Teffer Shoes

Case Analysis: A Shoe for every foot Sales Management Name- Prateek Dhar Sharma Section- A Roll No- 140201099 Submitted to- Dr. S.R Singhvi

Background of the case: According to Karl Mansfield, Director of Sales and Marketing at Teffer India, product knowledge and selling skills were not enough to make a sales pitch. An important aspect was personal experience. The salesman should themselves experience the product to understand the core benefit that each variant of shoe provides. Personal experience would help them to better understand the value that the product provides and will be useful in enhancing their selling skills. Technologically engineered Teffer shoes were different from the other shoe brands available in the market. According to Karl to increase the sales it was necessary to target the 80% of no-sport shoe buyers. It was necessary to train the people so that they could personally experience the benefits of the different variant of Teffer shoe. Anatomy of Shoe: Teffer shoes were not visually attractive but were technologically engineered sports shoes which had many features and benefits that the users will get from wearing them. The shoe design and value came from the by a careful union of many engineering skills and technological inputs. Acording to Mansfield it’s not a shoe; it’s a part of the foot of the users. The different variants of Teffer shoes available were- walking shoes, tennis shoes and basketball shoes. All the three variants were specifically manufactured keeping in mind the type of movement required in each of the physical work. For e.g. the heel counter of Teffer Tennis was much stronger than any other variant of the shoe as the sport causes the players to drag the feet continuously. For walking purpose shoe had stability and cushioning to give the feet the right kind of protection. User Needs: The basic need for a non-sports person was the protection of the feet. Walking or wearing shoe for a long time could cause discomfort/stress on the feet. The need was for a shoe that would provide the cushioning and stability to the feet. Longer work hours have called for a shoe that would provide stability and cushioning for the longer duration. Different benefits from the shoes are expected in different sports. Both the sports, tennis and basketball, are completely different and the stress that the sport has on the feet are different in both of them. While in tennis there was heavy load on the heel, in basketball more weight is shifted on the front foot. The need was for a shoe that would serve specific purpose for each sport

Training Objectives:     

To train salesmen in Teffer technology, benefits that they might get from different variants of the shoe. Train sales team in sports and fitness so that they can gauge the benefits of the shoes. Enhancing the personal experience of the salesman so that they may make a better sales pitch. Change the mindset of the people who were vested with the task of communicating about the shoe. Increase level of empathy, towards the benefits of shoes, among the sales and advertising personnel.

The Training Program: As Teffer manufactured shoes for walking, tennis and basketball a three phase (duration- 4 weeks) training program is proposed. Phase I- A gym instructor would train the sales and advertising team so that they could understand the benefits derived from the walking shoes. Apart from training in gym, the trainees should wear the shoes to the work to appreciate their needs. (Duration- 4 weeks) Phase II- Weekend training program in local tennis club to personally experience the sport and how the Teffer shoes are useful. (Duration- 2 weekend) Phase III- A weekend training program with a basketball coach so that the trainees understand the core product benefits and how it is different from the walking and tennis shoes. (2 weekend) Drawbacks:   

Training program will be time consuming. Training program might hamper the productivity of the personnel involved. (Regular sales loss) Extra training cost (2.8 miilion rupees) might not be justified as it may result in only 5% conversion of the browsers.