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Computer Service Corporation

This case deals with Paul Robbins, the national sales manager for Computer Service Corporation. Paul Robbins is perturbed because the number of recruits needed isinadequate for the number of open territories. This is not a new problem that the company is facing; in the past they have had to deal with this before but it was even worse this year than the fewprevious. In terms of numbers, for every four offers made by CSC, three were tuned down. It is a company that markets a full line of products including hardware, software, computer accessories, and manyother miscellaneous products and services, over 6,000 in all. The company has been in business for 30 years and handles 50% of the countries’ phone bills and the UPS shipping forms. CSC has had 15consecutive years of positive earnings and sales growth.
All of the employed sales team members are well versed in the companies’ entire line of products; each representative is responsible for aparticular geographic area. The sales rep. has to learn and identify ways to improve the customers specific operations and profits. The salespeople have a base salary plus commission, but this commission isonly significant after approximately two years. Most of the senior sales representatives may earn more than $100,000 per year. Paul Robbins feels that the problem does not lye in the retention of thesales representatives but is instead in getting the recruits to commit. CSC recruits business majors only and are select from one or two universities from each region. Sales managers interview 10 to15 candidates with no set qualifications or in a standardized interview process. After the initial campus interviews, the sales manager conducts a second round of interviews with two to four recruitsin the district offices. During these interviews they meet with staff, personal and sometimes with one of the regional managers. Then the offer is made of $22,000 the first 6 months then $20,000 and...