ICT may be another strategic resource, but most business people don't think of sales and ICT as synonymous. This is contradicted by the situation that most senior managers are happy to delegate both functions to those with the apparent expertise and background. It does work, especially in relatively simple and stable businesses. However, given the rapid pace of change in many industries and markets, sales like ICT needs to be extremely flexible and the board can no longer have a "hands-off" attitude. Unlike sales, outsourcing ICT has become popular for financial, management and complexity reasons. Sales is not seen in this way because it is not seen as complex, appears easier to manage and not many outsourcers are interested in taking it on.
Most organisations are struggling to build, maintain and develop an effective and dynamic sales capability to meet the rapid and ever changing business world. They rely on the Sales and HR Directors to address skills, capability, recruitment, performance improvement, profitability and change. But are they getting it right and can sales be more aligned to longer term planning and strategy?
Sales is so much about people, personality and money than products, processes and systems. Or is it? If the principles of matching resources to need, aligning capability to requirement and solutions to problems are applied, successful sales outcomes can be made more manageable and predictable.
A recent example is when a global technology product manufacturer and distributor made the move to services outsourcing where their products were used. Being early in this market, a pioneer, initial wins were easy to come by. Building this into a large and sustainable business was not as simple when competition saw the rainbow and started on the search for its ends. The re-employment of sales resources from product to complex services seemed logical because successful sales people are all that is required, right? You know the answer; it did not work because outsourcing is just not that simple. But how does a business address the problem of matching the most appropriately capable sales people to this complex, fast moving and fantastically profitable opportunity? They turned to Ergon, a company that specialized in sales performance improvement, where the focus is not training but the analysis of the business requirement, what is needed in sales people resources, what are the processes (including training) to ensure that they are properly applied with existing people or how new sales people be identified. This became the organization’s "sales resource strategy".
What did Ergon do? They started with gaining an understanding of corporate strategy, customers and markets, then looked at existing organisation and resources, reasons why successful and why not, what the competition was doing and will probably do. They then analysed and selected the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour required to formulate the role profiles needed for successful sales people. This “ideal” was turned into "role models" and the incumbent sales force, including managers was assessed to understand what individual learning and support was required to help them be successful. The process required incumbents to self-assess against the benchmark and for them and their line manager to discuss their current level, so that when compared with the required level, gaps and the plan to close them would be a logical and agreed outcome. A "skills change" appraisal process helped ensure that gaps were not just identified, but addressed. The model was applied to recruitment selection to ensure that only those with the right capability were chosen and applied to this complex business problem situation; and they weren’t what you would normally expect, but that is another story.
The result was a well defined and applied sales force capable of meeting today's performance objectives, backed by processes that would help ensure that changes with clients, the markets and competition could be easily addressed. Now this was something that senior management and the HR Director could understand and back.
Many organisations are not moving their businesses to outsourcing but the perennial changes and complexities that are impacting them are becoming greater and their ability to react to them more difficult. This is especially so with their capacity to change and focus their sales operations. It needn’t be.
Peter O’Donnell, Managing Partner, Ergon Ltd. pod@ergon-it.com, 07887 520 406
Source: www.negotiationeurope.com