Question: A company which manufactures and distributes industrial oils employs a team of salespeople who work directly from home and travel around different regions in the country. Each member of the sales team has his or her own geographical area to cover and they visit clients on a regular basis. The sales team staff are each paid a basic monthly salary. Each member of the team is set an identical target for sales to be achieved in the month. A bonus payment, in addition to the basic salary, is made to any member of the team who exceeds his or her monthly sales target. Generally, experience has been that the members of the sales team succeed in improving on their targets each month sufficiently to earn a small bonus. However, the managers are unclear whether all the team members are achieving their maximum potential level of sales. Consequently, the managers are considering introducing a system of benchmarking to measure the performance of the sales team as a whole and its individual members.