MARKETING TECHNICAL SALES PEOPLE FOR HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY

(A CASE STUDY OF EMENIT NIGERIA PLC.)

 

 

ABSTRACT

        A deepening world economic crises occasioned by a sustained and continuing fall in process and demand for industrial materials has left Nigerians in general with a severe recession.  The need for employers of labour to inference in and motivate the workers for increased productivity has become imperative.

        Workers almost in every sector of the economy are being kind of everyday.

Civil service is being reviewed frantically, but the yield/income don’t seem to be coming fast enough.  The quest to motivate the workers with the available resources by federal, state and local government manufacturing industries becomes pertinent for efficient and increase of out put.  Newspaper, researchers and management consultants are teaching with comment and recommendations about motivation for incentives to worker. Several seminars are equally being organized on the subject.

        Motivating workers for higher productivity has become a vial tool aimed at enhancing higher productivity.  It is against this background that I took up by choice, the study of motivating technical sales people for higher productivity – a case study of Emenite Nigeria Plc. I choose to look at the performance of the workers as they constitute the majority of the work force in the company.

A choose to study how the incentives so far granted to these class of workers has affected and will affect their productivity and also under what delimare the workers performing to meet up with the aspiration of their management.

        A conducted a library research in which a picked my way through a great lot of current writing on the subject.  Then I planned and wrote out my program and administered questionnaires followed by oral interview for cross classification of my facts. I get my data in ultimately and analyzed them, using progression analysis that are easy to understand.

        I studied the Emenite Plc. In Enugu metropolis.  The research held oral interview extensively with eh technical sales people as they are the people who been all the pressures and anxieties caused by unexpected frustration and problems.

        The work is divided into five chapter, chapter one gives the general introduction which seek to place the technical sales people problems with their macro economic context, chapter two report our review of literature, chapter three describes the actual process and the methods of research that I carried out.  In chapter four, details of data analysis, finally, in chapter five summary of major findings, recommendations, conclusions and possible areas of further research are recorded.  I do hope that someday my recommendation will get to someone where it matters and arouse serious thought on the policy issues touched upon.

        Perhaps, that may be sooner than I dare to imagine.

       

                                TABLT OF CONTENTS

Title page

Approval page

Acknowledgement

Abstract

Table of content

Chapter One – Introduction

Background of the Study

Profile of Emenite Plc.

Statement of Problems

Objectives of the Study

Research Question

Hypothesis

Significance of the Study

Limitation and Scope of the Study

Definitions and terms

Chapter Two    -       Literature Review

The Influence of Cultural Value and

Perspective in relation to work

The effect of the External Environment of

The Organization and Morale

Review of Related Literature

Chapter Three

Research Design and Methodology

Sources of Data

Area of Study

Population of the Study

Analytical techniques

Chapter Four

Presentation Analysis and

Interpretation of Data

Chapter Five

Summary of Findings, Conclusion & Recommendations

Summary of Findings

Conclusions

Recommendations

Bibliography

Questionnaire

       

CHAPTER ONE

 

                INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

        Attitude to work is one of the most researched and discussed subject areas in both private and public sectors.

Researchers have sought to explain how and why people are activated to behave in a manner supportive for organizational goals.

        Motivating Technical Sales People for higher productivity has been a great concern in most industries all over the world because they constitute the main work force of these industries.  To motivate a worker is to enhance his output and his productivity so that the overall result or performance of the organization can be improved upon.

        It is crystal clear that no matter how good or efficient an organization is, nothing happens until the people who make up the organization are motivated to perform.

This impetus may be totally internal to the employees, but often it requires the employee to except out external stimulus.

        Traditional theories take note of the improved salary and working conditions.

Employee’s attitude to work has been of great concern also to the Nigerian management practitioners and workers.

