Welcome to Sales Management: Addition By Subtraction?

This case deals with the marketing and sales functions of an educational organisation. The case is set within the Executive Education department of the Nagopian School of Foreign Trade (NSFT), a hypothetical private university located in Southeast Asia. This group is tasked with running for-profit training programmes for would-be participants. The university president has instructed Rakesh Sharma, the newly appointed head of Executive Education to turn around the financial fortunes of the unit. However, he has also stated that he would not get any more promotional budget, nor headcount.

NSFT offers three types of Executive Education Programmes: Public Short Programmes, Custom Programmes, and Diploma Programmes. The students are given some revenue and cost information from the past performance of the Executive Education unit and are expected to give recommendations for how to improve its financial performance.

The case provides information on the sales force size, the number of hours it takes to sell a typical short course programme, the advertising expenditure for each type of programme (and the per programme expenditures for each individual short-programme, and the number of attendees of short programme offering). Sharma must make decisions about the product portfolio, sales force allocation, and promotional expenditures that will best impact his financial performance.

The case deals with resource allocation, profitability, sales force efficiency, and portfolio management in a profit-seeking organisation.

Inspection copies and teaching notes are available for university faculty. To receive an inspection copy and teaching note, please email cmpshop@smu.edu.sg with your registered faculty email ID and a link to your contact information on the faculty directory at your university as verification. An inspection copy and teaching note will then be sent to your faculty email account.

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SMU Faculty/Staff can download the case and teaching note with your SMU login ID and Password via the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-24-0013)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-24-0013TN)

For purchase of the case and supplementary materials via The Case Centre, please access the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-24-0013)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-24-0013)

For purchase of the case and supplementary materials via Harvard Business Publishing, please access the following links:

·      The Case (SMU-24-0013)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-24-0013)