The theoretical part of this thesis contains the general characteristics of the Kofola company, aspects of personal selling and the most important atributes of a successfull sales representative. The fourth chapter is focused on the review of the personal selling by the Kofola company and the fifth chapter summarizes concrete activities and specifics of the workweek of the sales representative of this sompany. The sixth chapter decsribes instruments of sales promotion often used by the Kofola company: special offers for customers and consumers. The last part of this thesis is focused on the performance measurement of the sales representatives, which is a part of a motivation system of the Kofola company.

The aim of this research was to generate a theory to predict the success levels of assurance sales representatives. A sample of 245 participants from a life insurance company in South Africa was selected to participate in the study. The sample consisted of 213 males and 32 females; of these, 159 were European, 78 African and 8 Asian; the average age was 40.37 years. The Schepers Locus of Control Inventory (Schepers, 1995), the Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation Scale (EAOS) (Robinson, Stimpson, Huefner&Hunt, 1991) and a biographical questionnaire were administered to the participants. Factor analysis was conducted to test the psychometric quality of the locus of control and the attitude scale. Hypotheses were tested for the variables with two performance outcomes: commissions earned and lapse ratios. Using the information obtained from the analyses, a model was built of the significant relationships between the performance criteria and the independent variables. Results indicated that neither the EAOS nor the Locus of Control Inventory scales predicted performance outcomes as hypothesized for sales professionals. The significant correlations that did result were generally counter to expectations. Demographic variables had limited success in predicting performance outcomes of sales professionals. The nature of the employment contract (full or part-time w/NEK, F = 5.61; p<0.05), population groups (White South Africans vs. African South Africans w/NEK, F = 5.22; p<0.05), job status (Manager vs. Sales Representative wNEK, F = 3.51; p<0.05), years in sales (w/NEK, r = •0.14345; p<0.05), and desired salary (w/NEK, r = 0.19571; p<0.05) were correlated with the performance outcome measures. Cultural and management implications are discussed with regard to the use of psychometric measures for selection. Research implications also are discussed. / Dissertation (MA (psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2001. / Psychology / unrestricted

This study provides insights into understanding social media utilization in the B2B selling process. More specifically, this research details how the different functional blocks of social media are leveraged to benefit the various stages of the selling process. This study adopts a multiple case study design, including six cases from technology-related Canadian firms. Overall, findings show that the functional blocks of social media are mostly leveraged in the prospecting and preapproach stages of the selling process. Furthermore, the marketing strategy of the seller firm seems to influence which functional blocks are leveraged in the process. At last, findings also show that social media should be complemented by analytical tools and traditional media to optimize the selling process with higher lead quality and to facilitate trust-building with potential and existing customers

Sales are a subject that most people consider to be an art. The truth is that there are several sophisticated methodologies on how to successfully close a deal. However, time goes by, customers get smarter and the markets shifts. As a result sales methods start to fade away and do not necessarily work the way they used to. This thesis was conducted in co-operation with SimCorp A/S and aims to examine the concept of Insight Selling. The concept was developed by analysing top performers and how they manage to sell in an economic downturn. The purpose is to investigate how an organisation can apply the core principles of the new sales strategy on an existing sales process and current customer relationship management system. A qualitative research method was used and interviews were conducted to gather data to gain a deeper understanding on the topic of sales. The result exhibits a situation analysis that was conducted to create a representation of SimCorp’s current sales process. With the key elements of insight selling a proposed model of a future state was presented. Lastly, a requirements analysis of the customer relationship management system currently deployed at the company was designed based on the findings. The result indicated that it was possible to apply the key elements of insight selling on the current sales process. The method might be suitable for some situations but it does not replace or eliminate earlier practices. / Det är vanligt att uppfatta försäljning som en konst. Sanningen är att det finns väl beprövade metodiker för hur man ska lyckas för att sälja. Med tiden har konsumenter blivit smartare och marknaden förändrats. Detta har resulterat i att många säljmetoder blir avlägsna och inte lika användbara och pålitliga som de var innan. Examensarbetet utfördes i samarbete med SimCorp A/S där syftet är att undersöka begreppet insiktsförsäljning. Konceptet utvecklades från en studie där man analyserade de högpresterande säljarna och identifierade hur de lyckades sälja under en ekonomisk lågkonjunktur. Syftet är att undersöka hur en organisation kan applicera de nya strategierna som presenteras inom insiktsförsäljning på en befintlig försäljningsprocess och det nuvarande kundhanteringssystemet. En kvalitativ forskningsmetod applicerades och intervjuer utfördes för att ackumulera data och få en djupare förståelse av ämnet försäljning. I resultatet presenteras en nulägesanalys av SimCorp’s nuvarande försäljnings-process. Vidare presenteras ett förslag på hur en försäljningsprocess med inslag av strategierna från insiktsförsäljning kan se ut. Slutligen utfördes en kravanalys på insiktsförsäljnings metod för att implementeras och testas på det nuvarande kundhanteringssystemet. Resultatet indikerade att det var möjligt att applicera nyckel elementen från insiktsförsäljning på den nuvarande säljprocessen. Metoden är lämplig för att användas i vissa situationer men ersätter inte eller eliminerar tidigare rutiner.

