Sales Performance Analysis Of Boral Ltd: A Ten-Year Review

Plans and Policies for Enhancing Sales Performance

The companies that are operational in the current world is looking to enhance their operational activities with the help of well-developed and well-equipped plans and policies. The companies have been looking to improve their quality and maintain an effective plan with the help of which they can increase their level of sales. Vahlne, & Johanson (2017) has explained that sales performance is one of the significant determinants with the help of which organizations are able to understand their actual position in the economy and the companies accordingly function in the economy.

There are several plans and policies that are being constructed by the companies with the help of which the companies are able to assess their own sales performance and the level of sales determines the extent of profit the company has attained (Saeidi et al., 2015). The effectiveness of a business is understood with the help of effective monitoring and assessment by the management and accordingly the companies construct plans and policies with the help of which the companies develop their businesses and maintain their competitive edge and market share.

The organizations operating in the global economy have their own and unique way of controlling their business and their operational activities take place in accordance to the aims and objectives of the business (Arnold et al., 2016). Every one of the companies assesses their operational activities with the help of their sales performance as their extent of sales are able to determine the effectiveness of the business. The topic that has been taken into consideration in this paper is one of the significant aspects because of the fact that the companies are always in the mind-set of developing their business and the development is possible with the help of the increasing their extent of profit (Ulaga, & Loveland 2014). The increase in profit is dependent on the level of sales that is attained and accordingly the companies can undertake extensive measures with the help of which all of these aspects are attained. The paper has considered a manufacturing company name Boral Ltd that is operational in the Australian market has been looking to develop their business with the help of effective level of better and quality products and services and accordingly enhance their sales and profitability.

Boral Ltd is a multinational organization who are associated with the supply and the manufacturing of construction and building materials (Annual Reports | Boral. 2018). The company has been established in Australia and has been operating in an effective manner with the help of which the company has been able provide quality services to their customers. The company is functional in other countries as well and they have a separate set of department who are looking into their sales performance and have been providing an idea to the management with respect to which plans and policies can be created with the help of which the development of the business is possible (Fu, & Deshpande 2014). The paper has therefore looked to assess the sales performance of the company for the last ten years in order to create a better understanding of the sales that have taken place for the company and accordingly understand their development in the economy and the level of profit as well.

Assessing Sales Performance of Boral Ltd

The problem statement has been a factor that has looked into the issues that are pertinent to the topic and accordingly plans and policies can be undertaken with the help of which better understanding on the topic can be understood. The sales performance determines the development of the business and the profit that is attained by the company and therefore the actual position of the company can be understood (Kohtamäki, & Partanen 2016). In the current time period, it is seen that not many researches are undertaken with respect to the sales performance of Boral Ltd and their impact on the overall business activities. There have been extensive amount of fluctuations in the sales performance as well as the net income for the companies and therefore is has been an issue that needs to be addressed with the help of which better understanding of the sales performance of Boral Ltd can be understood.   

The objectives and the aims are related to the topic and the aspects and the elements in accordance to which the analysis of the data would be possible and the results can be attained. The objectives are provided as follows;

• Assess the sales performance and its impact on the overall business activities of Boral Ltd
• Understand the relationship between sales performance and profit of Boral Ltd

The research question is constructed in order to answer the aspects in accordance to which the analysis on this topic can be undertaken. The research questions are:

Q1. How does the sales performance of Boral Ltd have an impact on their overall business activities?

Q2. What is the relationship between profit and the sales performance Boral Ltd?

The assessment of sales performance of the company has a significant role to play with the help of which the companies are able to understand their actual position in the company. The review of literature is undertaken in order to address and point out the key and the essential areas that are associated to the topic. Certain researches have been undertaken that are similar to this topic and accordingly evaluation of these articles and journals would be helpful in the development of the current research.

According to Lau, & Lo (2015), there is a belief that the effective level of sales process comprises of the sales training that assists the sales methodology and the associated processes of sales of an organization. The construction and the implementation of the sales methodology is vital as without this methodology in the correct place the process of training would be a tool to address the bigger issues. The selling methodology that is constructed needs to be on the basis of the unique scenario of an organization in the market where they operate and their customers and how the customers purchases the products, the level of price and complexities of the services and the products that are offered by the companies.

Review of Literature on Sales Performance

Chen et al., (2015) explained that previously, there have been several companies who have discovered that their sales process have become very much challenging and there have been certain companies who have discovered that their sales performance has deteriorated significantly. The sale of the services and the products that are complex in nature with respect to the sale of the commodities has been an issue and therefore the sales experts need to have different kinds of skill set.

The sales performance is looked upon to be an assimilated structure that assists the companies to construct, model and plan their sales strategies and make sure that effective and timely incorporation of the sales initiatives by making sure that the sales people who are at front and the decision makers have perfect visibility and knowledge within the performance. Sales performance explains the next generation of the effective sales practices.

