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Literature revue of Dacum job & occupational analysis for Salesman

Mr. Mohamed Abdulaziz Kabadou

Faculty member and Sales Program Coordinator

Jeddah Community College – King Abdulaziz University – Saudi Arabia

January 2009

Abstract

The DACUM (Develop A CUrriculuM) workshop is an efficient methodology, widely used to develop the

list of duties and skills required for a job. Outcomes of the workshop are developed into program outline

with courses needed for the specialty and the details of courses needed.

This research will try to gather and combine the outcomes of nine original Dacum Charts, already

developed in several colleges and institutions by different participants within different workshops.

The main Outcome of this study is a "Combined Dacum research Chart" which will be more exhaustive

and comprehensive than the Dacum Charts which compose it. It will state the duties, tasks and skills

which characterize the job of salesman.

Keywords

Dacum, Educational program development, Community Colleges, Sales program

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1 The DACUM methodology

1.1 What is Dacum?

The DACUM is an acronym for Developing A Curriculum. It was developed in the 1960s by Robert E in

USA. The DACUM as used widely today is a unique, innovative, and very effective method of job, and/or

occupational analysis. It is also very effective for conducting process and functional analysis.

A DACUM analysis workshop involves a trained DACUM facilitator and a committee of 5-12 expert

workers from the position, occupation, or other area of analysis. The profile chart that results from the

usual two-day workshop is a detailed and graphic portrayal duties and tasks performed by the workers

involved. (Norton, 1997, p. 1)

Figure 1 : Dacum Research Chart Design

DACUM is based on three logical premises:

1. Full-time Workers are real experts and can describe and define their job/occupation more

accurately than anyone else.

2. An effective way to define a job/occupation is to precisely describe the tasks that expert

workers perform in order to help to prepare and train other experts

3. All tasks, in order to be performed correctly demand the use of four enablers which are:

knowledge, skills, tools, and positive worker behaviors. These enablers are so important in the

analysis that should be listed separately from the tasks. (Norton, 1997, pp. 1-2)

The Dacum has been used very effectively to analyze occupations at the professional, managerial,

technical, skilled, and semiskilled levels. (Norton, 1997, p. 2). It is suitable, then, to use Dacum to

develop Sales program.

The DACUM is unique for several reasons when compared with the interview and observation and many

other traditional approaches to job and occupational analysis. The combination of the power of the

following features make it the most effective and highest quality analysis process available at this time.

(Norton, 1997, p. 3)

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1.2 DACUM Advantages

The Dacum approach presents several advantages stated by (Norton, 1997, pp. 3-4) as following:

"Group interaction - committee members freely share ideas and hitchhike on each others

contributions.

Brainstorming power energized - the brainstorming process is used several times to maximum

advantage to identify all of the duties and tasks.

Group synergy - properly facilitated, members of the group motivate and empower each other

to produce a high quality product.

Group consensus - members of the committee with the facilitator's guidance assess each

contribution and refine it until agreement is reached.

Future-oriented - the committee is specifically asked to specify future occupational trends and

concerns that are likely to change their job in the future.

Employee/Learner buy-in - once the employees and learners know that practicing expert

workers identified the duties and tasks, support for the results of the analysis is greatly

enhanced.

Comprehensive outcome - when 5-12 expert workers are motivated and guided for two days by

a qualified facilitator, all duties and tasks are usually identified along with the related general

knowledge and skills, worker behaviors, tools and equipment, and future trends and concerns.

Superior quality - its the combination of the features already mentioned plus the fact that

whenever one committee member speaks the other (4-11) members who are well qualified to

do so, assess and modify contributions so as to maximize quality.

Low cost - because of the highly efficient procedures used, a DACUM analysis can usually be

completed in two days rather than the 25-30 days required by some methods, thus greatly

reducing the overall cost. When"

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Figure 2: Job and Task anlysis

In this survey, the advantages of Dacum outcomes will be combined, so that the survey outcome will be

more comprehensive and reliable than each of Dacum outcomes which compose it.

1.3 Why Use DACUM?

1.3.1 Dacum: Quality improvement approach

All of the approaches to quality improvement and management -TQM, ISO 9000, QS 9000, etc. require

participating companies to secure and utilize precise and detailed information about their workers roles

and responsibilities -work processes, systems, duties, and tasks. Job/ occupational analysis is the best

method available for collecting that type of information. And DACUM is the best means of conducting

job/occupational analysis that is available.

