam many time In addition, sales managers point to the need for more training for themselves and their salespeople 5.2.5 Conduct internal research to identify useful predictors of salesperson performance The lessons from Spiro et all shows that sales managers must spend more time trying to identify useful predictors of salesperson performance (Spiro, Rich, & Stanton, 2008) The available knowledge the managers at Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam have accumulated has made only a limited contribution to understanding salesperson performance Without additional research efforts, the management would yield poor predictors of performance 34 The managers must clarify the right/wrong predictors, the right/wrong performance components, or faulty measures If any cause problems, that predictor should be addressed quickly 5.2.6 Build the Sales Territory Design for each salesman Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam has been mostly manage sales by account without considering the effects of geographic characteristics Lessons from Kramer and Meisenheimer show that the sales should be managed by territory because each terrirtory would have different characteristics that a single sales management mechanism cannot fit all (Kramer & Meisenheimer, 2018) The sales territory design includes determining territory boundaries (or account responsibility), deciding the size of the sales force, and allocating selling effort across customers and prospects Each sales territory must have its owned KPI target For example, if a salesperson's territory has low sales potential and a high intensity of competition compared to other territories, outcome performance is likely to be relatively low, even when the salesperson works hard and smart, therefore KPI given to him must be lower than the average In the opposite, salespeople assigned to more attractive territories with less competition have more opportunity for sales, thus his KPI targets should be designed higher than average The more satisfied sales managers are with their sales territory designs, the higher will be the behavior performance of salespeople, the higher will be the outcome performance of salespeople When the overall design is faulty, it may have a negative impact on salesperson performance Sales managers using behavior-based control can enhance performance through good sales territory design Salespeople compensated by a high proportion of salary are expensive investments and faulty territory design can negatively affect their productivity Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam can improve the satisfaction of territory sales managers through better sales territory designs in one of terms below:  number of accounts,  sales productivity,  geographical size,  number of calls, 35  travel requirements,  number of territories,  assignments of salespeople,  and workload equivalence),  also rate the behavior and outcome performance of their salespeople relatively high 5.2.7 Manage sales knowledge Sales knowledge has a clear correlation with thought leaders and early and lasting market success However, managing sales knowledge at Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam is a weakness This is an issue that surprisingly in my interviews with sales managers no one talked about Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam has a large portion of salesforce quit job every year The ones left must be replaced by new recruitments That newly recruited ones are often inexperienced and it take time for them to learn the practice at Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam as well as take over the customers left by the salesmen who quitted job However, many salesmen who quitted job did not transfer documents and knowledge of the customers to new staffs replacing them – this is understandable That practice make Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam meet many difficulty to retain current customers as well as attract new customers by the reference of the current customers In the context of sales, the importance of knowledge was well recognized The managers must specifically addresses knowledge management in the sales context Managers must called for increased attention to investigating knowledge related issues in sales management Therefore, in this approach, sales managers should discuss the concept of and issues related to knowledge-based sales management Knowledge of customers and sales that need to be retained regardless of who is in charged of the relationship or contract with customers include:  Customers profile  History of sales with customers: volumes, frequency, disputes;  Special needs of each of the customers;  Who refer customers to Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam? 36  Who that customer could refer products and services of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam to?  Other special notes: anniversary, etc To conduct that function, Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam must have a database to manage, process, and store data Sale teams regularly review those databases to see whom they are contacting, the frequency and nature of that contact, and whether sustained interaction aligns with product priorities and long-term business goals Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam should explore the potential for improving sales force productivity and for obtaining higher quality information with handheld devices First, they are relatively inexpensive Second, they allow real-time data or interaction between sales representative, customers, and sales managers at head quarter Sales force must be equipped with a software installed on new handheld devices and on existing laptops The sales team's success is a result of carefully refined requirements, training for rollout, and implementing systems that evaluate performance, goal achievement, and knowledge transfer 5.3 Solution to improve sales results 5.3.1 Promote the organizational commitment of salesforce Though there are not proven causality between commitment and performance, salespeople whose organizational commitment is high often get relatively higher behavior and outcome performance The literature review shows supports that people who are more committed to an organization are less likely to leave the organization Thus, Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam must have measures to promote the organizational commitment of salesmen the consequences of both being relatively high are favorable for the organization 5.3.2 Improve recruitment process and selection to get better employees In current Thyssenrupt situation, recruitment is a highlight issues which will have specific needs and expectations that will have to be matched There are sources to recruit good employees 37 Employee Referrals: This is an effective method of recruiting quality sales professionals, especially if these referrals come from Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s performing salesmen This is because employees of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam know the goals of business, the culture, the work environment, therefore would likely refer only candidates who fit with the company In addition, the candidates if recruited would go along with the current employees who referred them to Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam should use a referral bonus program that pays the referrer a bonus once a referral is hired and has been with the company for a specified period of time Job Boards: Job board postings are used for recruiting new talent Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam searching for top sales talent can offer candidates a thorough description of the position available, discuss elements of the sales compensation plan and specify requirements for the position before meeting directly with a candidate