An analysis of four Utah retail selling areas was made to determine the changes in the market structure of the retail grocery industry of these markets. The study markets were Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake, and Provo-Orem. This study was an ex tension of the National Commission Food Marketing study of the retail food marketing industry. The major changes observed in the study markets were increasing population, dollar food sa l es, supermarket saturation leve ls and concentration ratios. The number of retail food outlets was decreasing. The barriers to entry in the study markets increased during the study period. There was substantial economic activity in the study markets during the study period. Several major chain food retailers entered and left the markets during the study period. Firm expansion in the retail grocery indus try was accomplished by both external means and internal means.

Wool has been an important product in Utah since the pioneers arrived. The Mormon pioneers had with them 358 head of sheep upon entering the Salt Lake Valley. At that time there were also 12 head of sheep near Ogden, Utah belonging to Miles Goodyear, a trading post operator. These early people were very dependent upon wool for their clothing and numerous other products.

Thesis (M.M. (Strategic Marketing))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2015. / Cross-selling remains the easier and most cost effective option for companies to grow revenues and achieve profitability as compared to growing revenue by acquisition of new customers. Many firms are seeking to grow their revenue and achieve high levels of customer loyalty. These firms and industries across the world are turning to cross selling as the solution. Many factors, such as merger and takeovers, result in firms having multiple product lines and silos with sales people focused according to these product divisions. What becomes more difficult is identifying which factors will lead to more integrated teams that are motivated to engage in cross selling. This study seeks to address some of the challenges that result in lower motivations levels of sales people to engage in cross selling. Financial incentives, product knowledge and recognition are studies to determine their influence on motivation to cross sell products from other divisions in a firm. A review of literature was conducted to study the influence of financial incentive, product knowledge and personal recognition on work motivation. These three constructs were then extended into a quantitative study of how they influence sales people’s motivation to engage in cross selling. The findings uncovered that salespeople consider product knowledge as a key inhibitor for them to engage in cross selling. The results also revealed a close contest with financial incentives and personal recognition also having positive influence on their motivation to engage in cross selling. Consistent with existing literature from social studies, it cannot be overemphasised that product knowledge empowers sales people and gives them the confidence to cross sell in an industrial sales environment.

My dissertation contains three essays on short-selling, margin trading, and market efficiency. The first essay uses a unique exogenous event, the introduction of short selling in the Chinese stock market, to examine the direct link between idiosyncratic risk and short selling. Based on Shleifer and Vishny (1997), I hypothesize that idiosyncratic risk deters arbitrageurs with negative information from taking short positions in overvalued stocks. Consequently, the stocks with high idiosyncratic risk are more overvalued at the onset of the introduction of short sale and perform worse in the subsequent period. The second essay examines the impact of the introduction of margin trading and short selling in the Chinese stock market on market quality. The third essay examines the relationship between short selling and SEO discount under the SEC’s amendment to Rule 105. If the amendment is binding, the short-selling prior to seasoned equity offering (SEO) should correctly reflect negative information and promote price efficiency. Thus the winner’s curse problem during SEO process is reduced and the value discount of a SEO should be less