The DACUM methodology is widely used in the United States, Canada, and several other countries

simply because it is: highly effective, quick and low cost.

1.3.2 The Dacum reduces the Gap

DACUM is extensively used by educators and by trainers when they are establishing a new education or

training program or revising an existing one is that they must somehow carefully answer the question

of: WHAT SHOULD BE TAUGHT? 5

Figure 3: Gaps between the needed and the actuak skills

All too often there is a big gap between what is offered to learners in the classroom/lab and what is

going on in the real world of work. (...). This very serious gap between what is offered and what is

needed is caused by what the writer has referred to as the "Curriculum What Errors. " These errors can

be stated in many ways but may be summarized as twofold:

Failure to teach what should be taught (the latest concepts, methods, skills, techniques)

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Teaching: what should not be taught (the outdated :concepts, processes, technology,

information)

These "what errors" are very serious and very costly. They, in reality, cheat the learner, the taxpayers,

and the companies. DACUM is an effective, quick, and low cost process for significantly reducing these

errors. (Norton, 1997, p. 6)

1.4 When Should DACUM Be Used?

The DACUM is ideally suited for researching: (1) the competencies and skills that should be addressed in

the development of new education and training programs, and (2) the competencies and skills that

should be delivered by existing programs. It is also very well suited to what may be called a number of

special applications which are presented later in this section.

The Dacum is used for the Development of New Program and the review of Existing Programs.

2 Research Objectives

Avoid cut and paste method in designing sales program

Reduce the gap between the duties and skills of salesman needed in the market and the

outcomes of education institutions.

Obtain a more comprehensive Dacum Chart which combines the outcomes of several and

different expert teams

3 Research Methodology

In this survey, the Internet was used as main and unique tool to collect the outcomes of Dacum

workshops conducted all over the world and dealing with the job of salesman.

For this purpose, the search engine "Google" was used to perform a comprehensive search from

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia via http://www.google.com.sa/. Google is a powerful search engine and

produces the more exhaustive search result.

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The advanced search, proposed by Google, was used by entering the following keywords : (Dacum,

sales, marketing, chart). That means that the web pages found should contain one of the keywords used

in the search.

The English was the selected language for the search and there was no restrictions taken regarding, file

size or type, countries or dates.

The result of this search, done on December 10th 2008 was 382 websites, which are all the websites

containing the keywords detected by Google.

The majority of websites found deal with Dacum but with no regard to sales and marketing. Nine

websites only were kept. Five among them, are related directly with sales and four are only partially

related as detailed in the Table 1.

Institution Abbreviations Title of the chartWorkshop

DatePlace References Website Address

Directly related Charts

Cincinnati Technical College

CTC-SalesDacum task analysis: Industrial / business sales representative

Feb 28-29, 1984

Cincinnati

(Cincinnati,1984)

http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumOH_Industrial_Business_Sales_Representative_DACUM.

pdf

Grossmont college Gros-CService

Dacum Research Chart for Customer

Service Representative,

Jan 31st, Feb 1st,

2002

El Cajon, Californi

a(college, 2002)

Red River College RRC-Sales&Mark

Commerce / Industry Sales and marketing

Dacum

April 6th, 2001

Red River

(Red River,Commerce /

Industry Salesand marketingDacum, RedRiver, 2001)

http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumC&I_

Sales_2001_04_06.pdf

Business Education Marketing

BEM-Sales Sales and Service Career Cluster

Accessed on Dec 2008

-(Education,

2008)www.edcareerpartnership.com/pdfs/dacumSales.pdf

Lake Land College LLC-TVSales Dacum Chart-

Radio/TV Sales

2001 updated Jan 15, 2006

Mattoon(Lake Land,

2006,)http://

www.lakeland.cc.il.us/title3/rtv_outlook.htm

Partially related Charts

Daytona Beach

Community College

DBCC-IntBusiness*FRC Profile for International

Business Professional

Jul 26, 2005

St. Petersbu

rg

(DaytonaBeach, 2005)

Red River College

RRC-MarkMajor* Marketing Major Dacum

April 4th, 2002

Red River

(Red River,Business

AdministrationMarketing

Major Dacum,

http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumBA_Marketing_2002_04_04.p

df

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Red River,2002)

