Question

Limited Resources
Maria Pajet, a regional sales representative for UniTec Systems, Inc., has been working about 80 hours per week calling on a total of 123 regular customers each month. Because of family and health considerations, she has decided to reduce her hours to a maximum of 160 per month. Unfortunately, this cutback will require Maria to turn away some of her regular customers or, at least, serve them less frequently than once a month. Maria has developed the following information to assist her in determining how to best allocate time:

	Customer Classification
	Large Business	Small Business	Individual
Number of customers	8	35	80
Average monthly sales per customer	$5,500	$2,700	$1,300
Commission percentage	5%	8%	10%
Hours per customer per monthly visit	5.0	3.0	2.5

a. Develop a monthly plan that indicates the number of customers Maria should call on in each classification to maximize her monthly sales commissions.
b. Determine the monthly commissions Maria will earn if she implements this plan.

In the first table, calculate the commission per customer and per hour for each customer classification.

In the second table, complete the monthly call/visit plan that would maximize Maria's monthly sales commissions. Then determine Maria's monthly commissions if she implements this plan.

	Commission per customer	Commission per hour
Large business	Answer	Answer
Small business	Answer	Answer
Individual	Answer	Answer

	Monthly Call/Visit Plan
	Total number of customers	Total number of visit hours	Total commissions
Large business	Answer	Answer	Answer
Small business	Answer	Answer	Answer
Individual	Answer	Answer	Answer
Grand totals:	Answer	Answer	Answer

Answer 1

(a)
	Commission per customer	Commission per hour
Large Business	$ 275 ( $ 5,500 x 5% )	$ 55 ( $ 275 / 5)
Small Business	$ 216 ( $ 2,700 x 8% )	$ 72 ( $ 216 / 3)
Individual	$ 130 ( $ 1,300 x 10% )	$ 52 ( $ 130 / 2.5)

(b)
	Monthly call/Visit plan
	Total number of customers	Total number of visit hours	Total Commissions
Large Business	8	40 (8 x 5)	$ 2,200 ( 40 x$ 55)
Small Business	35	105 ( 35 x 3 )	$ 7,560 ( 105 x $ 72)
Individual	6 ( 160 (-) 40 (-) 105 ) / 2.5 )	15 ( 160 (-) 40 (-) 105 )	$ 780 ( 15 x $ 52)
Grand totals	49	160	$ 10,540