Kafetzopoulos, & Psomas (2015) cited that sales performance is even referred to the overall amount of the output of a company that is sold to the market that is done on an annual or a monthly basis. This is impacted by several factors that are inclusive of the relationship among the customers, marketing management of the company and the skills and expertise of the sales performance and the pricing of the services and the products.

The sales in terms of the business are the reals sales in the terms of money that is attained by the companies and this is done after the essential collections are mad form the various sales mediums of the actual overall production that has been given out in the market. Ramanathan, & Gunasekaran (2014) explains that sales is the factor that stimulates the production process of an organization and thereby attain profits and these are influenced by several factors and some of them are controllable in the hands of the companies like quality and the other factors have been uncontrollable like the changes in price in general and the competition that is seen in the market.

Sales revenue is regarded as the overall amount of money that the companies attain with the help of the sales of their services and products within a time frame that is stipulated. This is generally regarded to be six months in a year or annually if the companies manufacture a single kind of products and services, the revenue from sales would be the price of the product that is multiplied by the frequency of goods that have been sold (Chen et al., 2015). In circumstances, when the company manufactures more than one product or service, the revenue of the company from each one of the products will be added in together.

Objectives and Aims

The amount that is ascertained in the sales revenue within the profit or loss account does not essentially explain the fact that the company has attained all the money due to the fact that although they may sell a certain quantity of the product, they may even be owed to specific amount of money as the debtors.

Sales performance addresses to the satisfactory and consistent turnover of the services and the goods that are manufactured and put on by the market by any company or firm. It is the actual economic aim of the organizations to have sold as much products and services in the market as possible (Thomé et al., 2014). This leads to the goods turnover rate and thereby leads to rise in the level of production and revenue.

The topic that has been taken into consideration is need of collecting data from authentic sources with the help of which effective outcome of the paper can be attained with the help of which conclusion of the paper can be obtained. The researcher therefore would be choosing the approach, design, method of collecting the data and the analysis plan and all these aspects will be highlighted in this section of the paper.

The approach determines the use of the models and the theories that are accessible to the researchers and these models and theories are used in order to attain specific and distinct data associated to this research. The use of the models and the theories would ascertain the structure that have been selected by the researcher in order to collect the precise data. Öker, & Ad?güzel (2016) cited that inductive and deductive approaches are two forms of approaches and the selection of any one of them is based on the discretion of the researcher and the topic that has been selected. In accordance to this paper, the researcher would be making use of deductive approach due to the fact that the topic relates to the assessment of the sales performance of Boral Ltd and therefore secondary data that is already available in the market would be used. It is due to the fact that the researchers would be making use of the existent models and theories and would not be constructing a new model or theory in order to address this topic.

The design looks to address the style and the path that would be undertaken by the researcher in order to collect the data and accordingly take measures and steps with the help of which analysis of the data would be possible. The three kinds of designs that have been explained by other researchers have been “exploratory, explanatory and descriptive research design” (Ko?cielniak, 2014). The researcher in accordance to this topic would be looking to address the cause and effect relationship and therefore exploratory reserach design would be undertaken in order to address the assessment of sales performance of Boral Ltd.

Methodology

The topic in accordance to which the paper is moving forward has been analysing the sales performance of Boral Ltd in the economy of Australia. The assessment of sales is possible with the help of the secondary data that is already available and have been disclosed by the company with respect to their past performance and activities (Li et al., 2015). Therefore, the researcher has selected the use of secondary data with the help of which the overall performance of sales of the company would be ascertained.         

The method of gathering the data is essential as it provides an evidence to the readers that the data that would be assessed are true and fair. The researcher in order to understand the sales performance of Boral Ltd has collected data with respect to the revenue generated by Boral and thereby the net profit or loss they have attained by taking assistance of the internet website of Boral Ltd. The website has been used in order to collect the annual report of the company for the past ten years from the year 2008 to the year 2017 and by collecting the data in relation to the selected variables with the help of which the actual sales performance of the company can be determined.

The researcher has the knowledge that sales performance of Boral Ltd can be undertaken by taking assistance of the data that is available in their annual reports. Hence, quantitative data analysis has been undertaken in order to discover the actual relationship of the sales performance by taking assistance of the selected dependent and the independent variable. The effectiveness of the performance is ascertained by creating a relationship among sales revenue and the net profit or loss of the company and therefore data related to the same are extracted and are placed within the SPSS software and regression analysis would be undertaken with the help of which effective outcome related to the topic can be ascertained (Lancaster, & Massingham 2017).     

The researcher has abided with the ethics and therefore all the data that has been collected has been taken from the annual report of the company from the authentic website of the company in order to make the readers believe and gain confidence that the data collected are true and fair and the results that would be obtained would be authentic as well (Vomberg et al., 2015).

