Global Team Based Sales Force
You are one of four regional Human Resources Managers
employed by Ace Consulting, an international consulting firm. You have been
assigned to the International Sales division. Currently, one HR Manager is
assigned to each of the four global regions: the US, Europe, Asia and Latin
America. You report to the Corporate HR Director.
It has become apparent to management that their global
customers are critical to their future growth. If there is a need to serve any
locations of a customer in another region, there is no good contact point or
process to handle it. This gets confusing and is not effective for the larger
customers. There is a desire to greatly improve the communication and
coordination across regions. Top Ace management has decided that the sales
force needs to be organized in teams across regions to better serve these
critical global customers.
The HR Director has given you and the other three HR
managers the task of developing and implementing a new global-team-based sales
force. You will need to design the appropriate team make-up, determine the best
way to staff these teams, provide guidance on developing a consistent global
approach, design the team-building tools needed to establish these teams, and
conduct the necessary training. You also need to design a compensation program
that will support the team concept, give incentive to the best performers, and
maintain a stable workforce.
You are now in a planning meeting with the four HR Managers
and the Corporate HR director.
Ace Consulting will need to use approximately 1/2 of their
current staff to continue servicing only customers in their own region. The
remaining sales force will serve the needs of the global customers that are
part of the new strategic direction. Use all materials at your disposal, the
Library and the Internet, as well as your own business understanding, to
address at least two of the following questions/areas you are discussing in the
meeting. Identify the criteria you would use to select members for the global
sales teams.
1. Decide which type of team or combination of types of
teams would best serve the needs of Ace Consulting. How would you begin to
build such a team?
2. How you would begin the process of building trust on
these newly formed global teams? How would you compensate for their geographic
remoteness? Include ideas from your own experience where you saw good teamwork
because team members trusted each other.
