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 These companies usually have a sales manager, sales supervisors and sales persons. They are responsible for the sales performance of their company. The sales department is commonly interested in trends. They want to spot products which are selling well, in addition to products which may be performing poorly. Many of these industries are quite competitive. Price competition and slim profit margins are very common. Sales Departments are continually looking for an edge, from products, customer service or any other area where they can get them ahead of their competitors. They require information on a variety of sales categories. For product sales, they may want to analyze sales by individual product, by brand, by package, and by manufacturer. For customer sales, they look to analyze sales by individual customer, by chain store, by market segment, by salesperson, and by sales territory. They often want to compare sales between periods. This may be Year to Date comparisons to prior year, Period this year to the same Period Last year, This Quarter compared to Last Quarter, etc. For the Bottled Water industry, rentals of water cooler equipment is as important as the sales of product. They want information on rentals, new cooler placements, cooler return reasons, etc. The Dairy industry has to prepare a monthly Market report for the US Department of Agriculture. This is a detailed report, where the Dairy must account for all raw milk which has been purchased. They must report opening inventories, product sales, spoilage & dumpage, and ending inventories. This report is very time consuming, with a government audit deadline which must be met each month. The Soft Drink industry often has monthly National Account reporting to their franchise ( i.e.: Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, 7UP ) which must be performed. They must report on sales to selected customers who are designated as national accounts. These customer are typically part of a national chain which the franchise sells to across the country. They may also be required to report company sales of selected products, such as Fountain Syrup products. Some sales departments make use of external computer systems to assist in sales analysis and sales management. Software such as Salient Technology’s Margin Minder product are useful for this purpose. | Back to Top |
Garman Routing Systems, Inc. |