Airwide International Sales Strategy Analysis
Airwide International attempts to stay afloat the only way it knows how: scrambling and taking every lead it can churn up and taking overcompensating for it.
Sales Force - Costumer Value Propositions
Wei relates that his sales force is trying their hardest in procuring bids and are surprised by their inability to complete them.
Wei relates that his sales force is trying their hardest in procuring bids and are surprised by their inability to complete them.
- Lei Jiang - Airwide internationals 'best seller' is attempting the fallacy of being all benefits - or only providing a list of benefits the product has or is thought to be- to the costumer talking at length about the benefits of the air conditioning system. This makes the costumer believe that they are going to be paying for a luxury cost item when in reality the seller thinks that they are providing the costumer with an immutable list of why the product is just for them.
- Mr Chen Weimin - Another reputable vendor meets with an old contract to renegotiate the terms and it seems to be "in the bag", "a sure thing", etc. However, when he meets with the purchasing manager it is not the old friend he has known, it is a new purchasing manager. The manager isn't the only thing to have changed; the entire position is a different version of its former self. The purchasing manager now needs the approval of others to provide Airwide with the bid contract.
- In the meeting with the new purchasing manager, Chen gives only favorable points of parity, stating that switching to a new system would be more costly than just sticking with Airwide. He also does not address the lack of familiarity with the the product the current purchasing manager has.
- Airwide has not remained current and has neglected the adoption of making their existence known on the internet. Instead, they attempt to keep their sales alive by just maintaining their old practices of chasing down leads in the manner to which they have been accustomed to since 1975. The sales manager makes no mention of the new emerging car air conditioning market or how the company might want to make it in that market. It may be that air conditioning sales are seeing a drop in the residential portion due to this emerging technology.
Airwide international is not a failing company, its practices are past successes that are now simply anachronistic with the current environment that is the sales force. Taking fewer bids, making their online presence, and addressing better sales tactics and new technologies sooner and they will turn around their losses.
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteI like how you discussed the all-benefits approach that Airwide has resorted to. In my opinion, the shift in organizational structure of Airwide's buyers is the most prevalent factor though, but the high number of leads and small sales force would definitely explain the all-benefits sales approach.
Nice work,
Max.
Hey David,
ReplyDeleteVery though analysis on Airwide's situation and the characters that play a role in Airwide's decisions. I specially like how you realized that Airwide has continued to produce great products, nonetheless it failed to adapt and perceive how customers were purchasing their products. One thing I would also point out is that Airwide needed a specialization of its Sales Force to fix exactly the problems you mentioned.
I'd also like to see your opinion on the buyers side of things.
- Tulio