Aligning your sales processes to increase speed, accuracy and revenue

The process of Selling, which is both an art and science, has seen many innovations in recent years. If your sales processes have not kept up with recent technology advancements, it is likely that you are being outsold by more forward-thinking competitors. Have you aligned your sales processes with the way customers are now buying? The Web has changed the landscape and customers now expect products and services to be configured to meet their needs and they expect fast and accurate price quotes and fulfillment. The Internet provides instant search results for any products or services along with real-time pricing information. Increased product choices and purchasing options are easily available from an expanding global market. To maintain sales momentum and grow market share, companies must now look to new tools and technologies that can reach across industries and across sales channels. Today’s successful business leaders are embracing solutions for optimizing flow, speed and accuracy, while improving efficiencies throughout all areas of their business, including Sales.

How do you eliminate waste, reduce inefficiencies, and improve order accuracy? You need to investigate all areas of your sales process, including product selection and configuration, pricing, quoting, and order processing. By applying innovative thinking and Web 2.0 technology, companies can eliminate the delays and errors inherent in the cumbersome processes typically used to sell complex products and services across multiple channels. Companies must eliminate inefficiencies throughout the inquiry-to-order process to remain agile and competitive in today's global economy.

Maintaining quote and order accuracy using a manual, spreadsheet-based quoting process for configurable products across multiple sales channels is a huge challenge. Such manual methods typically lead to high quote error rates, invalid configurations and extensive intervention by engineering and customer service resources. Frequently, the net result is lengthy quote response times and low quote-to-order conversion rates.

To alleviate these "pain points," forward-thinking companies are increasingly turning to Web-enabled sales solutions in the hopes of achieving breakthrough business benefits. This white paper examines how sales process optimization contributes to establishing a customer-centric value stream and describes several Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) by which a company can measure the success of implementing a streamlined sales initiative and its impact on overall business performance.

In evaluating existing processes for improvement, consider the potential objectives and value-based benefits:

• Sales representatives and distributors instantly generate quotes online in the field, without support from the sales and engineering teams.
• Every quote is generated at least 50 percent faster and with 100 percent accuracy, and quotes are converted to orders with one click.
• Orders are submitted online and flow "hands-off" from customers or channels to the enterprise system and production environment, with no intervention.
• Quotation costs drop 20 to 70 percent, order entry costs plummet by 50 to 80 percent, and fulfillment cycle times improve by 50 percent or more.
• Over 80 percent of customer service inquiries are resolved quickly through self-service over the Web.
• Up to 75 percent of printing and distribution costs for catalogs, technical bulletins and price sheets are eliminated.

A streamlined Sales process begins with the salesperson, distributor - or the customers themselves - selecting the best product fit, configuring the total solution, and generating an accurate price quote. Technology can be used to automatically generate a detailed proposal, with little work on the part of the salesperson. The sales data should feed seamlessly into the order and fulfillment system, and ultimately into a reporting system for visibility across the organization.

"Today, 30 to 35 percent of a salesperson's face time is spent with the customer. Salespeople spend too much time on administrating, expediting orders, arguing over receivables, and finding late shipments."

Jack Welch, former CEO, General Electric Company

Measuring the Effectiveness of Sales Optimization Processes

What you do not measure, you cannot improve. Managing processes improvements can be especially vexing for suppliers of complex products or services, as well as for companies with large, complex sales and distribution channels. Yet, undeniably, any inefficiency at the front end of the business process, during the sales and quoting cycles, have a direct impact on customer experiences and can resonate across the entire organization-affecting quality, customer service levels and ultimately, profit margins and profitability.

Speed, cost and quality are the most critical metrics in determining customer value. Additional metrics include customer retention and revenue growth. Sales processes are typically the least optimized of any segment in the value chain, since process innovation is often not applied to the initial stages of customer contact. Consider how the following scenarios-all common experiences in a host of industries-result in less-than-optimal performance in each of these critical sales order processing areas:

• Inconsistent quoting and frequent pricing errors due to a lack of standardized practices and over-reliance on tribal and key individual knowledge result in lost profits and/or dissatisfied customers
• Frequent proposal, SKU or Item/bill of material (BOM) and order entry errors necessitate time-consuming rework and multiple handoffs, resulting in delayed customer response, lengthy quote-to-order cycles and lost business opportunities
• High administration and operations costs erode gross profit margins and contribute to reduced marketplace competitiveness
• Sales channel inaccuracies, inconsistency and confusion resulting from outdated printed catalogs and misunderstanding of customer requirements lead to reduced sales effectiveness and lost business opportunities

Applying strategic thinking and implementing an effective and efficient technology solution can help streamline the entire range of inquiry-to-order processes and enable companies to realize measurable process improvements and results.

Download the entire article including the following topics:

• Taking a Strategic Approach to Optimizing the Inquiry-to-Order Process
• Strategic Steps in Implementing a Comprehensive, Optimized Sales Strategy
• Measuring the Success of a Sales Process Transformation
• Adopters of Technology-Enabled Sales Strategies Report Dramatic Results
• Sales Optimization: A Process of Continuous Improvement