On 27th-28th November,2014,SABRE Simulation successfully held the CTM(City Manager) course(the third term).The students were from Mead Johnson, HENGAN, Wm Wrigley Jr Company, China Resources Sanjiu Medical, PENTAIR, Mille Dairy and Dynasol. The target students of this course are DSM/District managers. However, this program also attracted many BU/General Managers of department, directors and managers from headquarters. The students took part in the course in two purposes:1)Learn more for themselves;2)Bring some good methods and tools back to their own enterprises to copy.
CTM is also a kind of simulation. All of the students will be divided into 5 groups. Each of the group will play a role as a city manager of a food company, KC. The mission they took was to manage 25 procurement customers from different channels (super markets, convenience stores, e-commerce and small stores) in their area. Also, they need to manage the sales strategy of three products at the same time when it comes to the later stage where the company will list two new products. Everyone manager has the resources provided by the company, including visiting times, displays, DM, quantity discount/buy-give activities, consulting fees etc.
In order to maximize the investment, it is impossible to equally divide all the resources. That’s why we must use the most effective models to analyze our clients and competitors, to find the type of our segmented customers and use the most effective resource configures means(both in market segments and positioning) in connection with different customers.
As usual, the program procedure was started with theories and simulation, analysis, further theories and simulation again. After the first round simulation, the teacher, Lucy taught the students dealing with the “Ten Equal” theory and the Sudoku model we can use to analyze our clients and can measure not only the external potential of our clients but also the internal relationship between our company and clients. Learning this, some of the students reflected. ”Before this, I worked in the leading company of the industry. So when dealing with my potential clients, I will throw money to enhance the quantity. But considering I worked in the second-tier company, I didn’t think about the changes of my pros and cons. In the simulation, using the former working manners, I wasted a lot of resources in the clients I’m not interested in in the first round decision.”
In this simulation, many of the students realized how important the industry KOL (Key Opinion Leader) is to sales. Inside the system of many companies, they will not give their resources to their clients who don’t contribute to the output. However, some clients still have a strong influence to the industry even if they do not make any contributions. Thus, the company needs to put inside some resources.
In the second day, the students learned about product portfolio strategy, which does not refer to the percentage of products’ construction and share. It is a kind of comprehensive embodiment of products’ external and internal advantages. Judging from the status quo of the product, managers can make their next strategy of investigation. SABRE also provided the students with the 3D software, TOOLKIT, to make the students able to analyze their own combination of products and segment their clients.
Here are some comments from the partial students.
“Gains: Classification of clients. How to present the content of communication in a quantification form and how to analyze the potential of market and the level of adoption to guide the separation of resources. It will cost a large quantity of time to do the analysis, which means using effective tools can improve the efficiency greatly and can also make sure there would not be big mistakes. It is the key to get what you expected for a company to adopt the same thinking way to consider the strategy and be capable of executive ability.”
---Pentair, Marketing Director
“Lot of useful business framework, very challenging time to finish different business assignment, from mass data and new concepts, very useful, thanks!”
---Wm Wrigley Jr Company, Sales Development Manager
“Through this training, it helps a lot in the analysis for systematic market and segment market using the data.”
---Mille Dairy, Training