Cloverleaf plc case study

UK based supplier of bottling plant used In production lines to transport and fill bottles. Two years ago It opened an overseas sales office targeting Germany, F ranch and the Benelux countries. It estimated that there were over 1, 000 organizations in those countries that had bottling facilities, and that a key sales push in northern Europe was therefore e warranted.

Sales so far had been disappointing with only three units having been sold.

Expectant owns had men much higher than this, given the advantages of their product over that produce d by their competitors. Technological breakthroughs at Cloverleaf meant that their bottling lines had a 10 pee r cent speed advantage over the nearest competition with equal filling accuracy. A key problem wit h competitor products was unreliability. Down time due to a line breakdown was extremely costly t o bottlers.

Tests by Cloverleaf engineers at their research and development establishment in the UK h d shown their system to be the most reliable on the market.

Cloverleaf’s marketing strategy was based around high quality, high price competitive positioning. They believed that the superior performance of their product justified a 10 per cent price premium over their production line. Salespeople were told to stress the higher speed and enhanced real ability when talking to customers. The sales organization in northern Europe consisted of a sales manager with three salespeople assigned to Germany, France and the Benelux countries Reese Tivoli.

A technical specialist was also available when required.

When a sales call required sped socialist technical assistance, a salesperson would contact the sales office to arrange for the technical specialist to visit the prospect, usually together with the salesperson. Typically, four groups of people inside buying organizations were involved In the purr hash of bottling equipment, namely, the production manager, the production engineer, the p archiving