Correspondence: Rajagopal, Department of Marketing, Business Division Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, ITESM Mexico City Campus 222, Calle del Puente, Tlalpan DF 14380, Mexico. Tel: +52 55 5483 2251; Fax: +52 55 5483 1341; E-mail: rajagopal@itesm.mx; Web: http://www.geocities.com/prof_rajagopal/homepage.html

¹is Professor of Marketing at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), Mexico City Campus, and Fellow of the Royal Society for Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, London. He has been listed with biography in Who's Who in the World, 2007. He holds a doctoral degree from Ravishankar University, India, and has been conferred the membership (level-II) of Mexican National System of Researchers. He teaches various topics of marketing in graduate, doctoral executive development programmes of the Institute. Dr Rajagopal held key positions in many premier management institutes in India including Administrative Staff College of India.

Received 16 November 2007; Revised 16 November 2007; Published online 21 December 2007.

Abstract

This study has been conducted in Mexico, and discusses the impact of sales territory design and compensation on salespeople as predictors of performance of sales unit effectiveness in the retailing sector. The factors affecting the performance of sales force through balanced supervisory control, cognitive measures and coordination pattern of task performance in the team have been examined, and managerial implications have been derived for optimising the performance of the sales force in the paper. The findings of the study show that the balance between territory designing and incentive pays affects the overall performance of sales tasks performed by the field sales teams. The sales territory design also largely influences the level of performance both directly and indirectly through its relationship with salespeople's behavioural performance. Discussions in the paper also argue that behaviour control is a consistent predictor of salespeople's performance and effectiveness of the sales units. This indicates the importance of proactively monitoring, directing and evaluating salespeople by the managers.