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Sales - Friend or Foe
 

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Sales - Friend or Foe?

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Let us have a look at a typical sales presentation from a delivery company:

  1. Using best-practice methodologies, sometimes backed by certificates
  2. Profitability of the company
  3. Market position of the company
  4. Strategic Alliances that can be used to support your business
  5. A parent company with a world-wide supporting infrastructure

Sounds good? Certainly! But let us analyze this presentation:

  1. Certificates. Certificates can be an indication of a smooth running business or it can be window dressing. Do you know how to see the difference?
    • Look at the hive of activity that takes place just before an audit. If the people are running around all over the place, it is just window dressing
    • Listen to the comments of the management team when you start discussing auditors. Auditors are there to ensure that the rules within the business are followed. If the management team is negative about these rules / audits, it is a sure indication that the certificates are only window dressing. ("SOX is the biggest money waster / Auditors like to fight with everybody / we cannot do this now because the auditors are here, ...)
  2. Profitability. A company has to be profitable if it plans to survive, We do not want to go into a long-term contract with a supplier that will not be here tomorrow. The problem is not with the profitability of the company, it is with the Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) of the company. If we ask the delivering company what their targets are for this coming year and all you hear is money, money, money, chances are that this is all the company is measuring. They are not measuring your performance figures (which they should be doing if they are now your partner), neither are they measuring your satisfaction, their own personnel satisfaction (which will impact negatively on you if their personnel are unhappy) etc.

 

 

 

 

The service industry is often driven from Sales. It is here where the expectations are created. Sales often tell customers what they want to hear and not what they need to hear for fear of loosing the deal. If this sales team is not managed properly, it will be the start of a relationship in which the service department can never live up to the expectations that was created.

Then, after the Sales team, the Legal team arrives on site. They draw up a contract with the customer's Legal department, get all the legal jargon correct but unfortunately has no idea of what is technically possible or what expectations were created by the Sales team.

The frustrations that hit the service industry then stems from:

  • Not involving the Quality team in the Sales process
  • Not involving Operations in the contract negotiations
  • The lack of proper Project Management to ensure the effective and efficient change-over from the current to the new
  • The lack of proper management (the old-fashioned Plan, Organize, Lead and Control)

Outsource Excellence does not provide outsourcing services, so we are not interested in obtaining evidence for business partners to end their relationship. We feel that a divorce causes more heart aches than what it is worth. The challenge is just to get the right basis to work from. Outsource Excellence provides you with the necessary information that will enable you to find and implement the missing links to the benefit of your business and that of your customer.

THE PROBLEM

You decide to outsource your IT business to a company that specializes in IT. Expectations are created by over eager teams, brochures and seminars that this is going to be a BIG WIN! Very few people realize that in a outsource deal, two companies are forming a relationship in which there are conflicting business requirements. The one looks for Value for Money while the other is looking for EBIT and Turnover.

Nobody goes into business to do a bad job. However, these conflicting business requirements, if not understood and managed properly, could cause a premature separation of the partnership and untold stress in both companies. To find a common ground on which to base their relationship without anybody loosing (money and / or face) could be quite a challenge. 

When there is distrust, resources are used to ensure that nobody is cheating instead of finding ways to maximize business profit.

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THE SOLUTION

  • The first step is to obtain an understanding of each other's business requirements.
  • The second step is to establish the maturity level of the relationship according to the Outsource Maturity Model.
  • The third step is for you to decide what level of maturity you are aiming for in your industry. Here it will be wise to ensure that you align with your service partner. If the one is aiming for Six Sigma quality while the other is running around just before an ISO 9001:2000 audit to try and maintain their certificate, you are fighting a loosing battle.
  • The fourth step is to obtain a platform acceptable by both parties on which a win-win solution can be built. This platform should have its root in excellence, I.e. on one or more world best practices accepted by both parties. These are normally the ISO 9001:2000 standard, ITIL, COBIT, PRINCE 2 etc.

Many businesses have been working hard at achieving certifications, but has never had the opportunity to let these certifications work for them. In the past most businesses used the certifications as selling points instead of using them as mechanisms to grow their business maturity as well as relationships.

Ensure that your hard earned certifications will work for you, setting a standard platform on which contradicting requirements can become levers to business excellence, breeding prosperity instead of conflict and severed relationships. 

You can now make use of these certifications to form your platform for business excellence and prosperity instead of being the cause of frantic activity before the auditors arrive.

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Johan Maartens

 

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Send mail to johan@maartenspro.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 09/05/07