Red River College RRC-EBusiness* E-Business Dacum Jan 12,

2001Red

River

(Red River,Business

AdministrationE-BusinessDacum, Red

River, 2001b)

http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumBA_EBusiness_2001_01_12.p

df

Red River College

RRC-MarkPromotion*

Marketing and Promotions Dacum

Jun 7th , 2001

Red River

(Red River,Marketing and

PromotionsDacum, RedRiver, 2001c)

http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumCre_Comm_Marketing_and_Promotions_2001_06_07.p

df

Table 1: The Dacum Charts used as original population in this survey

* Partially related Dacum research Chart

The nine Dacum charts found were produced by six different colleges and institution as detailed in the

following table

College or Institution Number of Charts found

1 Business Education Marketing 1

2 Cincinnati Technical College 1

3 Daytona Beach Community College 1

4 Grossmont college 1

5 Lake Land College 1

6 Red River College 4

Total 9

Table 2: Colleges and Institutions producers of studied Dacum Charts

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4 Findings and analysis

Nine original Dacum research charts were analyzed and compared in this survey. Five among them are

directly related to sales job (the five first charts in the Table 1) and four are only partially related (the

last four charts in the same table).

In order to simplify the presentation of data, abbreviations were given to the Dacum research charts as

mentioned in the Table 1.

4.1 Duties

All the duties of the original Dacum Charts directly related to Sales were used in this survey. However

regarding the partially related Dacum Charts, some duties only were selected which are directly related

to sales.

CTC-Sales Gros-CService RRC-Sales&Mark

BEM-Sales LLC-TVSales

DBCC-IntBusin

ess

RRC-MarkMajo

r

RRC-EBusiness

RRC-MarkPromo

tion

Acquire product Knowledge

Respond to Inbound

Communication

Communicate

Technology

Schedule Sales Activities

Customer Service

PC/Software

SkillsMarket Communicat

e effectively

Determine Markets

Initiate outbound communication

Manage Sales Cycle

communicati

on

Develop Local Direct Business

Management/

Leadership

Communication skills

Communicate

Apply selling skills

Research Companies

Maintain customer data

Demonstrate Knowledge of business principles

business

literacy

Develop Agency Business

Marketing/Sales Selling skills Service

CustomersUse

technology

Structure Territory

Interact with other parties

Use technology

interpersonal skills

Develop the creative for Radio

commercialManage Self Apply

business skills

Contact Prospects / Customers

Continue professional development

Manage self

Develop the creative for Television

commercial

Leverage Technology

Make Sales Presentations

Work in teams

Service Existing Business

Research1 Business acumen

Analyze business

processes

Apply personal skills

Acquire Order Collect client payment

Administration

Develop Business Plan

Models

Create content media

Coordinate Order To

Completion

Develop new advertisers

FinanceCollaborate

Apply an understanding of the industry

Legal/Political

Service Follow-Up Sales

Enhance Professional

Development

Human Resources

Comply with lows and

regulations

Evaluate Personal Sales Effectiveness

Global Logistics

Manage Supply Chain

Table 3: All the Duties analyzed in this survey

This table states the number of all the duties analyzed in this survey, used and unused in the combined

Dacum Chart.

Total CTC-Sales Gros-CService

RRC-Sales&Mar

BEM-Sales LLC- DBCC- RRC-MarkMajor

RRC- RRC-MarkProm

1 The duties in red cells were not used in our survey because judged not related to sales job8

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k TVSales IntBusiness EBusiness otion

Used Duties 49 10 5 6 4 9 3 3 5 4

Unused Duties 15 0 0 0 0 0 6 1 5 3

Total of Duties 64 10 5 6 4 9 9 4 10 7

Table 4: The Used and Unused Duties analyzed in this survey

49 duties out of 64 have been used in this survey. The 15 duties unused are not related to sales job.

The 49 duties selected have been combined in 10 duties as mentioned in the following table.

The Duties

1. Manage Sales Cycle

2. Business literacy

3. Use of technology

4. Sales skills

5. Market / Customers

6. Work in teams

7. Communication skills

8. Professional development

9. Customer Service

10. Product Knowledge

Table 5: The Combined Duties

4.2 Tasks

A total number of 475 tasks have been analyzed and categorized among the nine studied original Dacum

charts. 436 tasks have been integrated in the combined Chart and only 39 tasks have been unused

because they were judged not related to sales.

Total CTC-Sales Gros-CService

RRC-Sales&Mark

BEM-Sales

LLC-TVSales

DBCC-IntBusiness

RRC-MarkMajor

RRC-EBusiness

RRC-MarkProm

otionUsed Tasks 436 81 29 72 47 95 13 31 27 41

Unused Tasks 39 2 2 3 4 9 1 10 7 1

Total Tasks 475 83 31 75 51 104 14 41 34 42

Table 6: Used and Unused Tasks

The 436 selected tasks were combined in 84 Tasks with respect to similarities and repetitions.