        The influence of cultural values and perspectives in relation to work in Nigeria, one noticed that Nigerian factory workers that depend on paid employment for their livelihood are mostly lazy, indifferent to work and sometimes dishonest while Nigerian working in the villages or doing community work are agile, delight efficient, honest and loyal.  This could be because they prefer paternalistic leadership to any other style of leadership practiced in the typical Nigerian business organization.

        This paper is an attempt to find a satisfactory answer, to important question such as what does a technical sales people of Emenite Plc. Want from their job? And how best can it be given to them with a view to motivating them for higher productivity.

PROFILE OF EMENITE PLC.

        The foundation store of the company was laid on 3rd October, 1961 prior to that period however, the company was incorporated Cement (Nig.) Ld.  The cop any was owned by Turner and Newall Ltd. ( A Manchester Uk based company) and the Government of Eastern Nigeria.

The reasons for sitting the company at it’s location at Emene Enugu are due to proximity.

-              To the cement factory Nkalagu

-              To the airport

-              To the railway line

-              To a river (Ekulu River)

Production started in 1983 with the company manufacturing

asbestos cement pipes, roofing and ceiling products.

During the Nigerian Civil was (1965 – 1968) with the absence of the British management Nigerian managed the company under the supervision named Igbo man

Due to the 1973 indigenization decree the share holding of the company changed the Turners and Newall Ltd. and Government of Eastern Nigeria.  The name was changed later to Turner building products (Emene) Ltd. and local quarter moved from Lagos to Emene Enugu.

By 24th March, 1998, Turners and Newall Ltd. transformed it’s share holdings to Eterantremer Society Anoyme of Belgium (New Eter groups S.A Belgium) the ultimate holding company/technical partners, while Imo, Anambra, Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi States share the remaining percentage and the company changed its name to the present name Emenite Plc.

The company centered the Nigerian Market scene with a range of products notably:

a.     roofing Products:

        -       Big six corrugated sheets (grey and coloured)

        -       Standard corrugated sheets

        -       Ultimate corrugated sheets

        -       Villatile Sheets

        -       Long span (Aminatus) sheets

b.     Ceiling Products:

-       Emceil flat sheets

        -       Duraceil                                    Decoration ceiling tiles

        -       Emlux

        -       Qualite    

c.      Garden Items

        -       Flower ports of various designed and dimension

        The products are sold through a wide range of distribution network to ensure availability even in the remotest areas.

They undergo strick quality control processes that are in accordance with international standard to ensure that customers derive full benefit from the products.

        For customers to enjoy full benefit of the products, the company offers at no extra cost, full technical advisory service before and after sales.  This is through as team of well trained engineers and technicians. 

The service ensures that customers enjoy high quality and problem free installation.

        To make it’s impact felt in the market and ensure steady production more people were employed.  This is to ensure they remained been a leader in roofing product.

        The end points was that the directory referred to as a motivator orients management whereby the head of the department must be boss but a leader with great zeal and energy.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

        The problem being studied is how well and under what constraint is the technical sales people operates.  The task is watching the technical sales people at work with a view to ascertaining their out put when motivated and when their morale is low.

This will help to assess the effect is that workers should be encouraged to do as well as they can do.  To say this, it might seems to non counter to renewable principles of work ethics viz that the building of morale.  Workers should make themselves do or be made to do things they do not like doing especially for the lazy workers.

A renewed psychologist, William James in his charming and persuasive way, advice employers of labour to keep the faculty of efforts alive by a little gratuitous exercise every day since every one has his/her own optimal level of difficulty and optimal level aspiration.

        The problem of both public and private sector organization in Nigeria include poor attitude to work, poor performance and generally how morale is been built among their staff as stated earlier as a result, some of these organization do not meet their expected production targets.  The revenue accruing to the organization becomes low and consequently the stock holder will not get adequate returns for their investment.

        It is no secret that in this country, a lot of businesses have folded up because of the indifferences as the management to their staff in terms of motivation.  The researcher, therefore went ahead to know how far the Emenite Plc., Enugu motivates her staffs and the impacts of such motivational tools.

