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Leading the Effective Sales Force

Overview
Objectives
Profiles
Learning Experience
Faculty
Dates & Fees

Optimise sales performance for competitive advantage

For any organisation, the sales force is a major growth engine and a critical source of market feedback. It is also a substantial investment and one that can rapidly grow out of control. Stimulating the sales force while simultaneously controlling costs is a necessary but elusive balance.

Leading the Effective Sales Force is a joint INSEAD–Wharton marketing programme. This five-day programme is designed to help you optimise the performance of your sales force and learn how to cut costs while raising sales. Discover how, by analysing your sales calls, realigning territories, shifting product or market emphases, reallocating salesperson time or adjusting sales force size, you can generate maximum growth from your sales force. At the same time, discover how to motivate sales people and third-party distribution channels through compensation systems and organisational structures.

Key Benefits

Making the sales force a key source of sustainable competitive advantage for the organisation
Comprehensive approaches to motivate and compensate the sales force
Managing a dynamic sales force in the face of increasing product, consumer and market complexity

Programme partner

The programme will be of particular benefit to managers who are responsible for business development and planning in either local or international markets. Participants typically spend over 50% of their time managing sales force issues and have held the following positions:

General manager
Head of strategy
Marketing director
Business development manager
Regional director
Human resources director
Commercial director

Because sales tends to be an isolated function, we encourage companies to send multiple participants from different functions to the same session. Indeed, the Leading the Effective Sales Force programme is a way to build cross-functional ties and facilitate understanding which will lead to better sales results.

Programme partner

"I have been doing sales and marketing management for almost 10 years, now I know exactly what I have been doing!"

Managing Director
Wilkhahn Asia Pacific
Australia

"For me this was an exciting experience. I found out that such soft processes as sales can by systemized, analyzed and there are models to be applied to make a move towards effective organisation of sales force."

Managing Director / Owner
Krassy Sia
Latvia

"I am a new regional manager, and this course will be invaluable to my future success. The information was presented in an outstanding format that was easy to comprehend and retain. I highly recommend this course."

Regional Manager
Manufacturer

"This is not a standard training course. This is first-class, application-oriented, proven information. Best I have attended."

Vice President Sales
Telecommunications

"I had run out of ideas. Now I have more than I need to coach, motivate and properly compensate my sales force."

Regional Manager
Pharmaceutical

Programme partner

Great minds don’t think alike

INSEAD’s professors represent many cultures, disciplines, and perspectives. Led by acknowledged world experts in their own particular fields, programme faculty remain intimately close to business and most are engaged in cross-disciplinary research.*

V. (Paddy) Padmanabhan
Programme Director Fontainebleau and Singapore sessions

Professor of Marketing
The John H. Loudon Chaired Professor of International Management

Professor Padmanabhan's current research focuses on Business Opportunities and Challenges in Developing Economies, Economic Crises and their implications, Pricing and Supply Chain Management. He is among the top 250 most highly cited scholars in the world in Economics and Business. His research has generated numerous honors including recognition as among the Top 10 Most Influential Papers published in the 50 years of publication of Management Science (1954-2004). Read more...

Leonard Lodish
Programme Director Philadelphia sessions

Professor of Marketing
Samuel R. Harrell Professor
Vice Dean, Program for Social Impact
Leader and Co-founder, Global Consulting Practicum

Professor Lodish's research covers marketing decision support systems; marketing experimentation; entrepreneurial marketing; expert systems in marketing; sales force decision support; marketing resource allocation; promotion and advertising decision support. His current projects include using store scanner to estimate attribute importances & marketing mix impacts; command and control systems for marketing mix planning and execution. Read more...