The Duties Number of original related Tasks

Number of Combined related Tasks

1. Manage Sales Cycle 160 15

2. Business literacy 42 15

3. Use of technology 40 10

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4. Sales skills 39 8

5. Market / Customers 38 13

6. Work in teams 35 8

7. Communication skills 31 6

8. Professional development 25 2

9. Customer Service 21 4

10. Product Knowledge 5 3

Total of Tasks 436 84

Table 7: The Combinaion of tasks

4.3 Combined Dacum research Chart

On the basis of the analysis of the nine original Dacum research charts mentioned above, this survey

produced the following Combined Dacum research Chart:

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Tasks

A.Market / Customers(38)

Research prospects & customers

A1-(10)2

Identify Customers

A2-(7)

Create, update, valid customer

recordsA3-(6)

Identify the decision maker

A4-(4)

Establish markets &

clients prioritiesA5-(2)

Estimate client's sales

expendituresA6-(2)

Determine customer size

A7-(1)

Assess customer's

financial credibility

A8-(1)

Consider customer's reputation

A9-(1)

Be familiar with customer's

business A10-(1)

Consider customer's

buying HistoryA11-(1)

Determine customer's

buying cycleA12-(1)

Develop a market map

A13-(1)

C.Communication skills

(31)

Oral & telephone skills

B1-(8)

Write proposals, clearly concisely and proficiently

B2-(7)

Cultural diversity

awarenessB3- (6)

Listen & active listening

B4-(5)

Read and Comprehend

B5-(3)

Use non-verbal communication

B6-(2)

D.Manage Sales Cycle(160)

Make sales presentation

C1-(23)

Translate client needs into solutions C2-(19)

Follow-up post-sale /

C3-(16)

Make client contactC4-(16)

Identify Client needs

C5-(15)

Close deals & enter order

C6-(15)

Handle & overcome objections

C7-(10)

Set & update sales goals

C8-(9)

Present self and productC9-(8)

Take orderC10-(7)

Negotiate orderC11-(6)

Assure deliveryC12-(5)

Assure paymentC13-(5)

Set up appointment

C14-(3)

Choose sales approachC15-(3)

F. Sales skills(39)

Personal QualitiesD1-(17)

Identify benefits of product to meet needs

D2-(4)

Develop business

relationshipsD3-(4)

Manage time effectively

D4-(4)

Monitor competitors

D5-(3)

Keep Sales recordsD6-(3)

Sell themselves ideasD7-(2)

Display and inspire

confidenceD8-(2)

G.Use of technology(40)

Use current Microsoft Office

and related software

E1-(9)

Use computer and

communication related

hardwareE2-(6)

Adapt to new software and

upgradesE3-(5)

Use emailE4-(5)

Use presentation software and use of media

E5-(3)

Use Internet & Conduct web

searchesE6-(3)

Maintain human

relationshipE7-(3)

Use E-Business and business by

distanceE8-(3)

Use contact management software (e.g., MS Outlook)

E9-(2)

Implement Secure

Environment E10-(1)

H.Product Knowledge(5)

Work with the product Practice

F1-(3)

Develop technical expertise

F2-(1)

Identify and work with

knowledgeable sourcesF3-(1)

I. Business literacy(42)

Marketing skillsG1-(7)

Demonstrate the project

management processG2-(6)

Work Organization

G3-(6)

Manage business

finances, Cost & ProfitsG4-(4)

Be entrepreneurial

and profit oriented

G5-(4)

Apply basic math and

statistical skillsG6-(3)

Analyze current eventsG7-(2)

Define difference between

marketing and sales

Multi-taskG9-(2)

Comply with legislation

G10-(1)

2 (10): The figure between parentheses express the number of times where the task were stated in the original Dacum research Charts11

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Duti

G8-(2)

Use business / economic

terminologyG11-(1)

Implement performance and quality

measurementsG12-(1)

Market internallyG13-(1)

Apply office skills

G14-(1)

Apply accounting skills

G15-(1)

K. Professional development

(25)

Continuing trainingH1-(14)

Self evaluation and

achievement assessment

H2-(11)

L. Customer Service(21)

Manage service programs

I1-(8)

Assure client satisfaction

I2-(6)