        It has been estimated that rough 35% of the work force is weakly motivated, yet effective motivation of people offers one of the most direct and powerful means for increasing organizational performance.

Many industries spend large amount of time and money researching the behaviour of potential customers while neglecting to study the motivation and behavhour of their own sales people.  As a result, sales managers have generally had to develop their own approaches to motivating the sales force, base on a mixture of intuition, folklore, industrial traditions, managerial role modles, and their own experiences.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

        The objective o the study is to examine the attitude of the technical sales people to their job in the Emenite Plc. Through a case study of motivating technical sales people in Emenite Plc., and to identify the factor that conducts the attitudes that is either negative or positive to higher productivity.

        The quality control processes would be a good medium to look at the traditional theories of the economy and human behavour who stressed the motivation power and money and material reward salary and working condition as a motivating factors.  Taking cognizance of their position as a high wage paying industry, there is thus, t he need to ascertain the best way to treat his workers to increase productivity commensurately with it’s rewards and to recommend how these can be incorporated into the organization.

        The objective oft his study therefore is to examine and evaluate the motivating factors given to the technical sales people in Emenite Plc. And how far does it really motivate those workers in an effort to increase their productivity.  An attempt will also be made to identify the cause of how morale among the technical sales people with a view to recommending solution for the industry as a whole.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

        Based on the objectives of the research project the following research question are formulated;

1.           Why should motivating of technical sales people be encouraged in any manufacturing industries; especially in Emenite Plc?

2.           To what extent does poor compensation plan affect the productivity of technical sales people?

3.           Does ports territory allocation affects the achievement of technical sales people?

4.           What are the hindrances in the realization of potential technical sales people for the industry?

5.           What recommendation could be made fro enhancement of growth of Emenite Plc.?

HYPOTHESIS

Ho:  A good compensation policy motivates technical sales people to achieve higher productivity in Emenite processing industry.

Hi:   Technical sales people can also be motivated  by provision of better social amenities.

H2:  Opportunities for advancement motivates technical sales people to higher productivity.

H30: Recognition for a job well done will increase the technical sales people, self esteem and motivating the workers to higher productivity.

H3i: Technical sales people and their supervisors in the place of work can motivate the worker to higher productivity.

 

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

        The study will enable Emenite to know how far the incentive provided tot heir technical sales people have really motivated them to higher productivity.

        The study will also help the Emenite as a whole to know the motivational factors that can be provided to their technical sales people for higher productivity since they are the main working force in the industry.

        Companies and industries will benefit from this study in the formulation of their package of service condition that could motivate their technical sales people to higher productivity.

        The students of behavioural/social sciences will also benefit from this researcher since the problem of motivation and attitude to work boarder an human behaviours and besides, since the study is on technical sales people the main working force of industries, which seems not to have being receiving enough attention form the management and the researchers.

        Finally, suggestions and recommendation of this study will be useful to the federal government, state government another industry on the motivational factor that can be given totheir technical sales people and administration of those variables.

LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY

        In the course of carrying out this research study, the researcher was forced with limitation which are too numerous to mention here, but the ones that have too much adverse effect on the success of this study are as outlined below:

1.           Time

2.           finance

3.           uncooperative attitude of the workers being researched upon

4.           administrative bureaucracy

TIME:      This constituted the major constraint on this study, this was due to the fact that the project started very late as a result of non approved of my own project topic, by which another topic was given to me i.e. motivating technical sale people for higher productivity, at times lecture will be going on, so combing the two was a problem to me so it becomes obvious that the project has to be rushed in order to meet the time and also to enable me face my lectures, theses inevitably leads to a very hasty completion of the study which could have yielded better result if there was enough time to conduct a very thorough study. This time poses the greatest limiting factor for this study.

