Question

Tom Taylor, the Sales Manager, was told by his boss, Carl Bauer, to take an order from a new customer for a batch of products. Tom knew that the products involved would only partially meet the customer’s requirements and that Carl knew that. But, Carl insisted that the order was too valuable to lose. What should Tom do?

Answer 1

As a sales manager, Tom's job is to ensure the company's sales revenue increases with new accounts/customers and increased business from existing customers. However, the other metrics of sales performance include Customer Service level and Fill Rate which highlight the requirement of fulfilling the orders of customers on a complete basis without any shortcomings.

Hence, from a Sales Manager standpoint, he should aboid any orders without having the products to meet the requirements of the customer.

Tom needs to discuss with Carl on how taking an order without the ability to meet the shipping deadline would not only lead to loss of business or any future orders from the customer but it laso leads to negative publicity and difficulty in recovering future business from other customers.

If the order needs to be accepted at any cost, then the onus lies on the production department to meet the deadline to make the product available for shipping.