Primus Sales Force Case Study - Assignment Example

Primus Sales Force: A Case Study CMN6910: Communication Assessment Dr. Carl Zangerl Tang Jianghua (Sean) 001952629 01/21 Northeastern University College of Professional Studies 1. Critique of the quality of the survey questions Phrasing of Questions Personal perspectives about the survey questions from Primus Sales Force Survey revealed that most of them are easy to understand and understood quite clearly. However, there are still a couple of questions that lack enough information to interpret the key points; therefore, this aspect most certainly leads to the confusion of the participants and supplementation of incorrect feedback. First of all, with regards to the query, “I received the right amount of communication”; this question indicates a great deal of confusion for participants. In many cases, the participant might not have received enough correct communication from their supervisor, colleagues or even their customers; however, one is left with the overarching question of what constitutes the right amount of communication. The question did not perform what the result indicated. The consequence was that participants had no idea what they were being ranked by or because misled by phony or inaccurate contents of the question. Otherwise, the question did not give enough information to define the alignment of correct versus incorrect. Due to the fact that different people would have their own judgment or personal value to treat similar issues, without a proper and well-explained definition about the right amount as the standard, every participant would make their own definition to consider about the right amount for them. As a result, the incorrect feedback only wasted valuable time and created corresponding costs. This ultimately led to the failure of the survey. According to Baldwin & Garvey, “The essential information necessary to obtain a correct solution in these subtasks was comprised of four attributes. The communications were scored according to the presence of explicit encoding of this information” (1973, p. 44). If participants could not encode the information clearly, they did not get the correct information they should get. Hence they could not give the correct feedback from the survey questions. The Extent to Which the Research Measured the Impacts on Attitudes and Behaviors From the survey questions, the main focus was with regards to the attitudes that the respondents had. By seeking to engage this metric, the researchers were mostly interested in measuring the impact on attitudes and behaviors that were reflected on the employees after the survey questions. For example, a level of useful information for the sales work from company magazines and intranet portals was provided a level of importance as compared to the communication for the employees’ sales and level of satisfaction from communication within the company’s employees. Further, all of these questions inquired about the attitudes in every specific company’s operation from employees, and what the impact on them might have been. After collecting the feedback from participants and gaining enough information about employees’ attitudes, the percentage of participants among these employees, the feedback response rate and associated comments, the impact of the total was measured. The Extent to Which the Information is Actionable The fifth and sixth questions are mostly contingent upon the condition of actionability. After reading the case, Brad Brooks, the director of communications of Primus, pointed out the communication aspects within company was quite weak. For instance, their performance from executive communication anaylsis revealed their current situation. PowerPoint presentations and the monthly column in Power Selling just did not, as she commented sarcastically, ‘cut the mustard’.” Therefore, the internal communication for Primus kept following a decreasing trend. There are large opportunities for the results to go very low. Ultimately, the level of satisfaction of the stakeholders will be negatively impacted and the degree and extent to which the product/service can continue to be sold will also be affected. However, the real situation for Primus is a lack of enough effective communications within the firm itself. The company magazine and public website might still run; but they did not achieve the goal they should. Furthermore, when employees perform the survey questions as participants, they would doubt feel the effect of communication breakdowns. 2. Analyzing the results – inclusion of charts and tables to display key results Monthly sales of the magazines indicated that for the sales representatives, the percentage of positive responses, on the fence and negative, almost equaled one another. In the meantime, the results for sales manager, those that answered positively took more than a 50% respondent rate; as compared to those that did not. However, for representatives, the positive percentage they took cannot be compared with sales managers; this ultimately means that the outlook of these stakeholders follows a path that cannot be continued indefinitely. This phenomenon could specifically reflect the percentage of negative responses in the monthly sales of magazines. As such, sales managers only took half of the percentage of sales representatives. The intranet Portal revealed that key differentials with regards to monthly magainze sales were largely contingent upon the number of company employees; no matter sales representatives or sales managers. From the percentage of so many positive feelings about the company’s intranet portal, the essential thing to prove from the results was the fact that most employees did not retain negative emotions with respect to the company’s intranet