This dissertation reports an investigation of the personality-sales performance relationship and the effect of long and short selling cycle situations as a moderator of this relationship. Research in the area of salesperson performance has failed to establish critical theoretical foundations for testing and predicting salesperson success. Many researchers have attempted to generalize results over all categories of salespeople without consideration of those tasks and traits crucial to success in specific categories of sales employment. Three theoretical frameworks are discussed (trait, situation, interaction) and the interactionist theoretical framework is proposed as a necessary step to study the personality-sales performance relationship. Hypotheses were generated that suggested a personality characteristic may be related to sales success in one selling situation but not another. The research was conducted in a two week period by surveying salespeople from a large computer manufacturer. The three independent variables were: (1) planfulness; (2) tenacity; and (3) locus of control. Multiple dependent variables attempted to measure both objective and subjective measures of sales success. Confirmatory factor analysis was run on the sales-performance measures to check for the unidimensionality of the construct. It was found that the objective and subjective measures were not unidimensional. Based on the sales managers inexperience in rating salespeople, the objective measure of percent of quota was chosen as the best measure of sales success. In general, the data analysis supported the hypothesized effects. While the results support the premise that the personality-sales performance relationship is moderated by the long and short selling cycle situations, the tenacity hypothesis showed weak effects. Results of the dissertation are discussed with respect to the major finding and significance to personal selling research. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the study limitations and directions for future research. / Ph. D.

