PV Technologies

Summary:

PV technology is one of the best solar energy companies in the world. It has a major share of the photovoltaic market. Solenergy LLC is one of the most loyal customers for PV technology. Solenergy has used products from PV technology for years and maintained great relationships with the other side. Recently, Solenergy has a big contract to conduct an energy plant in California. Nathan from PV technology is confident that his company is able to win the bid for this contract. However, some newly uncovered reports from a senior manager at Solenergy gave PV technology low ratings compared to other companies.It is very hard for PV technology to argue against the negative comments because the comments are rather vague and are related to pricing issues. PV technology is very confident in their products. However, they still fear the report from such a famous figure could damage their future business. Therefore, PV technology needs to find out a way to deal with this report.

There are four options for PVT to do to help the situation. They are analyzed below.

Key Points:
1.Offer to extend the original warranty from 10 years to 20 years
PV technology will unlikely achieve a lot by this method. As we all know, photovoltaic equipments are developing fast. It is very likely that people will want replace their old ones with news in 10 years. Offering a longer warranty won't actually attract any customers. Also, in this way, PV technology almost admit defects in their product because they asssume that those products could potentially break right after the usual 10 years mark.

2.Offer 99%uptime guarantee with no cost
This could be the best way for PV Technology to take. By guaranteeing the quality of the product, the company answered the real concern of the Morgan, who may think that the PV products are not worth their price. By doing so, the company shows its confidence in its product and could potentially convince naysayers with this confidence.

3.Accelerate the introduction of a new product
This method could hardly work. If the company tries to use new product to attract customers. It needs to have a good reputation for previous products. If the customer feel that all the previous products are not that good, they won't try the new one in the  hope of getting something good. The customers will more likely walk away from the new products. In this way, PVT will not only lose customers but also waste money on researching.

4.Initiate a dialogue to confirm the findings. 
This method works if PVT obtained the morgan report in a good way. it is unclear how PVT obtained the report from Morgan. Morgan may not be happy that PVT reads the report. Approaching Morgan without knowing what he thinks is a dangerous action. This could be viewed as a potential bribery opportunity for Morgan and Morgan may refuse to help PVT. 

Buyer's Point:
I am a loyal customer of PVT for years. however , their recent products are not as good as it claim to be. The price is too expensive for such a product. However, if PVT can convince me that the product is actually worthy of its price. I may still consider this product from PVT. 

Seller's Point:
As PVT, we have been very successful in the field of solar energy. We have great confidence in the quality of our product. A negative report will not shake our confidence but may shake our customers'. We need to take action to show our customers how great our products are and give them confidence about our product. 

Porsche for Winter Driving

Summary:
Porsche has been a very successful brand in terms of higher-end automobiles and driving experiences.Many people treat a porsche as their dream car when they are young and chose to buy it as a luxury car for the family. However, most of the people drive Porsche in the summer because they fear the winter will damage the car. But the Porsche car is actually perfectly safe and sturdy during winter time. The engineering of the car allows winter driving with no problem. In order to attract more people to do winter driving, the company decided to launch a campaign to encourage peopel to do so.

Key Points:

1. Porshe is mostly driven by high income people who treat Porshe as a luxury. Therefore they are unwiling to try their car in winter.

2.Many existing concepts in people's minds, such as " the presence of ice sand and gravel can damage the car".

3. Customers do not perceive porshe to be everyday cars.

As seen above, people have misconceptions about their Porsche or treat the car as a luxury toy instead of a utility car. In some aspects, this may not be a bad thing. The luxurious feature of Porsche could be the reason people buy it. But the misconceptions of how Porsche cannot winter drive could damage the brand more than helps it. In Germany, people are used to drive Porsche in the winter without problems. Therefore, it is not the car's problem. In order to persuade Canadians to drive during the winter, which spans almost 6months, the company should advetise the winter driving experience everywhere. The article mentiond a good start of making winter driving brochures and microwebsites. The company could also advertise in TV and change people's misconception gradually.

Buyer's Point:

I am a high income middle class man. I have dreamed for a Porsche for years. I finally got this car in the summer and I plan to treat it as a baby. Driving it in bad weather condition is stupid. I have other less expensive cars to do the job if needed. My Porsche is only for conditions when I want to go to a party or similar places. I will keep it well maintained.

Seller's Point:

Porsche is engineered to be able to drive in all-weather conditions. I hate it when no one comes to buy a Porsche in the winter, which is actually 6months long. People have misconceptions about this car. Driving it in the winter will not damage the car. Instead, it will give you a better driving experience than other cars in bad weather conditions. We should work hard to let people be aware of this.

Venture Forum

Favorite Companies:
1.Freight Farms

2.IAS

3.Bounce Imaging.

