Report: British Gas Sales Function and Regulatory Compliance

This report provides an analysis of the sales function at British Gas, examining the legal, regulatory, and social requirements pertaining to sales activities within the energy supply market. It details the codes of practice, ethical standards, and principles of contract law that govern British Gas's sales operations, emphasizing the importance of ethical conduct and compliance with regulations. The report includes a SWOT analysis of British Gas, highlighting its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to its sales function. It further explores how the company manages its sales function in compliance with legislation, including communication of regulatory requirements, employee training, and performance monitoring. The report also addresses the handling of non-compliance, including the identification, reporting, and resolution of customer complaints, and outlines the proactive and reactive approaches taken by British Gas to ensure adherence to legal and ethical standards. The conclusion reinforces British Gas's commitment to high standards and customer satisfaction.

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
The Legal, Regulatory and Social Requirements Pertaining to the Sales Function...................2
Managing the Sales Function in compliance with Legislation..................................................5
Dealing with non-compliance....................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................9

Managing Responsible Selling
Introduction
Selling is one of the important functions of the organization. Responsible selling is one
method through which organizations are improving the satisfaction level of the customers.
The policies and procedures guiding them help to build the trust and confidence required by
the customers of the industry. The company which has been chosen here for analysis is
British Gas. By analysing the sales function in the company we would be able to appreciate
the importance of adherence to the policies and legal requirements guiding sales.
The Legal, Regulatory and Social Requirements Pertaining to the Sales Function.
AC 1.1 The sector which has been chosen here is Energy Supply Market. The sales related
legal and regulatory requirements and Codes of practice in this industry are as follows:
 The organization should ensure that only the suitable sales agents should be engaged.
 The organization should ensure that the sales agent receive the training as indicated in
EnergySure (Thomas, 2014).
 All the sales agents should be registered must be registered on EnergySure Database.
 All the sale support material used by the sales agents should not give any misleading
information.
 The sales agents should make calls only between 9am and 8 pm.
 The sales agents must comply with all the license and legislative obligations.
 The sales agents should explain the provisions of supply so that they understand what
they are committing to.
These code provide a clear guidance for the members to conduct the sales activities. They
also help to improve the confidence of the consumers (Bagnoli & Watts, 2002).
The company under review is British Gas. It provides energy supply services to its customers.
The sales team of the company performs to this code and follow high standards of adherence.
Some of the important codes of the company include:
 All the sales agents of the company must follow high levels of ethics and integrity
while dealing with the customers.

 The sales agents of the company cannot make any false promises for pushing the
sales.
 There is no targets for sales which the sales agent need to fulfil.
 The sales agents of the company must follow the values and culture of the
organization.
 They need to report all the breach to their managers and senior managers for
immediate action.
AC 1.2 It is important for the sales people to understand the principles of Contract Law as it
indicates about keeping the promises without the effect that there is something in writing.
The verbal contract in which British Gas enters with its customers is about the quality of its
products. The company indicate verbally to its customers, that the oil and gas as supplied by
the company is of superior quality.
This verbal contract of the company confirm with the principles outlined above as the
products of the company is of superior quality. Thus the company do not make any
misrepresentation, or false claims to the customers (Brown, 2007). It also adheres to the
principle of contract law as the customer receive goods as described by the company.
The verbal contract of the company is taken seriously and the quality of the products are
improved in a manner which is one of the best in the industry. In this way the company
maintains high standards and compliance with the Contract Law.
This part is fine, except it requires more elaboration.
AC 1.3 The meaning of ‘misrepresentation’ while selling, is the intended misrepresentation
made by the seller in order to enter into the contract with the buyer. Thus false statements are
made to attract the buyers.
SWOT Analysis of British Gas
Strengths
The company is one of the leader
organizations in its sector.
Weakness
The company is facing issues with the
source of gas as the reserves are depleting
around the world.

The company faces many risks related with
improvement in alternative renewable
sources of energy.
Opportunities
 There is an increased opportunity as
the company is expanding its
operations to different parts of world
(Söderlund, 2013).
 As the company follow high
standards of compliance, there is
increasing opportunity for future
sustainability.
Threats
 The company faces strict
competition with other players in the
sector.
 As the level of carbon footprints are
increasing, the companies are using
other sources of energy.
The USPs which the company have to sell into the ethical market, is the strong adherence to
the compliance policies and procedures.
British Gas do not have any product in its product range which can be of potential risk. All its
products are genuinely developed and comply with the safety standards (Copeland & T.
Elliott, 2013).
In order to reduce the potential risks, the company should comply with safety standards
pertaining to the industry. This part is missing.
AC 1.4 The impact on organization if the sales people don’t abide by social and ethical
principles are that the company has to face cases of litigation from customers.
The key policies of British gas which ensure that the sales team sells legally and ethically are
as follows:
 British Gas establishes a culture in the organization which supports compliance at all
levels of the company.
 The company continuously evaluate and implement all the compliance procedures
within the company.
 They study and research the industry standards, which applicable to the company.
 They authorise the consultants and external companies to determine for the
improvement in compliance procedure within the company.

