InfoElectro Fall / Automne 2017

12 InfoElectro Fall 2017 By: Sanjay Desai, GrowthPoint W hether you are a manufacturer, distributor or manufacturer sales representative in today’s highly competitive markets, understanding and leveraging your sales team in existing clients and understanding how to develop your business with this group of clients is of paramount importance. It is an easy-to-understand statement and many readers must now be nodding their heads. That said, creating, managing and optimizing a comprehensive, annual account planning process that also manages a compelling business review process with each and every one of your key clients is a complex, time sensitive, and difficult endeavour that must be done every year. Large manufacturers like ABB, Rockwell and GE generally start working on this process in the second or third quarter of the year before and they have already activated the account planning wheels that will lead to success in 2018. Why do they do this so early? One, the result of not running a comprehensive account planning process and business review for every client leads to MASSIVE LOST OPPORTUNITY in terms of sales. Two, to comprehensively plan for all top accounts takes time and includes other business partners and many tasks to complete, including: 1) stack rank the importance of your accounts; 2) set objectives for every account; 3) understand key client strategic objectives; 4) reorganize the sales team(s) to properly cover and run growth strategies on every account; 5) set compensation plans that optimize the sales team for company objectives; and 6) lead the company towards the new objectives for the upcoming year. There is a massive amount of individual work, team work and logistics involved with this endeavour and it ripples across every part of the organization including the senior management team, sales, marketing, operations, finance, human resources and associated business partners. Besides properly taking into account the amount of time it takes to manage your annual account planning and business review process, have you questioned whether you still have a high-quality account planning and business review process? What is the quality of the tools and templates? Are you collecting the right data and how are you using the data with regards to your accounts and clients? Do you have the proper sales automation technologies to enable this process? Do you understand how to lead, manage and motivate your sales resources to execute your planning process? Companies today play in highly-competitive and commoditized markets. Having a bullet-proof planning process with high-level data-analysis and execution excellence are keys to success. Here are some questions you should ask to see if your company should dig deeper into the annual account planning and business review process to ensure it is being done effectively: 1) Do you have clear and defined process? 2) Is it being commenced early enough to be done properly? 3) Is your process validated with proper data collection and review? 4) From leadership on this process through to individuals executing on the plan driven by the process is there excellent execution? 5) Are you conducting client business reviews to align your growth plans and strategies with your top clients? 6) Is your process outdated? Have you looked at new sales automation and technology, new sales methodologies, industry/economy changes and adapted your annual account planning process accordingly? We are all busy with our day-to-day priorities and our eyes are often fixed on what is immediately in front of us. However, in order to maximize your 2018 growth, you need to start the annual account planning process and client business review now – in fact, maybe yesterday! The Value of Annual Account Planning and Business Reviews Perfecting New Product Launches Order your copy today: www.electrofed.com Benchmark Study & Industry Profile 2018 Pathfinder : lan Ahead