INTEGRATING PSYCHOGRAPHIC PROFILING FOR IMPROVED SALES. A CASE STUDY OF SHOPRITE

INTEGRATING PSYCHOGRAPHIC PROFILING FOR IMPROVED SALES. A CASE STUDY OF SHOPRITE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Organizations work to distribute their products (physical and intangible) both efficiently and effectively in order to compete in today’s global markets. Physical handling of a product results in regulated and centralized procedures and controls in sales supply networks, while human labor plays a vital role in the value delivery process in service supply chains (Sengupta et al 2008:1). Efficiency in service supply chains is primarily focused on managing capacity, resource flexibility, information flows, service performance, and cash flow management. In sales supply chains, supplier relationship management, customer relationship management, and demand management are crucial components.

Any business, large or little, sales or service, use psychographic profiling to generate product sales from designated client accounts in separate areas. Today’s changing sales environment, however, is far more complicated and necessitates considerable adjustments to performance measurements, goals, management, and reward. East of the Niger, the South-East zone is a prime example of growing and concentrated enterprises that use psychographic profiling. For sales organizations (large and SMEs) in the South-East, the importance of sales and marketing is growing. For sales organizations (large and SMEs) in the South-East, the importance of sales and marketing is growing. Sadly, the majority of these businesses do not include sales management theories into their sales operations. Typically, they rely on their prior knowledge or judgment. The requirement to plan, set goals, create policies, procedures, strategies, and tactics; organize and coordinate; direct operations; inspire, communicate, and develop employees; oversee and control; and assess results is considered to be a part of the acknowledged management process (Bolt 1987:28).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Today’s consumers are more picky than ever. Better products, services, and prompt, dependable support are needed by the target market than in the past. Psychographic profiling in the industry, which should have a wealth of knowledge and experience about the products, market, competitors, and industry trends, does not appear to be active and effective as demonstrated by broken business promises, incorrect information provided to customers, and subpar customer relationship management.

Particularly, a higher percentage of sales companies’ psychographic profiling has been a big offender in these behaviors, which include arriving late for work and completely missing appointments. While serving customers, some people may be extremely chilly or even hostile. Some psychographic profiling miss their focus and end up giving customers the wrong brand of products. They lead to lengthy wait times for customers to acquire the necessary supplies, which in turn leads to bad performance because some customers become impatient and leave or even seek out alternatives. The low growth of psychographic profiling performance in sales company may be caused by the psychographic profiling’s negative attitudes, such as tardiness to work, delayed sales calls, and lack of knowledge for customer problems.

1.3 Objectives Of The Study

The researcher will endeavour to:-

i) determine the direction from very high to very low levels of psychographic profiling in Shoprite Plc.

ii) Identify the motivational tools used on the psychographic profiling by sales company.

iii) ascertain whether staff preferred leave period and participation in decision making have significant effect on psychographic profiling performance in the company

iv) determine the most effective motivational incentives – insurance scheme, commissions, and regular pay used by either of the company under study.

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions were posed to direct the investigation in light of the study’s background, problem description, and goals:-

1  .What extent of psychographic profiling is there in the sales organization (Shoprite) under investigation?
2.  What various motivational techniques does the sales business employ when doing psychographic profiling?
3.  What are the motivational impacts of the staff’s desired leave period and their involvement in decision-making on the company under study’s psychographic profile performance?
4.  What are the company under study’s most successful psychographic profiling incentives?

1.5 Significance Of The Study

The following research questions were posed to direct the investigation in light of the study’s background, problem description, and goals:-

What’s the deal?
This report will also be helpful to businesses doing business in Nigeria. The management of these companies will receive more training and refreshment in order to better equip them to apply the necessary information and motivational techniques to promote growth and industrial harmony. Peace, commitment, and interpersonal relationships will all be facilitated by this. The study will motivate executives of various businesses to use measures that would produce “pleasant psychographic profiling, happy company” circumstances.
The study will give teachers and educational administrators/managers the proper mindset to “encourage kids to learn” in the educational setting. They will acquire new justifications for committing the students to the pursuit of an effective teaching and learning process as a result of this study. During this course, the students will be appropriately prepared to handle some economic activities involving human resource management, particularly the concerns with psychographic profiling. The goal of this assignment is to prepare the students for the extra management duties they will probably face in the real world.

1.6 Scope of the Study

This research work will be confined to assessing the effects of motivation on psychographic profiling performance in Shoprite Plc as sales company in the South-East states. This study will identify the available psychographic profilingal tools by the company, and proffer the way forward.

1.7 Definition of Terms

In the course of this study, definitive meaning of some relevant terms will be understood as follows:-

Motivation: Motivation refers to the desire and effort to satisfy a want or goal (Akpala 1990:237). It is a drive towards an outcome, human resources management action directed to the psychographic profiling to elicit their optimum performance.

Motivational Practice: This consists of all the activities habitually performed by the management and directed towards the organizational members in order to exact loyalty and appreciable level of task performance (Carter 1990: 216).

Motivational Reward: This refers to cash or any other form of compensation in liquid assets for services rendered, task performance or merit achieved (Chime 1990:196).

The term “psychographic profiling” refers to salespeople (men and women) paid by an organization or company to locate potential consumers of their goods, turn these potential consumers into customers, and make sure that these customers are consistently satisfied to encourage repeat business (Nwokoye 1988:154).

Marketing: The conduct of corporate operations that control the movement of commodities from producers to consumers (American Marketing Association). Marketing is described as “the management of systems responsible for recognizing, predicting, and successfully satisfying customers’ requirements” by the Institute of Marketing, London (Onah and Allison 2007:124).

Communication is the act of exchanging ideas or information in an effort to improve interpersonal relationships or mutual trust. It is a technique for members of an organization to communicate with one another by using words, letters, symbols, or messages to convey meaning and comprehension (Osuala and Okeke 2006:118).

Sales: This is the company or industry that involves mass-producing goods in factories. By presenting these products to potential customers or users, the psychographic profiling is able to persuade them and win their business.

A service is a system that the government or a private business organizes to deliver something important (intangible) that the public requires. It is a company that operates by providing a service to clients rather than creating commodities. Examples of service businesses are hotels, retail stores, restaurants, etc (Hornby 2000:1075).