SALES PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT CASE ANALYSIS Dr$.$ Frank Q$.$ Fu$,$ UMSL. All rights reserved. The Situation Samsung is a major multinational corporation $($MNC$)$ in the electronics industry. Relying on nearly $8000$ retailing salespeople in China, Samsung $($China$)$ has dominated the Chinese computer monitor market for eight consecutive years. These salespeople include both company employees and representatives of local partners. They work in department stores $($similar to Sears$),$ supermarkets $($similar to Walmart$),$ and electronic specialty chain stores such as Guomei and Suning $($similar to BestBuy$)$ located in over $200$ Chinese cities. The salespeople$$s primary responsibilities are to recommend Samsung products to consumers, to answer consumers$$ questions regarding the products, and to provide services to facilitate purchases. The Issues The National Sales Director in the Monitor Division of Samsung $($China$)$ Investment Co$.$ Ltd$.$ was facing a puzzle. The recent sales records showed that, although his division$$s sales revenue still overshadowed all major competitors, its overall profitability had declined by $20\%.$ After carefully analyzing the data, he suspected that several factors could be the causes. First, for the whole industry, fierce competition and quick technological breakthroughs had commoditized the computer monitors and drove down profitability. As a result, the profit margins became thinner and product life cycles shorter. Second, Samsung, like many other companies in the same m