SALES
How do companies manage to hold their own in the face of rising competition, the trend toward increasingly homogeneous and substitutable products, and the multitude of sales channels?
Professional sales management takes on a particular significance here. Only by concentrating on (long-term) profitable customers can companies permanently sustain or increase their corporate value. Several clusters of measures can be adopted in sales management to achieve this goal, ranging from customer acquisition and customer retention through expanding customer numbers and winning back lost customers.
But what are the essential factors for successful sales strategies and for sustainable sales management? What strategies, processes, and metrics do companies need in order to be able to respond quickly and purposefully to the changing demands of markets, customers, and the competitive environment?
Our "market focus" approach places customers at the heart of sales, as the main pivotal aspect and the key controlling factor. Sales activities are consistently aligned towards customer processes and customer needs, from presales through after sales. Activities focus on adding value for the customer and on exploiting market and efficiency potential for the company.
KEYLENS has spent many years supporting clients in establishing and implementing sales strategies, processes, and organizations. Our experience incorporates sales models both for end customers with continuous or discontinuous relationships and for personalized business relationships in the engineering sector and classic B2B customer relationships in supply industries.
We support companies in all areas, from taking aspects of their sales management to the next level, such as with key account management, all the way through developing and implementing entire sales strategies.
Some of the aspects our consultancy focuses on:
- Sales strategies
- Sales processes and organizations
- Market and customer planning
- Customer relationship management
- Multichannel and channel management
- Lead management and sales-up programs
- Account and key account management
- Sales efficiency and sales monitoring
SELECTED KEYLENS PROJECT EXAMPLES
Engineering firm
ENGINEERING FIRM
Issue:
Performance review of key account management
Objective:
Analyzing the cooperation between the engineering firm and one of its key accounts and initiating ways of improving it
Results:
- We systematically analyzed the process on the customer and provider side
- Conducted a globally standardized survey of the two companies building on this understanding of the process on both sides
- Derived the potential for optimization from the survey findings
- Facilitated discussion of the findings and worked with the client to formulate a plan of action
KEYLENS success levers:
Established methodological expertise in key account management and analyzing customer processes, and sensitive facilitation of the process between the two parties
B2B service provider
B2B SERVICE PROVIDER
Issue:
Sales organization and processes
Objective:
Developing a new sales organization that exploits the synergies, efficiency potential, and opportunities that result from the merger of two market segments
Results:
- We derived the requirements with respect to the value chain and sales from the customer perspective (needs and processes)
- Designed the new sales concept, incl. organizational proposal and key parameters of strategy
- Defined the sales processes and interfaces, and described the new roles, responsibilities, and tasks
- Formulated an implementation plan, with responsibilities and timings
KEYLENS success levers:
Personal and intensive involvement of those responsible for the operational business right from the start ("turning victims of change into owners of change")
IT service provider
IT SERVICE PROVIDER
Issue:
Key account management and segment-specific sales strategy
Objective:
Establishing a sustainable and practicable system of key account management and deriving a sales strategy for a new market segment to be developed
Results:
- We adopted a structured approach to record and map the optimization potential in key account management in the context of customer needs and internal requirements
- Developed a pragmatic, overarching key account management concept, incl. implementation plan
- Supported numerous accounts in implementing the concept
- Formulated a sales strategy for a new market segment to be developed and provided coaching during its implementation
KEYLENS success levers:
Substantial methodological expertise in key account management, and personal and intensive involvement of those responsible for the operational business right from the start ("turning victims of change into owners of change")
Chemicals manufacturer
CHEMICALS MANUFACTURER
Issue:
Sales strategy for Central Europe
Objective:
Transferring negotiating power in sales away from the customer and back to the manufacturer, and reducing business risk in a volatile commodity market
Results:
- We brought about differentiated customer development based on a new customer management strategy
- Reduced business risk by implementing more targeted adjustment of supply volumes to customers and regions
- Strengthened negotiating power with key accounts by adjusting product programs and reducing dependency
- Initiated a process of change management and created stronger customer focus throughout the entire organization
KEYLENS success levers:
Involvement of all stakeholders in the company (product, production, sales functions, etc.) and rapid embedding of customer management in the organization at the European level
Windows and doors manufacturer
WINDOWS AND DOORS MANUFACTURER
Issue:
Realigning the sales strategy
Objective:
Leveraging growth potential with exclusive dealers
Results:
- We found out the success factors and growth barriers by means of a comprehensive analysis of the specialist dealership business
- Achieved revenue effects through greater differentiation in the support services provided by corporate headquarters
- Positively impacted motivation by intensively involving the sales department in the process of strategy development
KEYLENS success levers:
Expanding the internal perspective on dealership partners, and greater consideration of needs and capabilities in sales planning
Construction supply company
CONSTRUCTION SUPPLY COMPANY
Issue:
Multichannel sales
Objective:
Developing optional sales channel strategies to substantially improve the exploitation of market potential
Results:
- We structured alternative commercialization models
- Developed an evaluation grid to assess the identified alternatives
- Assessed the identified options for action based on the evaluation grid and employing thorough competitive benchmarking and the client's own resources
- Derived four sales channel strategies relevant to the client's business
KEYLENS success levers:
Fast, practicable results achieved by taking a pragmatic approach to finding a solution, combined with industry and methodological expertise
Financial service provider
FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDER
Issue:
Lead management
Objective:
Putting the end-to-end lead management process on a professional footing to increase total premiums
Results:
- We mapped the purchase-relevant customer processes
- Evaluated all aspects of the lead management process from generation through conversion
- Developed the conceptual basis for identifying, classifying, and developing leads
- Derived the process-side success factors in lead management (roles, responsibilities, interface rules)
- Modeled the quantitative potential
KEYLENS success levers:
Two-stage system for qualifying leads in terms of maturity and customer knowledge
Primary insurer
PRIMARY INSURER
Issue:
Increasing efficiency in sales
Objective:
Improving the quality of information and communication exchanged with the sales team (> 4,500 people) in terms of product and marketing information
Results:
- We achieved a demonstrable reduction in field force time spent on communication
- Dramatically freed up the field force's schedule for at least 1 more customer meeting per day
- Developed and implemented a new concept for sales communication based on the specific needs of the various target groups and facing both recipients and senders
- Developed tools, formats, editorial plans, and budget plans
- Created a new department for sales communication and embedded it in the corporate structures and processes
- Brought about a change in the basic attitude of everybody involved
KEYLENS success levers:
Broad-based acceptance within the different interest groups by involving them intensively right from the start
