Introduction
Warren Soft Drinks Limited is a company which operates in Britain, selling soft drinks in three ways: wholesale, retail and through its own vending machines. It has three ranges of products: carbonated drinks, mineral waters and still concentrates. Its competitors differ from market to market. First of all, it has to compete with Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola (and the rest of the products under the same umbrella), the two leading brands in carbonated drinks. Then it has to compete with other drinks which are either privately-made and have the competitive advantage over price, like TESCO Cola, or national strong brands like Tango. Then it has to compete in the waters market with international brands like Evian, but also with all the local brand of each region. And finally, in the still concentrates market, it has to compete with a variety of similar products in the market.
Warren's sales department is divided in two sales forces.
English: Macro photograph of coca-cola bubbles. De...
WARREN SCHILLINGS
English: Vending machines in the cafeteria at Char...The first is the Wholesale / Retail force (hereafter 'WR') and the second is the Vending Machines force ('VM'). The latter is only three years old and brings only 10% of the total sales turnover.
Wholesale / Retail Force
This sales force occupies 42 reps and 4 divisional managers and brings in 90% of Warren's annual sales. It has four sub-divisions, each of which has different opportunities and problems. These divisions are regarded as different market segments, based on their location as the segmentation basis.
The Wales & West division is mainly comprised of rural population. Although there are some major cities in this division, most of the population is not found concentrated in one spot but is distributed over large distances. The lack of concentration makes it a hard segment to target the products to, because there has to be...