Social Media: this source disseminate information quick and wide It is a great cheap but effective resource for recruiting sales professionals and even if Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam does not recruit the candidates who sent the CV, the image of a successful company is still visible to publics Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam can give candidates an inside look at what it would be like to be a part of its sales force by recording and uploading videos to YouTube or by sharing pictures and updates from its sales awards meetings on Facebook Head hunter: Vietnamwork is a site that is popular in the job market It is used extensively among companies because it allows users to build a professional profile and share recommendations from bosses, colleagues and associates The site allows candidates to apply for jobs and share their LinkedIn profiles with recruiters 5.3.3 Strengthen the role at any level of customer-centric Senior leaders must advocate the importance of customer centricity and connect directly with high-value customers They should also visibly incorporate the customers’ voices in day-to-day management and resource allocation decisions Functional managers need to participate in regular feedback cycles and connect directly with customers They must engage in processing insights internally and across functions, and in developing solutions 38 Finally, frontline employees need to participate actively in truly engaging customers—arguably the biggest behavior change necessary Line employees lead on collecting customer feedback, closing feedback loops and acting on insights Leading requires honesty and courage on the part of individual employees and steady support from supervisors, who need to communicate often and clearly that the goal is continuous learning and steady improvement in providing a valuable customer experience 5.3.4 Training sale representatives Sales skills training course is critically needed for new salesmen who enter the salesforce recently Coaching is generally seen as a viable way of cultivating good employee morale and building successful employees and teams Creating and developing more sales skills courses which introduce participants to tools and techniques for selling, in a way that makes it easy for buyers to buy would help to enhance sale performance Coaching should focus on developing Thyssenrup people, supporting the effort and growth of sales people rather than pointing out failures or errors Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam should creating an environment where ‘failure’ is seen as a learning experience so that people are ready to share their mistake for their colleagues to discuss solution By this way, coaching provides an opportunity to really empower employees to make decisions and take actions Courses should be designed to help salesmen to  build salesmen’s confidence and beliefs about selling when making the initial contact with the potential customers;  understand how customers buy and the sales process to respond to customer preferences;  create first impression to further sales conversation; listen effectively and to ask questions to uncover customer needs and opportunities; Other purposes of training new salesmen include providing them with capability to build rapports, handle customer concerns and objections, acquire gaining commitment from customers 39 5.3.5 Create sales scorecard to track and review performance Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam tracks a lot of important metrics, but the scorecard should only shows what are relevant for sales representative and guide their everyday behavior A sales development scorecard might include calls, conversations, emails and sales accepted opportunities An account executive scorecard would likely have metrics like meetings, demos, proposals sent and closed won The metrics assigned to sales representatives and managers must be break down by timeframe, such as on a daily, weekly and monthly basis Table 7: Example of metrics by timeframe Activity Per Quarter Deals Per Month 10 Per Week Per Day N/ A Proposa 40 14 20 67 17 2,0 66 16 34 ls Sent Meeting s Calls 00 7 Track and review enable Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam to keep goals on pace and course-correct performance when metrics fall behind Table 8: Example of a weekly table Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam can use Activity Completed Total G oal Calls 35 81 % to Goal 80 On Pace 101 Y 105 Y 80% N % Conversations 14 42 40 % Opportunities Created 40 10 Wins 75% N These sales scorecards not only make salesman metrics highly visible They drive more revenue through a metrics-driven sales approach Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam should integrate the Salesforce management system with CRM system and other systems to allow automatically collecting and tracking metrics in real time Review metrics daily Make the data part of your weekly one-on-one sessions and have sales managers use it to determine where their team members need coaching Rewarding the success is important Any achievement should be recognised and celebrate success (depending on the effort involved in achieving the goal) 41 CONCLUSION 6.1 Contribution of this research In conclusion, Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s sales managers must explore the apparent link between the extent of management control and salesperson performance Sales managers must improve salesperson performance by considering increasing the extent to which they monitor, direct, evaluate, and reward salespeople Managing sales knowledge is important to sustain relationship with current customers regardless changes in salesmen Being an employee of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam, I hope this research would help the company to sustain development 6.2 Future research The research following this research could address the human resource management In order to improve the sales, the critical element is staffs who conduct sales strategy Training them to meet with the customer requirements is critically important to keep TMV comparably competitive to other competitors in the market 42 LIST OF REFERENCES Churchill, G A (1985) The determinants of salesperson performance: A meta-analysis Journal of Marketing Research, 22(2), 103−118 Cron, W L., Marshall, G W., Singh, J., Spiro, R L., & & Sujan, H (2005) Salesperson selection, training, and development: Trends, implications, and research opportunities Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 25(2), 123−136 Grant, K., & Cravens, D W (1996) Behavior-Based Sales Management Processes Industrial Marketing Management, 361—371 Hite, R E., & Bellizzi, J A (1986) A Preferred Style of Sales Management Industrial Marketing Management , 215—223 Hunt, S D (2002) Foundations of marketing theory: Toward a general theory of marketing Armonk, NY: M.E Sharpe Kramer, K., & Meisenheimer, M (2018) Managing Sales Territories for Maximum Sales Force Productivity Retrieved from https://salesmanagement.org/web/uploads/pdf/20d2db545335cfedd09a1276f32a b039.pdf Spiro, R L., Rich, G A., & Stanton, W J (2008) Management of a Sales Force, 12th Edition Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin 43 ... one is for improving sales management and the other is for improving sales 1.5 Scope of research Due to limits of time and finance, this research is to study the case of the Hanoi office only... Dissertation Title: Improving Sales Management and Performance – the case of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s Hanoi office Pages: 52 University: Lunghwa University of Science and Technology Graduate... Improving Sales Management and Performance – the case of Thyssenkrupp Materials Vietnam’s Hanoi office published by Ms Le Thi Thuy in the Master Program of Graduate School of Department of Business