On October 29, the Chair of Marketing Management was delighted to welcome Engelhard Arzneimittel for a visit to this years’ Sales Management course. Within the guest lecture, Tobias Frank - Sales Director National - and Christine Collot - Head of Shopper and Trade Marketing - shared valuable, practical insights on the topic of sales territory alignment. Engelhard Arzneimittel’s visits to the Sales Management course represents a long held and highly appreciated tradition. This years’ lecture was carried out in a truly hybrid format since Tobias Frank participated in person while Christine Collot joined via Zoom.

The two guest speakers kicked-off the session with an introduction to the family-led company Engelhard Arzneimittel and its history. Then, Tobias Frank and Christine Collot gave an overview of the pharmaceutical market in Germany based on which they provided reasons why their sales territory needed to be aligned. Some of those reasons are the entrance of new competitors, stagnating market shares and sales, as well as modified consumer behavior. In order to counteract these challenges, Engelhard Arzneimittel strives to develop into an innovative, flexible, and professional sales organization ultimately becoming market leader.

Afterwards, Tobias Frank and Christine Collot presented Engelhard Arzneimittel’s approach of territory realignment to the class. The approach stipulates that in the first step, the current territory configuration is presented. Then, in the second step, the territory design process is applied. The separate steps of the territory design process, that students had already learned about in the Sales Management lecture, were filled with practical insights by Engelhard Arzneimittel. In addition to the organizational perspective, the salesperson’s viewpoint was highlighted as well. This is especially important because territory realignment will cause reactions on the part of the salespeople.

Subsequently, the two guest speakers talked about the short- and long-term effects of territory realignment. In so doing, Christine Collot made use of the findings that she generated in her master thesis which she wrote at the Chair of Marketing Management. In her thesis, she identified satisfaction with the sales territory realignment as the central variable impacting a salespersons’ motivation, performance, and job satisfaction. The mentioned satisfaction with the sales territory in turn depends on territory-related, outcome-related, and behavior-related factors. The results of the sales territory alignment for Engelhard Arzneimittel were impressive: there has been an exponential growth in turnover ever since.

The guest lecture was completed with a presentation of entry opportunities and the work culture at Engelhard Arzneimittel. At the very end of the lecture, there was an interactive session in which students had the opportunity to ask all their questions and get in direct contact with each other.

The Chair of Marketing Management would very much like to thank Tobias Frank and Christine Collot again for their visit to this year’s Sales Management course.