HRM: Diversity in building effective global sales teams for
Ace Consulting
Scenario:
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.
Task needing assistance – The laws of the United States
protect the rights of individuals based on race, color, religion, sex and
national origin. In an expanded view of diversity, what other aspects of
diversity would you want to include on the new global sales teams to enhance
their ability to have a wide range of insight? For example, would you want to
have some people at different levels and areas of technical experience or from
a diversity of cultural backgrounds, to look at issues from different perspectives?
Identify and discuss three other diverse elements that you
would want to have on your team. Write a brief description of each skill or
trait and explain why you think it would be important for your team to have
someone with this talent on the team.
Now you will discuss these things with the other HR
managers. Include in your responses whether you think including the suggested
aspect of diversity will add significant value to the team.
Diversity in these categories for example:
1 – Informational diversity such as work experiences,
education, training, functional expertise.
2 – Value diversity – differences in work values or goals.
However, any assistance/further knowledge would be
appreciated.
