By

B. Ravi Theja Raju

B. Sudir Kumar Reddy
R. Shiva Shankar 
Swathy Sateesh
V. Ajay
Aja y Kumar 
V. Sunith Gupta
• Falconi had been involved in the battery business for 27 years,
working his first 16 years with Duracell.
• He completed his Executive MBA program at the Richard Ivey
School of Business in 1990.
• He left Duracell in 1995 for a new start-up battery company,
Pure Energy Battery Corporation.
• He left Pure Energy in 1999 to serve as country manager for 
Rayovac Canada.
• Then taken on the role of vice-president of sales and marketing
for Spectrum.
• Spectrum brands products were available in over one million
stores throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the
Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Brazil.

• Different Product Lines

Consumer Battery
Shaving & Grooming Products
Lawn & Garden care Products
Specialty Pets Supply
• Leverage Global Distribution Channels.
• Purchasing Power & Operational Processes.
• Extended Brand Portfolio.
• Access to new retailers & ability to gain shelf space.
• Increased ability for each brand to compete within its
given market.
• Position of Spectrum :
 – 1st in aquatic supplies,
 – 2nd in lawn & garden industries &
 – Shaving & grooming industries
 – 3rd in battery industry
 Robert Falconi
VP Sales & Marketing

8 30
Rayovac/Remington Nu-Gro Tetra/UPG
Merged Sales People Separate Sales People Distributors

9
• To create a national sales force from the teams
of the newly merged companies.

• To immediately implement the plan to avoid

disrupting the growth momentum of individual
 brands and maintain customer relationship.
Separate sales forces

Advantages:
 – Greater degree of expertise.
 – Less or no additional training.
 – Maintenance of momentum of sales representatives & more focused sales force capable
of better consumer services.

Disadvantages:
 –  No advantage out of synergies due to mergers, no expense reduction.
 – No efficiency improvements by the use of sales representatives during slower seasonal
 periods.
 – Duplication of efforts by sales representatives.
• Each representative is required to become an
expert on all product lines & selling to their 
specified customers.
Advantages:
 – Consolidation of existing teams into a smaller unit.
Disadvantages:
 – Difficulty in forming a efficient team.
 – Additional training required.
Distributors

• Provides sales & logistic services in exchange

of commission.
Advantages:
 – Well organized existing relationship with the
retailers.
 – Large scale group.
Disadvantages:
 – High service cost almost 15% of the revenue.
1. Assess the spectrum organization and each of the market in
which the company now operates. What are the key elements
from each industry about which Falconi should be concerned?

Battery Market

Shaving and Grooming Products Market

Lawn and Garden Market

Specialty Pet Supply Market

2. Given the market the company is operating in , what is the best
structure for the sales force ? How did you decide?

National sales Head for all Brands

Product Wise Sales Head for different products

Area Wise Sales Head

Platform Team Managers

3. What major problems might you encounter with your new sales force
structure as it relates to both external factors( customers) and internal factors
( employee reactions ) ?

Bigger Sales Force

More expensive

Co-ordination is required

Increase in operations cost

4. Create an implementation plan for your new sales force structure, including
how you will deal with the human issues involved?

Observe the Sales Force of some

Global Companies

Appoint the National Sales Head

Appoint Managers at Other Levels

 Intensive Training at each domain

Target Setting

Execution

Further Improvement in Sales Force

• Can opt for combination of merged sales force
& distributors.

• To create “Platform Teams”, business managers

responsible for relationship with retailers &
 product experts support the managers during
sales.