The Challenge
Towards the end of 2008, concerns were raised about the effectiveness of the sales operation within one of PaperlinX’s three UK subsidiaries. As the World’s largest paper merchant, PaperlinX has a UK turnover of circa. €1bn and 50% market share. The subsidiary concerned was extremely well established, having operated within the paper industry for more than 50 years and had, in recent times, diversified its offer within the visual communications sector, increasing revenues to £350m per annum with its sales operations headcount exceeding 300 personnel.
However, with the country tipping towards recession, the company was keen to understand how well equipped its sales operation was to maintain revenues and profitability in what is traditionally a highly competitive transactional market. As such, Footprint was invited to undertake a review of the business and to make recommendations on how to improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the sales operation.
The Solution
In order to ensure that a comprehensive review was undertaken, Footprint employed its proven Sales Performance Optimisation methodology.
The process ensures that every aspect of the sales operation comes under scrutiny together with those elements of the wider organisation that can impact, both positively and negatively, on the sales operation.
As such, over a period of one month, Footprint undertook a comprehensive review of the sales operation, paying particular attention to the prevailing culture within the business, how strategy was developed and executed, the effectiveness of management in leading and coaching the sales team and the skill levels of the sales force. Activities in support of this review included numerous one to one interviews, accompanied field visits, materials and collateral reviews, process mapping, document reviews, strategy development workshops and role shadowing.
The Outcome
On completion of its review, Footprint presented its findings to the company’s executive board together with a series of recommendations on how the productivity and effectiveness of the sales operation could be improved whilst also reducing the cost of sales acquisition which was found to be very high. The key recommendations were:
- Develop a clear vision for the business, underpinned by both a long term (5 years) strategic plan and a 12 month tactical plan in order that the company can take effective actions to ride out the current recession without damaging its value proposition or long term prospects.
- Reorganise key sales divisions in order to create a more streamlined, performance oriented structure that will leverage identified scale and efficiency opportunities, thereby reducing the cost of sale whilst improving productivity and bringing senior management closer to the client.
- Develop and implement a common competency framework across the entire sales operation in order to map current levels of sales ability and identify organisation-wide weaknesses that can be addressed as a priority.
- Utilise the Footprint Sales Leader process to indentify the most cost efficient service method for clients, establish the correct resourcing levels for these clients and, most importantly, identify those clients that represent the closest match to the company’s value proposition and growth strategy.
- Invest in an appropriate sales CRM system in order to facilitate greater alignment of the business development process to the value proposition, support the development of a stronger performance management culture within the business and to allow for the identification and optimisation of cross-selling opportunities between business units.
- Develop a central customer service centre that will deliver telephone account management capability and drive pro-active outbound call activity whilst delivering significant improvements to how the business handles and responds to inbound customer calls.
The company’s executive unanimously accepted the above mentioned recommendations along with a subset of recommendations aimed at resolving specific issues identified during the process.
Footprint has subsequently managed planning processes and projects aimed at delivering all of the above. As a consequence, the company now has effective plans in place to reorganise the business, has identified and contracted with a leading provider to implement a world class sales CRM system, has identified new sales channels and implemented an effective client classification process. Footprint continues to work with the business to implement a new competency framework and accompanying business scorecard reporting tools together with the establishment of a central customer service centre.
In light of the above, the company has already seen significant improvements in sales productivity and gross margin whilst also enjoying a reduction in the cost of sales acquisition.