Process Management for the Sales Team; No BPM Tools Needed

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By Kavita Jhunjhunwala

India has been a hotbed for manufacturing processes for the past couple of decades, and though it might not boast the same economic growth statistics as China, it's still considered to be one of the leading manufacturing hubs when it comes to high-end engineering products.

Supreme & Co, based in Kolkata, India, is one such enterprise that has a lineage of successful entrepreneurship married with a keen understanding of good business process management practices. Supreme was formed in 1970 as a fastener manufacturing unit and began exporting goods out of India in 1975. A difficult financial regime required a high volume of documentation, and that is what led to a business process management practice in the company. The ability to manage large volumes of documentation with ease resulted in Supreme meeting the challenging documentation processes of the international tender markets as well.

Supreme recently faced problems with its export documentation management and pre-bid system, which had become archaic. The system had a number of issues. It used outdated financial documents; the company had a lack of knowledge of online bidding processes being employed by large American customers; and answering buyer queries took too long. Each query was being routed to senior management, which added to their work load and subsequently resulted in poor productivity for all concerned.

Business Process Problem Areas Defined

Tenders are requests for quotations floated by large public sector companies or government agencies. Participation in tenders costs a lot in terms of time, money and resources. Any disqualification of bids due to lack of attention to crucial details or missing bid deadlines entails a waste of money, staff time and resources, not to mention lost opportunity.

Similarly, detailed attention is also required in the planning of delivery schedules. All tenders have a liquidated damages clause that is rigorously enforced.

Harish Agarwal, an engineer by education and managing director of Supreme, felt that it was time to introduce "proper processes " within the organization and get rid of the casual attitude towards sales.

The key was in updating a business process that had outlived its usefulness and also addressing the growth pangs being felt by the company. New people were being added on a regular basis who required marketing-oriented training. External help was required to address this problem of information flow, training and accurate response to marketing.

Help was at hand. Megha Agarwal, Agarwal's daughter, who had just completed her degree in business administration, saw it as a good opportunity to evaluate the problem with "fresh eyes. She believed she could shape the new business process for smooth pre-sales activities.

Along with the help from the senior personnel at Supreme, Megha gave shape to the areas of concern. A process of documentation of the process began.

The main concerns were high quality of response to tenders, which accounted for more than 75% of Supreme's business. Apart from tenders, the documentation process would help address the following issues for the company:

• Development of training material used for the team.
• Learning interaction with the trainer, senior managers, associate partners and senior agent advisors.
• Individual inputs for improvement of the entire sales process.

Along with the core team, Megha evaluated the bidding process with the intent of developing a new process. One of the key people contributing to the effort was the Head of Processing who had a very good understanding of the existing business process, due to her years of experience at Supreme.

The team spent a couple of days drawing up a process map of the old system; many loopholes presented themselves. A new process map was created during the brainstorming session with input from each department that influenced the process.

Megha spent time with the consulting engineer and modified the process to meet Supreme's specific requirements. This was the most time-intensive aspect of the endeavor. It took close to one month before the new flow began to take shape.

Though most of the processes remained people-driven, some processes were automated using simple Microsoft Office tools such as Access. A customer list and reporting format for quotations sent out during the month were some areas of simple automation that were done immediately with the help of a programmer.

The Business Process Solution

The specific plan of action developed by the team encompassed the following activities:

Know Your Customers

• Maintain customer's organigrammes (an organization's specific purchase program).
• Update organigrammes regularly.
• Maintain updates on customer's activities.
• Maintain frequent customer contact to gain advance knowledge of upcoming tenders.

Know Your Competition

• Product information, organization structure and people.
• Strengths and weaknesses.
• Published price lists.
• Special discounts.
• Marketing and sales strategy.

Preparations after receiving tender/request for quote (RFQ)

1. Thorough readings of tender document.
2. Define scope of work and legal obligations to the contract.
3. Understand customer's decision-making process.
4. Understand customer's bid evaluation criteria.
5. Identify competition and price trends according to latest information.
6. Brainstorm session by key team members.
7. Finalize strategy for product and pricing to be offered.
8. Attractive presentation of bid.

Result Analysis

• Prepare competition analysis as per technical and commercial information announced in bid opening.

The definition of this step-by-step methodology removed the "shooting-from-the-hip" attitude that the company had been practicing. The post bidding process was also defined as follows:

1. Evaluate the technical and commercial deviations of competition.
2. Evaluate exclusive benefits offered by competition.
3. Hold brainstorming session and define follow-up strategy for marketing and sales team.
4. Irrespective of results, make a final analysis for future references.

Getting People To Change

One of the most obvious problems faced by organizations such as Supreme is the implementation of any new process. Change in the documentation process was ready in principle, but getting the entire sales team on board was a true challenge. Not only were they geographically dispersed, but they had different mind sets. Director Agarwal and his team began following the process themselves and gave special kudos by way of promotions and incentives to those team members who quickly adapted to it.

One of the strongest motives for getting the process right was a monetary incentive tied to the percentage of sales. Earlier, Supreme offered sales incentives to on-field personnel only, but this practice was extended to the business support team as well.

Business Process Results

The sales process is usually ignored in small to mid-sized companies, and it is an analysis of the holes in this part of the organization that can make all the difference to its growth. Agarwal and his team of trusted personnel -- along with help from Megha -- managed to put across a productivity-focused business management process that began reaping benefits within the first three months of beta stage implementation.

Apart from the increase in quarterly results, Supreme began attracting better employees and also managed to retain a few of the senior members who were getting disillusioned by the lack of processes.

Agarwal has a good word for his team. "They have helped me get this system in place, and I think with the help of some software automation, we can easily triple our current sales target in the next five years!" His next steps are towards greater automation of the entire organization; first he intends to get this new business process to become second nature to his team.

The numbers are already showing how sales process management can become a serious contributor to growth. The quarterly result of the company showed a 23% increase on a quarter by quarter basis.

Useful Links

Supreme & Co.
http://www.supremeco.com/

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