The Croatian Sales Barometer 2008

On June 3rd, Jordan Georgiev, Project Manager at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants opened the Sales Management Summit 2008 in Zagreb and presented the results from the first extensive Sales Management survey, which was carried out in Croatia in April and May 2008. The objective of the survey was to receive a clear picture on the issues and development challenges for the Sales function in Croatia and to derive a Croatian Sales barometer. The survey was conducted in cooperation with the leading Croatian publishing company business.hr. The CEOs and sales managers of the top 500 Croatian companies were asked about their opinion on the current status, efficiency and future challenges of the Sales function in Croatia.

Looking forward in the next three years, the Croatian managers expect the competition to sharpen, explaining this with increasing pressure on consumer prices due to increasing energy prices, but also with ongoing internationalization of the business – with Croatian companies going abroad and international companies entering the Croatian market. The Croatian companies expect increasing sales pressure, but they have no clear picture how to develop their sales capacities and lack the competences to face this challenge. Their working methods are currently not the most efficient ones. A further improvement potential is seen in the development of more efficient organization structures and working methods. Even though new sales is generated, the sales organization is assessed currently quite weak. Especially the link between sales and purchasing needs further improvement.