My favorite companies are the three companies listed above. I chose them to be my favorite because of their innovative ideas, clear presentations, and their smart business plans. The first company, freight farms, introduced their product as a way to do farming outside of the farmland. With their technology, people are able to produce food inside cities and basically everywhere with a freight box. Their presentation stated their advantages clearly and have strong data to show that their ideas work. As for IAS, it is a company which has innovative remote control system for irrigation system for farmers. It detected a real-world problem of water irrigation in the winter, and solved the problem with its products. The data it shows seems to mean a great future for this company, given the large number of farmers that need this product. It also has succeed in opening the market. My last favorite company is bounce imaging. It builds a product that gives your panoramic view of a place through throwing a ball inside that place. The ball will then send the pictures. I like this great idea. It could be very useful for fire fighters and soldiers in the front line.

Key Entrepreneurship points:
1.Your product should solve an existing problem and that's how find your first market.

2.Your product should has a market potential for more than the existing problem. This is so that you can stay in the competition.

3.Developing appropriate technology is critical for the success of your company. without  a robust product, your company can easily fail.

4.You should not forget competitors who may be doing the same thing in their garage.

5.You should not forget to talk to your customers and ask what they think of your product.

6.Sometimes a good idea may not work in the real world because of financial or other reasons.

Intel Inside

Summary:
Intel is a huge company that specializes in designing and making microprocessors. It has launched many campaigns successfully to make itself know throughout the globe.The campaigns include the Red X campaign, the “intel computer inside" campaign, the five jingle tone ad campaign, and even celeron processor campaign which expands into other markets.In 2002, the Vice president of Intel faces an issue of whether to expand into the new market of mobile computing. At that time, some powerful phones  have begun to come out. It is estimated that the phone market will continue to grow very fast, if not faster than the growth of PCs.However, entering the new market with the same Intel campaign risks diluting the intel brand and eventually hurt the PC market. Intel does not want to be ruined by an immature phone market. Thus, this poses a question to the manager of intel and also to the reader: should intel enter the phone market? How should intel do it?

Key points:
1.Should Intel expand into another market?

One key question is whether Intel expand into the other market. At the time of 2002, the phone market just started to emerge, however, it is not clear whether the market will prosper or not. The market was full of opportunities and risks at the same time. Intel does not want immature products to ruin the fame of intel's high power and highly reliable chips.

2.Dilute the brand in some way?

Using the same brand of Intel Inside risks diluting the brand of Intel Inside. Intel Inside is a campaign by Intel that tries to emphasize Intel's strength in PC computing. However, PC market and phone market are very different from each other. Phone usually don't require the high power that the PC needs to run huge software.  So, will the brand of intel be diluted ?

3.How should Intel expand into the other market?

If intel decides to jump into the phone market, then how should it do that? Should it use another brand name? Should it incorporate a new concept into the Intel inside brand ? There are many questions to answer. One thing is for sure. That is, the brand cannot be the same as Intel Inside.


Buyer's Viewpoint

I am a loyal customer of Intel. I love the  PC product of Intel. However, I am very doubtful about the intel products in my phone. My phone does not need the powerful chip that my computer has. Am I paying for something that I don't need at all? I'd love Intel to try something new. If they managed to make something happen, I am willing to try that out.

Seller's Viewpoint
We intel have been very successful as the top chip manufacturer in the world. Our brand campaign has also been extremely  successful. Everyone recognize the five tone jingle that we have. But does that mean people will also recognize our brand in the phone market? We need to do some heavy market research to know that.

Siebel Systems:Anatomy of a sale

Summary:

The case discussed a dilemma that Mr Carman faced in making a sale to Quick&Reilly on CRM systems. Quick &Reilly is an urgent and inspired customer who does not understand the full picture of the CRM industry and currently use a less effective CRM system from Bradley partners. Quick & Reilly looks to change the current status and get a better system. That is why they contacted Carman for the sale. Carman looks to make the sell. However, FleetBoston intends to veto the purchase for its own reasons. In order to finish his task, Carman looks to the core values of the Siebel systems, where he works. He refers to the history of the company and its core values described by the founder Tom Siebel. Tom Siebel argued that Customer satisfaction, professionalism, professional courtesy and bias for actions are the core values of the company. Carman is an experienced sales person who has his own set of selling strategies. He thinks that he needs to serve both the project team and senior management well in order to make a successful sale. After meeting with the persons from Quick & Reilly, he quickly realized that he needs to give proof of a superior product, convince the customer about collaboration work, and talk with the correct person in the management team. It is left for the student to discuss whether this will be a successful sale.

Key concerns:

1. Treating working with a customer as a privilege. Respect the customer
A key value of Siebel system is to always respect the opinions of the customer. By doing so, the company is able to help customers achieve long term goals and make long term friends with them. However, in this case, one customer asks to intervene the selling with another customer. Although it may hurt the sale of the company, working together with the past customer seems to be the best option.

2.Never place financial gain above ethics, lawful behaviors, and good corporate citizenship.
Siebel systems need to give up its immediate gains and think about the long term benefits and especially the core values of the company to make the correct decision. The ethics of the company urge the company to follow this pattern.

3. Lead the market through listening to custormer's needs
What does a customer truly need? Most of the time, a customer truly understand that before any selling company do. So, listening to the needs of a customer is the reason why Siebel Systems is successful. In this new selling case, Siebel System needs to make the same move.


