This research develops a global sales strategy for Omega, a producer of high technology medical diagnostic equipment and instruments. In the early 1990s, the trend is increasingly toward the development of international markets.1 Accordingly, it is incumbent on corporations such as Omega to acquire the knowledge, and develop the expertise that will permit them to develop effective marketing strategies for a variety of cultural environments.2 Successful corporations in the 1990s will not be able to survive in the international marketplace, if they continue to seek market expansion only to those countries where the so called cultural distance is short.3
The Function of International Sales Management At Omega
Sales management in industrial organizations such as Omega is similar in most respects to that in any other organization. The major differences are related to the technical character of the product manufactured by many industrial organizations.4 This characteristic is particularly applicable in the case of Omega. The effective management of technical industrial sales
1S. Blank, Multinational Corporations in Comparative Perspective, rev ed. (New York: The Conference Board, 1992), 3.
2P. J. Buckely, and M. Casson, The Future of Multinational Enterprise, 4th ed. (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1992), 43.
3T. Agmon, Multinational Marketing (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1988), 112.
4S. J. PoKempner, Management Science in Business, rev. ed. (New York: The Conference Board, 1985), 20.
requires the employment in the sales area of technical specialists, who provide
. . . technical assistance to order oriented sales people. They are usually scientists or engineers who have little interest in sales. Instead, they have the technical know how plus the ability to explain the talk to the customer's technical people, there is little need for much sales ability. Before ...