FINANCE : Finance almost jeopardized my chance of making my useful researcher, as the researcher relied on the areas of getting money from her brother at Chibok, Borno State.  The financial constraint reduced the researcher efficient and effectiveness to the extent of preventing her from traveling to where the manager directed her to go for further information.  If not for the little financial assistance which came from friends, more than half of the questionnaires administered wouldn’t have been collected.

        For a better study, financial assistance will be needed to enhance a better work if necessary.

UNCOOPERATIVE ATTITUDE OF THE TECHNICAL SALES PEOPLE: The lackadaisical attitude of the technical sales people hampered my research to an extent some of the sales people were unwilling to accept and complete the questionnaires despite my petting and appeal from their supervisors and this could be due to their inability to write some of the technical sales people took the questionnaire home for completion but never came back with them while some has to rely on others to fill the questionnaire for them despite the fact that this run counter to my objectives and principles of administering questionnaires.

        Due to the pressure mounted on the sales people by their boos that made some of them return their questionnaire, and this compelled me to interview them orally for cross classification.

ADMINISTRATIVE BUREAUCRACY:    This also situate a bias barrier to any research.

First, the researcher was asked to seek for written permission which came after few weeks later, despite all the vigorous encountered in writing such permission.

The researcher was refused by some sectional head to talk to, the workers also asked here to go and come back the next day  or next time or during their break when the workers should be less busy.

DEFINITIONOF TERMS

        Motivation has been used. Inter changeable with incentives in our everyday life, and oxford advance learners dictionary of current English, defines motivation as something that gives a motive or even encourages a person in an incentives, this has shown why a resent times the concept of motivation has the concern of most manager especially when the worker feel through from their own assessment, that their workers always provide with what ever it takes to produce in maximum quality or to meet the target of their organization and yet there is always this undesirable gap between the idea production load and the organizational objectives and consequently, that of their workers as the organization might not be in position to pay the workers salary and wages fro example in the time of completely satisfaction, such organization is regarded as been unsuccessfully managed.

        Since the workers are the care element of every organization, success is making them realize their own objective.  It is therefore directly related to that of the organization when these two interrelated objectives are achieved, the organization is said to be successfully managed that is any organization that is unable to achieve its objective all things been equal, ahs equally failed in helping its workers realized their respective objectives for joining or staying in the organization.

        An organization production is a function of the workers ability and willingness to work towards the organizational goals.

        Hence, the theory of motivation which vogue a few years ago as a sort of catch all for studies which as not clearly identified with any of the traditional applied disciplines such as industrial psychology but which were broadly concerned with human factors that affected productivity.  It has to do with the way I which people habits, attitude and reaction to each other affects what they can accomplish in their work.

        The insidiousness of motivation to productivity has many researcher like Mosho Herzbeng, Megrefor and Vroom to come up with definitions (views) of the word motivation in order to finding a lasting solution to the problem of low productivity as a result of lacking in sufficient motivation.

        However, some of those view are some low conflicting and therefore, there is need to know which one that tends to treat the problem of motivation very well.

        Indeed, this study is going to question the validity of the assertion that the problem of motivation in Nigerian Industries/companies.

        Rosenbeng, jerry M, (1975 p. 210) also defined motivation as a stimulus that energies differentially certain responses with a person.

        Victor it Vroom (1964; p. 50) equally defined motivation as a process of governing choices made by persons or low organizers and alternative forms of voluntary activities.

        This study will question the role of motivation as a n inducement for workers to behave in a specific way towards achieving the organizational goals specially stated by the motivation (Torrington; 1974).

        Productivity is also defined as measurement of the efficiency of production; a radio of output of input.

        Workers\ is defined as any person that work for a fixed compensation in business enterprise or government or insituion but subordinated to the authority of the employer in any achieving assigned to him to produce good services for the owner in other to make profit, or in the case of government as the employer for increase in the wealth or well being of the community or country.

        Technical is derived from the word technique, connected with special to, one of the mechanical or industrial art or with methods used by experts and artists.

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