Determine customer

support systemsI3-(5)

Arbitrate differences

I4-(2)

M. Work in teams

(35)

Work efficiently in teamsJ1-(13)

Share info with colleagues

J2-(8)

Display ethical behavior

J3-(3)

Problem-solving skillsJ4-(3)

Work independently

J5-(3)

Identify common goals and objectives

J6-(2)

Be accountableJ7-(2)

Present self appropriately in

workplaceJ8-(1)

Table 8: The Combined Dacum Research Chart for Salesman

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6 Conclusion

In this survey we made the literature review and gathered the fruit of several colleges and institution

works in order to combine them into a comprehensive description of duties and tasks specific to sales

job.

On the basis of the combined Dacum Research Chart, Colleges and training Centers will be able to

develop the suitable teaching programs for salesman. The courses contents should focus on the skills,

duties and tasks of salesman as mentioned on the combined chart.

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7 Limitations and Further Researches

The use of Internet only in the search of Dacum charts may represents the main limitation of the

present survey. There is a chance that other Dacum Charts were developed by other organizations and

dealing with sales job but not present on the Internet.

In the other hand, the Dacum charts found on the Internet have a good quality and were developed by

serious colleges in the USA so the impact of this limitation is reduced. Furthermore, in the current

"Internet age " the best colleges and institutions over all the world are present and share their

knowledge on the Internet.

The continuing development of technologies and methods impose an update of the result of this

research in few years in order to integrate the new duties, tasks or skills. (Norton, 1997) stated that the

Dacum Charts should be revised once every three to five years, depending on the amount of change

believed to have occurred .

Finally, The combined Dacum Research Chart has a general Salesman Job scope and there is an

opportunity to use it as basis for the development of specific Sales Job such as Computer salesman, Car

salesman, Real estate salesman…

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8 Table Index

Table 1: The Dacum Charts used as original population in this survey........................................................7

Table 2: Colleges and Institutions producers of studied Dacum Charts.......................................................8

Table 4: All the Duties analyzed in this survey...........................................................................................10

Table 5: The Used and Unused Duties analyzed in this survey..................................................................10

Table 6: The Combined Duties...................................................................................................................10

Table 7: Used and Unused Tasks...............................................................................................................10

Table 8: The Combinaion of tasks.............................................................................................................11

Table 9: The Combined Dacum Research Chart for Salesman...................................................................13

9 Figure Index

Figure 1 : Dacum Research Chart Design.....................................................................................................2

Figure 3: Job and Task anlysis......................................................................................................................4

Figure 2: Gaps between the needed and the actuak skills..........................................................................5

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10 References

Cincinnati, T. C. (1984, February 28-29). Dacum task analysis: Industrial / business sales representative,

Cincinnati. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from

http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumOH_Industrial_Business_Sales_Representative_DACUM.pdf

college, G. (2002, January 31st ). DACUM Research Chart for Customer Service Representative, El Cajon,

California,. Retrieved december 10, 2008

Daytona Beach, C. C. (2005, July 26). FRC Profile for INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS PROFESSIONAL, St. Petersburg.

Retrieved december 10, 2008

Education, M. B. (2008). Sales and Service Career Cluster,. Retrieved december 10, 2008, from

www.edcareerpartnership.com/pdfs/dacumSales.pdf

Lake Land, C. (2006,, January 15). DACUM Chart- Radio/TV Sales, Mattoon, . Retrieved december 10, 2008,

from http://www.lakeland.cc.il.us/title3/rtv_outlook.htm

Norton, R. E. (1997). Dacum Handbook (2nd ed.). Columbus, Ohio: Center on Education and Training for

Employment. College of Education. The Ohio State University.

Red River, C. (2001b, January 12). Business Administration E-Business Dacum, Red River. Retrieved december

10, 2008, from http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumBA_EBusiness_2001_01_12.pdf

Red River, C. (2002, April 4). Business Administration Marketing Major Dacum, Red River. Retrieved december

10, 2008, from http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumBA_Marketing_2002_04_04.pdf

Red River, C. (2001, April 6th). Commerce / Industry Sales and marketing Dacum, Red River. Retrieved

december 10th, 2008, from http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumC&I_Sales_2001_04_06.pdf

Red River, C. (2001c, June 7). Marketing and Promotions Dacum, Red River. Retrieved december 10, 2008,

from http://xnet.rrc.mb.cadacumCre_Comm_Marketing_and_Promotions_2001_06_07.pdf