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Marketing Information Systems and the Sales Order Process
• Wet base mixture: honey and canola oil
• Vitamins and minerals
Each type of bar contains additional unique ingredients: NRG-A contains carob chips
and raisins, and NRG-B contains hazelnuts and dates. 51
Fitter’s sales force is organized into two groups: the Wholesale Division and the Direct
Sales Division. The Wholesale Division sells to intermediaries that distribute the bars to
small shops, vending machine operators, and health food stores. The Direct Sales Division
sells directly to large grocery stores, sporting goods stores, and other large chain stores.
The two divisions operate separately from one another, in effect breaking the Marketing
and Sales functional area into two pieces. Each division has an organizational structure
that interacts with Fitter’s other functional areas, such as Accounting and Finance and
Supply Chain Management.
The two sales divisions differ primarily in terms of order volume and pricing terms.
The Direct Sales Division offers customers volume discounts to encourage larger sales
orders, which are more efficient to process. The Wholesale Division charges customers
a lower fixed price because the orders are usually large. Each order—regardless of size—
generates costs related to the paperwork, shipping, and handling of the order. Thus, an
order of 500 cases of snack bars incurs the same handling costs as an order of 10 cases.
However, the large order might generate $5,000 in profit, while the small order might
generate only $100. Both divisions send their customers invoices requesting the total
balance within 30 days and offering a 2 percent discount if the customer pays within
10 days (2–10/net 30).
In addition to selling snack bars under the Fitter Snacker brand name, the company
also packages the bars in store-brand wrappers for some chain stores.

PROBLEMS WITH FITTER SNACKER’S SALES PROCESS

Many of Fitter’s sales orders have some sort of problem, such as incorrect pricing,
excessive calls to the customer for information, order-processing delays, missed delivery
dates, and so on. These problems occur because Fitter has three separate information
systems: the sales order system, the warehouse system, and the accounting system.
Information from each system is shared either electronically through periodic file
transfers (sales order system to accounting system) or manually by paper printout (credit
status from the Accounting Department to sales clerks). The high number of manual
transactions creates many opportunities for data entry errors. Further, not all the
information stored in the three systems is available in real time, resulting in incorrect
prices and credit information.
In each sales division, Fitter has four salespeople who work on the road, plus two
clerks who work in the sales office. Salespeople work on commission and have some
leeway in offering customers “discretionary discounts” to make a sale. The entire sales
process involves a series of steps that require coordination between Sales, Warehouse,
Accounting, and Receiving, as shown in Figure 3-1. (Notice that Production is not directly
involved in the sales process because Fitter plans production using a make-to-stock
strategy, with product shipped to customers from warehouse inventory rather than being
manufactured for specific orders.)

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