Performance Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 3

Performance Management - Essay Example This paper presents a performance management system for retail sales associates of a clothing and fashion accessories retail store. The ultimate goal of the system is to help improve revenue and customer satisfaction. By virtue of you role, you will be the first contact the customer makes when they enter the store. As such, you will be required to possess adequate knowledge of the companys products. Your role will include, but not be limited to, the following: For a start, you will be remunerated at the rate of $8.00 per hour. However, based on your performance, this rate could be increased in the future. In addition, you’ll receive a bonus every time you exceed your weekly sales target by at least fifty percent. Several key behaviors are necessary first for successful job performance of sales associates then for the realization of the goal of the performance management system(Haines III & St-Onge, 2012). Three of them are discussed here. The first is the habit of the sales associate updating their knowledge of the company’s products. Clients are impressed by sales associates who demonstrate deep knowledge of the products they seek to sell. This impression goes a long way toward influencing the customer’s decision to buy. By contrast, sales associates who exhibit ignorance of their company’s products are a put-off. Given that that the company carries new brands of merchandise from time to time, it will be necessary that every sales associate acquaints themselves with these brands. The second desirable behavior is the habit of going the extra mile(Grffin & Moorhead, 2010). Most sales associates will be happy and satisfied with simply helping the client locate the product they ask for when they enter the shop. It is a well-recognized fact that with a little calculated â€Å"guidance† of the sales associate, the client is likely to end up buying more items than they had intended. For instance,

Precise Software Solutions Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Precise Software Solutions - Case Study Example However, Precise will not be able to launch in 2000, because it does not have the human resources capabilities including technical personnel and sales team to develop the functionalities and sell product. Even if they try selling it earlier, it could lead to many short-term as well as long term-problems. Precise Software Solutions Introduction Organizations will always want to expand their markets, including the geographical markets as well as the product markets, so they can optimally tap the opportunities that may be available in those markets. When an organization finds that there are optimal opportunities in a particular product market, they will launch new products catering to that market. As new product launch can be the ‘key’ that enables the organization to open the ‘doors’ of success, organization can or need to come up new products or services at regular intervals or at appropriate times. However, one of the key issues regarding new product launche s is the functionality of the product and timing of the launch. Background and the Problem Precise’s existing operations Precise Software solutions, located in Westwood, Massachusetts, launched its first product in 1996 called Precise/SQL, which has applications in the performance management market. Within three years, this single offering had expanded into an optimal suite of performance management tools, mainly for Oracle databases and other software applications. With these products, Precise had built a strong reputation as a developer of high quality products, who can deliver products with all the functionalities, which they promised or advertised before the launch, without any fail. Although, Precise/SQL remained the company's core offering, and accounted for a major portion of the Precise's revenue, the management felt there is a good scope to launch a new product. New Product, Insight and its market The product is called Insight and is to be launched to cover the produ ct market of "performance management and availability". Broadly speaking, this market included products that measured and/or managed the efficiency and effectiveness of the various components of the IT system. Importantly, Dataquest estimated that this market to be $2.4 billion in 1999, with a doubling expected by 2003. With such high potential existing in that particular product market, Precise initiated plans to develop the software Insight. Through that product, as envisioned by its President and CEO, Shimon Alon, Precise thought they have an important new product, which can establish the company as a leader in the market on a much broader level. In addition, it would allow them to diversify its customer base, and importantly enable it to achieve its immediate goal of building Precise into a $100 million company. Main problems of functionality and timing However, the problem arose mainly regarding the launch timing of the product. That is, certain sections of the management are o f the view that if the product is launched at the Oracle Open World in September 2000 in San Francisco, it will get good visibility and reach among the target customer base. On the other hand, rest of the management opined that Insight should be launched as a Generally Available (GA) version after all its functionalities were developed. As it would take sizable time to develop those functionalities, they stated it would be better if the launch can be postponed by another year (2001). This divergence of views between the