 They provide adequate training to the sales team, and monitor their performance for
improvement.
 The company acts immediately in case any of the compliance policies are not met by
the sales professionals.
 British Gas has a framework for requirement of sales professionals which are experts
in their field and have high integrity for their work.
Please include more details and add more bullet points for this part.
Managing the Sales Function in compliance with Legislation
AC 2.1 It is important to make sure that the sales employee have clear understanding of the
legal, ethical and regulatory practices. Also they should put them into practice while dealing
with the customers (de Bruijn & Franses, 2012). The example in the case study show that
when the regulatory requirements are not communicated well, the employees may enter into
aggressive marketing and selling strategy which can be negative for customers.
The regulatory requirements are communicated to the employees of the company through the
following ways:
They follow a holistic communication policy where all the policy guidelines are indicated
clearly. The sales employee of the company are provided with formal documents which
indicate about all the rules and regulations to be followed by them. This is in the form of
handbook or manual. This serve as a reference for any future confusions.
Further they are provided with the training which involve how the policies apply to them.
This provide them with practical example and leads to learning for application of the policies.
The company support the employees in adhering to the regulations in the following ways:
 British Gas continuously monitor the work of its sales team and ensure that they
follow the policies and guidelines.
 The senior members and leaders act as a couch when any staff member face moral
dilemma.
 In situations when the sale staff face technical challenges, the company has a team of
specialists and lawyers which handle the case (Kolah, 2005).

 The company continuously upgrade all the policies and procedures and communicate
the same to the employees.
AC 2.2 In order to monitor that the sales people comply with the organization’s legal, ethical,
and social policies. British Gas ensure that the sales people comply in the following ways:
Performance monitoring- The performance of the sales team is monitored when they deal or
engage with a customer. Detailed account is noted about their performance and how they are
complying with the policies.
Evaluation- The sales force are then provided important feedback about how they can
improve their compliance performance. They are regularly evaluated, to assess their
improvement.
Training- Based on the failure of adhering to compliance procedure, practical training is
provided to them.
AC 2.3 The management of the company can provide the support to the sales team for
abiding legal, regulatory and ethical policies. The support provided at British gas are as
follows:
Training- All the sales team are provided with adequate training before they contact the
customers.
Assistance- The sales force are provided assistance in relation to following all legal
procedures and policies.
Culture and value- The culture and values of the company also support adherence to legal
requirements, at all levels.
Resolving of issues- Any issue faced by the sales team for non-compliance, is reported to the
senior management to take proper actions which help save the situation.

Legal policies – the legal policies and procedures of the company are structured in a manner
which lead to simultaneous compliance with other legal policies.

Dealing with non-compliance
AC 3.1 The failure on behalf of sales employee to meet the regulatory and legal requirements
can create adverse impact on the company. Thus there should be a mechanism to identify the
problem and take the necessary action to resolve the issue (Lacoste, 2018). The customer
complaints also required to be managed. Thus British Gas intervene such failures in two
ways,
Reactive approach- The company comply with all the provisions of regulations and ensure
that all customer complaints are sorted.
Proactive approach- This involve adopting the methods for continuous improvement of the
staff members so that such mistakes are not repeated. The company maintains a strong code
of ethics and ensure that the staff follow them in all their engagement with the customers.
AC 3.2 The full report about any failure should be provided to the senior management of the
organization. Any case of non-compliance is immediately reported to the senior management
of British Gas (Maignan, Hillebrand & McAlister, 2002). They represent the image of the
company and the legal regulatory compliance is their responsibility. When such matter are
communicated to them, they can take better decisions in regard to actions which need to be
taken to correct the non-compliance issues.
The following procedure is conducted for reporting all failure to compliance at British Gas.
 Identification and notification of the compliance failures
 Recognising the breach containment
 Escalation and assessment of the breach
 Conducting investigation and reporting the breach
 Providing and implementing all the corrective actions.
 Recording and creating a register for breach
AC 3.3 The complains from the customers for non-compliance of the legal, regulatory and
social requirements should be handled in a manner, which helps to secure the image and
competitiveness of the company. When any of the stakeholders of British Gas make
complaints about the non-compliance of legal requirements, those matters are seriously taken
into account.

The company follows a framework, which monitor and resolve such issues. The important
parts of the framework are:
 There is a compliance department in the company with a compliance officer and team.
 The communication network of the company is such that all the senior management
team are informed about the any breech of compliance and complaints as soon as they
occur.
 There is a team which looks into highly sensitive situations and have a crisis plan
(Pellegrin-Boucher, Le Roy & Gurău', 2017).
 There are effective measures within the company, which identify the breeches.
The company also has a risk management team which identifies such risks and contingencies.
They use a structured approach to ensure the quality of performance of the sales team.
Conclusion
Finally we can conclude that British Gas is one of the organization which follow high
standards of adherence of sales policies and standards. The company is one of the leader in
the industry with reputation of maintain high standards. The products of the company is liked
by its customers. The company also have a strong base of loyal customers which lead to the
future sustainability of the organization.
Sales is one of the important function of the organization, which directly affects the profits.
Thus ensuring that this function is carried out in an ethical way, the procedures and policies
are important. It help improve the quality of such functions, are improved so that the trust and
confidence of the customers remain intact.

References
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