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WORLD CLASS SALES ROUNDTABLE:
Sales Force Automation
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"We should keep in mind that sales force automation is about creating a competitive advantage" -- Frank Coleman, Lucent Technologies |
By Gerhard Gschwandtner
Publisher, Selling Power
Photos by Debra Celecia
Selling Power: Are your salespeople automated at Boise Cascade Office Products?
PETER DANIS: We have about 1,000 salespeople in the United States and about 90 percent are fully automated. The other 10 percent have access to computers, but they choose not to use them. We started testing sales force automation about three years ago, two years ago we computerized about forty percent of the sales force.
Was the initial decision to automate driven by the IS department or by the sales department?
PETER DANIS: The decision to automate was made by the marketing department. Our VP of marketing was the driving force of the process. We wanted to be able to respond to our customers faster and better. Initially, about 25 percent of our sales force was doing this on their own; they had their own laptops and developed their own systems. Finally we got to the point where we had to say it’s time to move on to the 21st century. Today, our salespeople love it.
When did you automate salespeople at Brown-Forman?
JIM BAREUTHER: We purchased laptops for our salespeople about eight years ago. We are now on our third generation of laptops. One hundred percent of our salespeople are using them. We’ve made this mandatory and we continue to invest in new information technology. This enables us to access information and add value.
JOEL ROSSMAN [United Parcel Service]: We are just beginning our sales automation journey and I sometimes wonder about the impact of information technology on face-to-face selling. Our salespeople suffer from information overload and I need them out in front of the customer. I believe we need to limit the nonproductive information flow to the sales force.
| "Standing still is no alternative. You've got to get in the game or you'll have no gain." -- Victor Mendes, General Electric |
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How does Lucent Technologies deal with this challenge?
FRANK COLEMAN: I think that we should keep in mind that sales force automation is about creating a competitive advantage. Our salespeople can respond faster to a customer’s request. To avoid information overload, we need to limit the amount of requests that go out to our sales force.
How does GE approach sales force automation?
VICTOR MENDES: You can’t just simply automate what a salesperson does. You have to find a new synergy and achieve a measurable gain in productivity. Every automation step has to be cost justified. If you look at all your technology investment, at the computers, laptops and software, etc., you need to ask what is this technology replacing? What cost do we take out and what exactly do we gain? Typically you will find an increase in revenues and margin, not just a simple decrease in cost. We started the sales force automation process a while back and we found some bumps in the road. It’s been a very positive learning process. We are now convinced that there is a whole lot more to gain than the risk you take. Standing still is no alternative. You’ve got to get in the game or you’ll have no gain. The sales opportunities are phenomenal. The real advantage of sales force automation comes when you are able to connect everything into an enterprise-wide business system.
| "The laptop is going to become more of a learning instrument, not just a device for collecting data or sending e-mail." -- Mary Committe, Marketing Mastery |
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How can companies automate without taking away the human dimension or creating information overload?
MARY COMMITTE [Marketing Mastery]: First of all, technology is a tool, it is not the be-all or end-all. Companies are trying to create more of a learning environment. In many companies the job functions constantly change. I see technology as a tool that can help you deal with those challenges. The laptop is going to become more of a learning instrument, not just a device for collecting data or sending e-mail. The laptop can become more of a sales advisory, a sales coaching tool.
Great salespeople will always be successful, with or without laptops. Ideally, you want to clone the top performer and help the average salesperson work like the top performer. New technology can help in this area. For example, if a salesperson is working with a bank, the new technology is smart enough to show the salesperson that the company has 10 other banks as clients. The salesperson can see what kind of needs they have, what presentations were used and what sales process was applied to close the sale. The software may also show articles about how banks operate. This technology is more interactive and we will see more of that during the next two years.
I believe that the first-line sales managers will face the biggest challenges because they will have more salespeople under their control. They need to train more people and need to receive more training to help them with their coaching process.
PETER DANIS: A salesperson has to be an interesting person to start with. A laptop isn’t going to make you more exciting. I don’t know of a single university where students go out and sell as a part of a laboratory exercise. Our most successful salespeople have that added dimension. Sixty percent of them are women. Our salespeople are caring, they are good at listening, they are interesting people and you would have fun having them over for dinner.
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Excerpted from Selling Power magazine,
January 1998
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