Seller's point:
I am a salesman at Siebel Systems. Today I realized that we need to make a decision about what move to take about an customer. Should we satisfy the needs of two customers and lose a short term benefit? Or should we give up that benefit and instead win the respect of our customers? The core values of our company prefer the second way. But is it still the best way??

Buyer's point:

Cross selling case

Summary:
After the merging of Top tek and Rossberg lee, the management team from the two companies have different opinions on what kind of compensation should go to the sales team and go to which member. From Peter's point, who was a former Rossberg lee employee, the company makes the sale people unhappy because a portion of the sales compensation goes to consultants who helped initialized the sales but never participated in any real sales. However, from Ron's view, the compensation to the consulting people is absolutely necessary because those people helped established the relationship.The real issue that lies here is the ideology difference between two new married organizations.

Key reasons:
The two organizations have different compensation principles before. Therefore some people are unstatisfied with the current compensation system because they think it is giving the consulting people what they do not deserve.

1.The consultants feel bad because commissions go to the sales force.
The consultants feel that they are the real force who initiate and win the sale. It is unfair for sales force just get the benefit.

2 The sales force regard consultants as not trustworthy
The sales force think that they are the people who do the talking job after the initiation by the consultants. The consultants shouldn't get paid for what they haven't been involved in.

3. Customer is happy with the merge.
The customer enjoys the conveniences after the two company merge.

4. The two teams need to work together better. They have proven that before.
The two teams seem to work better as partners, not co-workers inside one company.

Key solutions:
There are no real solutions yet. Anna is trying to bridge the two different company. it could be an overhaul of the entire system.The two company are still two companies after the merge. In order to become a successful company, it needs to establish a common culture and train the employees.

Buyer's Point:
I am a buyer who loved the products and services of Top tek. With its new acquisition of Rossberg, the company is able to provide a more complete service to me. However, I do notice some issues they have now, such as a slower response. I heard that their management level is fighting each other. I hope this fight will not affect the quality of their product.

The Sales Learning Curve

Summary: 

For new products that just hit the market, it takes time for the products to be mature. Scalix is a company that just launched its new product based on Open mail systems. Unexpectedly, the product didn't get sold as good as Scalix thinks it will be. The reason include that the CIO of a company is not the one to make decisions, large companies need to adapt to linux, and that the product is not in its prime time. These reasons introduced the notioin of sales learning curve. The solutions to the problem lies in a new marketing strategy, which includes hitting linux users first and so on. The company ended up succesful with its new strategy. 

Key reason for failure:

1. CIO is not the primary decision maker for purchasing email systems even if he appreciate it.
The CIO is not the right person to talk to when the company wants to make a decision. They need to talk to the person who has the money and the authority to make the purchase. 

2. Many large companies need time to adapt to Linux systems
Linux is a system that works differently from Windows and needs time to adapt to the change. The company should work on the Linux community first and help teach people use Linux. 

3. The software is not ready for its prime time.
The prime time for the software is not now. The software is not really of great need now. In a few years, people will realize that need more and that is when the software should be put into market extensively. 

Solutions:

1. hit linux users first

2. Hire two in-house telesales people to lead sales . 

3. Save scare resources and focus on smaller market first. 

Seller's Point 

We have this awesome product which is technicallly advanced. However, it cannot get sold as we want it to be. The reasons are that the sales learning curve makes it slow for a new product to hit market successfully. Thus, we focus on what we can do and what we have. Start smalll and grow gradually. 

Buyer's Point

This email product is great but it could take too long for us to adapt into the system. Linux system is too novel for our employees. CIO's opinion matters but could not convince us to use this product when it take so much effort to implement. We may hold on for now and see if people with linux background can use it well and use the product when the time is right. 

Airwide international Case

Summary:
      The Airwide international case discussed the stagnation of sales in eastern China. In the last few years, Chinese market for air-conditioning service has grew significantly and consistently. However, the Airwide company was unable to catch up with the growth. Several company managers participated in a talk about the possible reasons for such failure and possible solutions. From their discussions, we can see that Airwide international needs to provide better training to the sales force, reorient strategy to a market-driven one, adapt to the change of management structures in customers, and get in touch with potential buyers faster.

Key Concerns:

    There are multiple reasons for the failure.

• The sales force feel powerless in this situation; the sales people cannot be stimulated by prizes to get better results. Solution: the sales force should participate in a training program about the new sales techniques. 
• The company lost previous customers due to various reasons. Solution: get familiar with the change in the customer's company. Get used to talk to the internal structures in customer's company, which involves more than one person. 
• The company is unable to get new customers. Solution: get in touch with potential customers faster before they have gone for other options. Use new tools to reach customers, such as Internet and social media. 

Seller's Point:

 The company, as the seller, views the market failure from several perspectives, including the sales force, the customer company structure, and potential market. The company realized that it fails to behave well in any of these three areas and this could be the reasons why the stagnation happens. Therefore, the company plans to get out of the stagnation by tackling each of these problems in ways described above in the blog. The company looks forward to regain its reputation and honor in such a fast growing marketing environment. The several managers look very hopeful about the future.