The assessment would be ascertained with the help of data that has been collected and accordingly precise and effective results would be ascertained. Regression analysis would be undertaken with the help of which the significance and the relationship among the revenue of the firm and the net profit and loss would be determined. This analysis would be helpful in creating an understanding of the impact on the sales performance on the overall activities of the business. The relationship among the profit and the sales that are taking place within the company would be understood as well in an effective manner.

Data Collection and Analysis Plan

The regression analysis is undertaken with the help of which the significance and the the relationship among sales revenue and the net profit or the loss of the company would be understood in an effective manner (Annual Reports | Boral. 2018).   

Model Summaryb
Model	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
1	.489a	.239	.143	151.728
a. Predictors: (Constant), Sales Revenue
b. Dependent Variable: Net Income

ANOVAa
Model	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	57730.042	1	57730.042	2.508	.152b
Residual	184169.958	8	23021.245
Total	241900.000	9
a. Dependent Variable: Net Income
b. Predictors: (Constant), Sales Revenue

Coefficientsa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	1172.872	653.377		1.795	.110
Sales Revenue	-.224	.142	-.489	-1.584	.152
a. Dependent Variable: Net Income

Net Income = 1172.872 + (-.224) * Sales Revenue 

The tables and figures that have been constructed has explained the fact that the value that has been attained for P-value has been 0.152 and this explains that the model is not fitting as the value has not been in accordance to the significance level. The independent variable in relation to this topic does not have a linear significant relation with the dependent variable.

The beta value that has been attained for this paper has explained that the value has been -0.224 and this explains that the sales revenue has been found to have a negative association with the net profit or loss. The R square value after the regression analysis has been 23.9% and this implies that the independent variable that has been considered in this paper does not have an effective explanatory power.      

The graph that is ascertained in accordance to the normal probability plot has determined the fact that the model is not fitting and good in accordance to the general normal probability plot. 

The residual plot that has been determined for the the collected data has signified the fact that the model fitting is not good.  

H0: Sales performance has an impact on the overall business activities of Boral Ltd

The results that have been obtained has been competent enough to explain the fact that sales performance does not have extensive impact on the overall activities of the business. The beta value has been able to address negative associations has been attained.   

H1: Sales performance has a relationship with the net income or the profit of the company

The results have been able to express the fact that sales performance has a negative relationship with the net income as the independent variable does not possess the explanatory power. The p-value even signifies the fact that the negative association is present and thereby explaining the fact that sales performance and profit have negative relationship.    

The results that have been attained has been able to explain the fact that the sales revenue and net profit or loss does not have significant amount of relationship and impact due to the fact that the results that have been attained with the help of regression analysis does not provide any kind of significance and the results from the beta value has been found to be negative. Hence, it can be justified that sales revenue have a negative impact on the net profit or loss and therefore one can say that revenue does not have extensive level of impact on the overall business activities of Boral Ltd.

Conclusion

Conclusion, Recommendation and Future Work

Conclusion

The outcome of the analysis that is undertaken in order to assess the sales performance of Boral Ltd for the past 10 years have addressed that the company faced significant amount of profits and losses for the past few years and the sales revenue of the company has faced fluctuations over all these years. The regression analysis that has been conducted has been competent in addressing the objectives of the research that was prepared earlier in this this paper.

The objectives of the paper has looked to identify the impact of sales performance on the overall business activities of Boral Ltd and the outcome that has been ascertained has been able to signify the fact that the sales performance of Boral Ltd does not have extensive level of impact on the overall business activities.

The next objective that has been taken into consideration has looked to address the relationship between sales performances of Boral Ltd with the profit of the company. The outcome of the paper has been successful in addressing the same and the results attained with the help of regression analysis and normal probability plot has been able to explain that there exists a negative relationship with the sales revenue and the net profit of the organization.  The overall outcome of the paper has therefore been successful in addressing the objectives and the outcome has explained the fact that the sales performance of the company has been moderate and there exists a negative relationship among the net profit of the company and the sales performance does not have significant relationship on the overall activities of the business. 

The outcome of the paper has been helpful in creating recommendations with the help of which the sales performance as well as the overall business activities can be enhanced. It is recommended that the company needs to assess the business activities on a frequent basis and even assess the revenue and the sales of the company with the help of which the development of the company can be attained. It is even recommended that the company should improve and enhance their operational plans and policies with the help of which better structure can be attained and the business activities and the sales performance could be developed as well.      

There are certain limitations that have been discovered in this paper as it is seen that taking a longer duration of the years regarding the sales performance of the company would have provided better results. It is seen that a longer time frame in order to undertake the research would have provided better results as much precise and effective data could have been gathered.      

There are chances and opportunities of future work with the help of which better outcome can be attained. The company is still performing in the economy and therefore their sales performance as well as the business activities may change. Therefore, future work on this topic would provide different results with the help of which assessment and comparison can be undertaken with the help of which an understanding of the changes that have taken place in Boral Ltd can be understood in a better way.          

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