Date of Graduation

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Marketing

Advisor/Mentor

Geiger, Craig

Abstract

Selling and sales management professions permeate job application websites. Sales is often associated with a pushy used-car dealership and cold calling. These practices are necessary, but selling, especially in our increasingly consumerist society, has long influenced and is a part of almost all business professions. You could argue that almost every employed individual operates in some sort of sales function due to the current job landscape. Whether this includes working directly with the sale of a product or even selling one’s self to a company or client. Selling in the retail space is understandably the heartbeat of the company, especially in a competitive sector such as consumer packaged goods, where sales grew by $131 billion dollars, or 9.4%, from 2019 to 2020 (Consumer Brands Association, 2021). Selling to retail giants and smaller companies alike needs to be focused on more than ever before. Not only do external sales play an important role in today’s job landscape, but the sales function also operates in an important way internally. Within businesses, internal sales need to be strong in order to inform competitive decision-making.

Alongside sales, technology and data have completely altered the way businesses operate. Consumers are flooded with both virtual and non-virtual advertisements, and large companies focus on ad-targeting and profiling consumers in almost every instance that they are online. Because of this there is an increasing need for understanding each consumer and their specific buying instance. What kinds of items are they buying at other times? What companies do they follow? What is their demographic information? The same care has been placed on understanding the consumer away from social media as well. Ultimately, obviously, the consumer is the one consuming the product. At the bottom line, they need to be understood; their wants, needs, dislikes, and struggles. Data collection has made it easier to obtain this level of important information concerning the customer. The increasingly integrated and cross-functional nature of business calls on the importance of both sales and consumer data to develop a more holistic view of the business.

In the scope of my internship with Keurig Dr Pepper, I learned the value of sales and consumer data in my creation of a Category Shopper Profile Library tool.

Keywords

Marketing; Consumer Data; Sales Career; Insights; Data Tool

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