Complete Leadership Challenge based on the attached material, marketing homework help

Leadership Challenge: Train What?

As Susan Jamison, director of sales training at O&F Products, a world leader in consumer packaged products based in Munich Germany, leaned back in her chair, she was thinking about the upcoming semiannual sales training sessions for the European sales force at O&F. These sessions took place over three days, and while regional directors around the world could alter some of the content to fit local needs, Susan was responsible for putting together the overall outline and content of the training. O&F placed a lot of emphasis on training, and these training sessions were a major element in the company’s ongoing commitment to having the best sales force in the industry.

After a series of meetings with senior sales managers as well as input from senior regional management in the company, she was unclear regarding the content of the training this year. Senior sales managers were calling for a focus on new-product information. The company had introduced a number of new products in the last several years, and sales for some of them had not met the company’s projections. Senior sales personnel felt it was due, in large part, to a lack of training. In addition, these same individuals felt salespeople would benefit from additional training on some of the existing products, particularly those in which O&F did not enjoy a market leadership position. At the same time, senior management, particularly the General Counsel for the company, wanted the focus to be on sales ethics. Recently, the European Union had been investigating the consumer packaged products industry for unfair and perhaps illegal sales practices to retailers. Given the aggressive nature of the EU’s regulatory agencies the General Counsel and several senior executives wanted the three-day training session to provide salespeople with a better understanding of O&F’s ethical practices as well as EU regulations on dealing with retailers.

Susan was in a tough position. She felt both groups had legitimate information to be presented during the training seminar. Unfortunately, there was only sufficient time to focus on one of the areas: ethics or product knowledge (Johnston & Marshall, 2013). 

Questions:

1.  What are the benefits and limitations of focusing on only product knowledge in training?

2.  Do you think you can really train sales ethics?

3. You are Susan Jamison. What would you choose to do in this situation and why?

 
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