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WORLD CLASS SALES ROUNDTABLE:
Spotlight on GE Industrial Control Systems
Quick market intelligence
By Gerhard Gschwandtner
Publisher, Selling Power
General Electric’s Industrial Control Systems (ICS) employs 20,000 people worldwide. In the U.S., eight regional managers supervise 220 account managers. In 1996 sales reached $2.5 billion. Customers include original equipment manufacturers, industrial distributors and end users such as steel mills, paper mills and high-end manufacturers. Products include electric motors and automated process control systems used by manufacturing plants. Thirty percent of GE-lCS’s business comes from sales through industrial distributors.
General Electric ICS won the World Class Sales Benchmark Award based on interviews with more than 1,100 corporate decision makers. H.R. Chally researchers identified three success factors that explain the organization’s success:
1. Attention to customer needs. The company surveys its customers regularly to develop a list of critical quality factors. Those factors are ranked and the sales team will assign the highest priorities to the most critical factors.
2. Developing partnerships with clients. Account managers "own" an account and are expected to "make a difference" within the customer organization. To strengthen the partnership, best practices are shared and customers are invited to participate in GE training programs.
3. Quality product and service. GE designed a Six Sigma quality initiative to reduce costs, eliminate warranty problems and increase customer satisfaction.
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Roundtable page
Excerpted from Selling Power magazine,
January 1998
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