Your commercial team is responsible for obtaining and entering orders and for supporting distributors. It is organized by channel to better meet the needs of the distributors, and by product. The team includes multiple categories of people and resources depending on the channels: sales representatives, customer support, merchandisers, web masters, blog managers, etc. The main tasks conducted by the commercial team are to visit stores, distributors and wholesalers; to enroll them in trade programs; to take orders; to handle out of stock situations; to participate in trade shows; and to help stores organize and conduct promotions.
•You must specify the size of your commercial team (in Full-Time-Equivalent (FTE), i.e. the equivalent of one person working full-time for one period) to allocate to each traditional channel and each product. Commercial people may be reallocated at no cost across distribution channels and/or across products. However, hiring or firing costs will be automatically charged to your department when the total size of the commercial team increases or decreases. They are calculated as a percentage of the FTE cost.
FTE costs include the salary and employee benefits of the person, as well as a sales budget that commercial people can use in activities or tools aimed at increasing sales, such as trade programs, catalogs, permanent or temporary POS materials, gifts, etc.
The commercial team will decide on the best mix of tools depending on the channel and the target consumers.
•For digital channels, you must specify a commercial budget in thousands of dollars, which will be used to buy key words and banners in the external online distributors’ website (like Amazon, Alibaba, etc.) or for your owned eStore advertising and promotion.