Ubiquitination is an important post-translational modification that maintains cellular homeostasis by regulating various biological processes. Deubiquitinases (DUBs) are enzymes that reverse the ubiquitination process by catalyzing the removal of ubiquitin from a substrate. Abnormal expression or function of DUBs is often associated with the onset and progression of various diseases, including cancer. Ubiquitin specific proteases (USPs), which constitute the largest family of DUBs in humans, have become the center of interest as potential targets in cancer therapy as many of them display increased activity or are overexpressed in a range of malignant tumors or the tumor microenvironment. Two related members of the USP family, USP28 and USP25, share high sequence identities but play diverse biological roles. USP28 regulates cell proliferation, oncogenesis, DNA damage repair and apoptosis, whereas USP25 is involved in the anti-viral response, innate immunity and ER-associated degradation in addition to carcinogenesis. USP28 and USP25 also exhibit different oligomeric states – while USP28 is a constitutively active dimer, USP25 assumes an auto-inhibited tetrameric structure. The catalytic domains of both USP28 and USP25 comprise the canonical, globular USP-domain but contain an additional, extended insertion site called USP25/28 catalytic domain inserted domain (UCID) that mediates oligomerization of the proteins. Disruption of the USP25 tetramer leads to the formation of an activated dimeric protein. However, it is still not clear what triggers its activation. Due to their role in maintaining and stabilizing numerous oncoproteins, USP28 and USP25 have emerged as interesting candidates for anti-cancer therapy. Recent advances in small-molecular inhibitor development have led to the discovery of relatively potent inhibitors of USP28 and USP25. This thesis focuses on the structural elucidation of USP28 and the biochemical characterization of USP28/USP25, both in complex with representatives of three out of the eight compound classes reported as USP28/USP25-specific inhibitors. The crystal structures of USP28 in complex with the AZ compounds, Vismodegib and FT206 reveal that all three inhibitor classes bind into the same allosteric pocket distant from the catalytic center, located between the palm and the thumb subdomains (the S1-site). Intriguingly, this binding pocket is identical to the UCID-tip binding interface in the USP25 tetramer, rendering the protein in a locked, inactive conformation. Formation of the binding pocket in USP28 requires a shift in the helix α5, which induces conformational changes and local distortion of the binding channel that typically accommodates the C-terminal tail of Ubiquitin, thus preventing catalysis and abrogating USP28 activity. The key residues of the USP28-inhibitor binding pocket are highly conserved in USP25. Mutagenesis studies of these residues accompanied by biochemical and biophysical assays confirm the proposed mechanism of inhibition and similar binding to USP25. This work provides valuable insights into the inhibition mechanism of the small molecule compounds specifically for the DUBs USP28 and USP25. The USP28-inhibitor complex structures offer a framework to develop more specific and potent inhibitors. / Ubiquitinierung ist eine wichtige posttranslationale Modifikation, die die zelluläre Homöostase aufrechterhält, indem sie verschiedene biologische Prozesse reguliert. Deubiquitinasen (DUBs) sind Enzyme, die den Ubiquitinierungsprozess umkehren, indem sie die Entfernung von Ubiquitin von einem Substrat katalysieren. Eine abnorme Expression oder Funktion von DUBs wird häufig mit dem Auftreten und Fortschreiten verschiedener Krankheiten, einschließlich Krebs, in Verbindung gebracht. Ubiquitin-spezifische Proteasen (USPs), die im Menschen die größte Familie der DUBs bilden, sind als potenzielle Ziele in der Krebstherapie von besonderem Interesse, da viele von ihnen in bösartigen Tumoren oder deren Mikroumgebung abnormal aktiv oder überexprimiert sind. Die zwei eng verwandten Mitglieder der USP-Familie, USP28 und USP25, weisen eine hohe Sequenzidentität auf, sind aber an unterschiedlichen biologischen Prozessen beteiligt. USP28 reguliert die Zellproliferation, die Onkogenese, die Reparatur von DNA-Schäden und die Apoptose, während USP25 eine Rolle bei der antiviralen Reaktion, der angeborenen Immunität, dem ER-assoziierten Abbau und der Carcinogenese spielt. USP28 und USP25 weisen auch unterschiedliche oligomere Zustände auf. Während USP28 ein konstitutiv aktives Dimer bildet, tritt USP25 als auto-inhibiertes Tetramer auf. Strukturell bestehen die katalytischen Domänen sowohl von USP28 als auch von USP25 aus der kanonischen globulären USP-Domäne enthalten jedoch eine zusätzliche Insertion, die als „USP25/28 catalytic domain inserted domain (UCID)“ bezeichnet wird und die Oligomerisierung der Proteine vermittelt. Die Dissoziation des USP25 Tetramers in Dimere führt zu einem aktivierten USP25-Protein. Es ist jedoch immer noch nicht klar, was seine Aktivierung auslöst. Aufgrund ihrer Rolle bei der Aufrechterhaltung und Stabilisierung zahlreicher Onkoproteine haben sich USP28 und USP25 als interessante Kandidaten für die Entwicklung von Medikamenten in der Krebstherapie erwiesen. Jüngste Fortschritte in der Entwicklung von niedermolekularen Inhibitoren haben zur Entdeckung von relativ potenten Inhibitoren von USP28 und USP25 geführt. Diese Arbeit konzentriert sich auf die Strukturaufklärung von USP28 und die biochemische Charakterisierung von USP28/USP25, beide im Komplex mit Vertretern von drei der acht Verbindungsklassen, die als USP28/USP25-spezifische Inhibitoren bekannt sind. Die Kristallstrukturen von USP28 im Komplex mit den AZ-Verbindungen, Vismodegib und FT206 zeigen, dass alle Inhibitoren in einer ähnlichen Region an USP28 binden - einer allosterischen Tasche, die in der Nähe des katalytischen Zentrums liegt und sich zwischen der Handflächen- und der Daumen-Subdomäne befindet. Diese Bindungstasche ist identisch mit der Position, an der der „UCID-tip“ im USP25-Tetramer bindet und das Protein in eine verschränkte, inaktive Konformation versetzt. Die Bildung der Bindungstasche in USP28 erfordert eine Verschiebung der α5-Helix, die zu Konformationsänderungen und einer lokalen Verzerrung des Bindungskanalsführt, der normalerweise den C-terminus des Ubiquitin-Moleküls bindet und so die Katalyse verhindert und die Aktivität von USP28 hemmt. Die Schlüsselreste der USP28-Inhibitor-Bindungstasche sind in USP25 hoch konserviert. Mutagenese-Studien dieser Aminosäuren, begleitet von biochemischen und biophysikalischen Analysen, bestätigen den vorgeschlagenen Mechanismus der Hemmung und eine ähnliche Bindung der Inhibitoren an USP25. Diese Arbeit liefert wertvolle Einblicke in den Hemmungsmechanismus der Kleinmolekülverbindungen, die spezifisch für die DUBs USP28 und USP25 entwickelt worden sind. Die Strukturen der USP28-Inhibitor-Komplexe bieten eine Grundlage für die zukünftige Entwicklung spezifischerer und wirksamerer Inhibitoren.