portal. However, comparing with prior years, most employees especially sales representatives, held negative attitudes about intranet; noting an increase in these sentiments by 13 percent. Further negative sentiments also increased among the sales managers by around 3 percent. On the other hand, numbers of employees including sales representatives and sales managers kept positive attitudes about intranet portal decreased 15 percent and 6 percent respectively. The consequences directly can prove the quality of company intranet portal was sloping that comparing with prior year. Sales Representatives Sales Managers Positive (this year) 34 40 Positive (prior year) 49 46 On the Fence (this year) 50 50 On the Fence (prior year) 48 47 Negative (this year) 16 10 Negative (prior year) 3 7 Company employees seemed as if they were confused about the meaning of the right amount of communication. That is the logical explanation about why most employees chose the option of remaining on the fence. After the case reading, a lack of enough communication apparently became a shortage of Primus as the director of communication also realized this problem. Otherwise, there might be another situation that existed for Primus, employees did have some communication in the company, and however, they could not sure these communications helped their sales work a great deal. Therefore, this represents the principle reason why most employees in Primus, including sale representatives and sale managers, could not be sure about whether or not they received the right amount of communication; therefore choosing the option of remaining on the fence. I have a clear sense of company direction. Unfortunately, there are 60 percent of the sales representatives that have indicated a negative attitude about whether or not they have a clear sense of company direction. The data supplies a key level of evidence; sale representatives could not get enough information from the company and the current situation is revealed to be one in which they only follow the orders from their superiors. Nevertheless, there were also 35 percent of sales managers who choose negative attitude in this survey question. Most, however, chose the neutral option; either because they wished not to state their own beliefs or because they were unsure of the best answer. Obviously, it can be proven that a lack of enough communication has become a remarkable problem for the company. Especially the data which has been shown illustrates the fact that even company sales managers are also effected; alongside other less powerful individuals. 3. What issues would you like to explore in more depth and what measurement tools would you use? After the exploring the survey questions, the top issue for the director of communication for Primus, Brad Brooks, is that he must assemble his team members from company communications department to reinforce internal communication. This can help to bring assistance for the whole company; regardless of whether these stakeholders are sales representative or sales managers. For Primus, even though they have an intranet portal which serves as a very useful means of communication for all employees, they do not take advantage of this resource to its full potential. Furthermore, for the public website, “The platform was outdated and relied heavily on IT support, which was costly. Content changes needed to be passed along to the IT team, which implemented ‘mod’ on a biweekly basis.” Without corporate the communication department, there is no way for the IT department to realize what kinds of communication Primus needs; in addition, this is the reason why employees felt a lack of enough effective communication. “Effective communication begins with the acknowledgment of the important role internal communications plays as a vital method for advancing information sharing across all directions of an organization: upward, downward and horizontally.” (Chihocky & Bullard, 2009, p. 3) To solve the current problem it will be necessary for the company to reinforce, internal communication would be the best choice, involving public website or company intranet, IT department should be work and discuss with communication department, develop program can really bring useful help for their sales work with satisfying communication. “Opinion research is by far the oldest and most widely used form of measurement. Pre- and post-surveys are commonly used to determine if a particular program program changed opinions or awareness.” (Paine, 2009, p. 53) As Paine’s explanation denotes, survey questions are literally the best way to conduct the measurement. Whereas, the other questions that are posed are useful in proper measurement, the survey helps to specify what needs to be changed. Based on annual budget numbers and saving costs, sending mail should be the top choice for these stakeholders. Furthermore, due to fact that the participants would be the company’s own employees, using phone surveys might be another choice that researchers could consider. However, such an approach could also cost a lot and participants might not give correct feedback. References Baldwin, T. L. & Garvey, C. J. (1973). “Components of Accurate Problem-Solving Communications”. American Educational Research Journal, 10(1), pp. 39-48. Retrieved from JSTOR, Jan 20th, 2014, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.neu.edu/stable/pdfplus/1162235.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true Chihocky, J & Bullard, M. (2009). “How Strategic Internal Communications Can Positively Affect Your Business”. Janson Communication. Retrieved from http://www.noplanenogain.org/images/1255960872.pdf_copy2.pdf Paine, K. D. (2009). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement, and Key Relationships. NJ: Wiley Press. Read More