Developing the Sales Process of a Professional Services ..., Summaries of Business

Download Developing the Sales Process of a Professional Services ... and more Summaries Business in PDF only on Docsity! Hanna Vannesluoma Developing the Sales Process of a Professional Services Offering Company Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Bachelor of Engineering Industrial Management Thesis 30 May 2016 Abstract Author(s) Title Number of Pages Date Hanna Vannesluoma Developing the Sales Process of a Professional Services Offer- ing Company 43 pages + 2 appendices 30 May 2016 Degree Bachelor of Engineering Degree Programme Industrial Management Specialisation option International ICT business Instructor(s) Head of Sales and Marketing, Senior Manager, case company Anna Sperryn, Senior Lecturer, Metropolia UAS The case company in this study provides professional services in the area of IT service management. The business challenge manifested itself as scattered efforts and incon- sistency in sales activities and also unbalanced level of sales at the case company. This study investigated how the case company’s sales process could be improved in order to unify efforts and gain consistency on sales. Therefore, the intended outcome of the study was a re-engineered sales process. The study was executed as a qualitative case study which included a Current State Analysis, a review of existing knowledge and formation of the solution. The Current State Analysis was conducted by interviewing the case company personnel. Also internal case company material was used to form a more valid and reliable analysis. As the case company is a professional services selling company, the concept and understanding of customer relation- ship management was reviewed together with sales knowledge. In addition to these, process definitions and general features were included in the revision in order to form the Conceptual Framework. Together with the Conceptual Framework and the case company needs the solution was created. The outcome of this study is a re-engineered sales process which has been depicted as a process flow chart with separate activity explanations. The outcome also includes defined sales roles as roles cards and selected metrics. These outcomes created a framework for implementing more efficient and aligned sales activities. The proposed improvements will benefit the case company’s sales efficiency and make managing the sales more transparent and aligned. In the long run, the consistency in the efforts of sales activities will hopefully result in increased sales. The outcome of the study is in line with the objective. The case company was pleased with the outcome. Keywords sales process, sales management, customer relationship management 4.2.1 Roles and Responsibilities 26 4.2.2 Tool and Information to Support the Process 27 4.2.3 Sales Management and Metrics 28 4.3 Process Basics 31 4.4 Conceptual Framework for the Development of Sales Process and Management 33 5 Developing the Sales Process of the Case Company 35 5.1 Re-engineered Sales Process for the Case Company 35 5.2 Role Cards and Defined Responsibilities 37 5.3 Proposed Sales Process Metrics 38 5.4 Suggestion for Next Steps 40 6 Conclusions and Discussion 42 6.1 Evaluation of the Proposed Solution 42 References 44 Appendices Appendix 1. Interview Questions for Case Company Employees. Appendix 2. Sales Process Activity Document. List of Abbreviations B2B Business to Business. A short term to describe relationship type between vendor and customer which both are compa- nies doing business. CEO Chief Executive Officer. The person head of the entire case company group. COO Chief Operating Officer. CRM Customer Relationship Management. A broad concept used for manage and analyze all kinds of interactions with custom- ers through the entire customer lifecycle. CRM tool Customer Relationship Management Tool. A tool to support all activities related to managing customer relationships. In this study by CRM tool is reflected the case company’s tool which is used for supporting sales. IT Management Information Technology Management. Practice used for in- stalling and managing information technologies. KAM Key Account Management. Sales-oriented approach of cus- tomer relationship management. SFA Sales Force Automation. Integration of the front and back of- fice to improve sales force by empowering the sales force with information and automation. SIS Sales Information System. System that collaborate, facilitates and processes the information in order to assist the sales pro- cess. 1 1 Introduction This study was carried out for a company which provides professional consultancy ser- vices. The purpose of the study was to review and analyze the case company’s already existing sales process and how it is managed in order to develop it. The need for the study was identified after the case company made a group level decision to implement a new business system including the CRM tool, which has been used for support the sales process. The study describes the study process, its methods, findings, solution and finally discusses the validity of the solution and reflects on the learning process. 1.1 Background of the Case Company The case company group is a consultancy firm offering professional consultancy and advisory services specialized in IT Management. The case company corporation has offices in the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom. The total number of employees is approximately 150. The Group organization is rather flat and consists more of roles within the group rather than functions. This flat organization is a known decision and created specifically to allow agility. The Group has a group management team which consists of the CEO and COO located in Sweden and each country’s own Managing directors. The Managing directors are heads of their own countries. The office in Finland (hereafter referred to as the case company) is located in the Helsinki metropolitan area. There are nine consultants cur- rently working in Finland, yet the target is to grow up to 12 employees by the end of 2016. All the employees have the responsibility in both producing customer assignments and internal operations and development. The case company group has two principle objectives for the whole business. According to the corporate’s CEO and internal material these two objectives are: “1. Generate and expand mutually profitable engagements with our clients” and ”2. Build or strengthen mutually beneficial relationships with firm stakeholders (clients, our colleagues and our network)”. These objectives clearly indicate the importance of the beneficial relationships and should be considered in all the operations of the company. The objectives together 4 words, the case company needed a well-defined set of activities and systematic ap- proach enabling consistency on the efforts. A sales process and the framework for man- aging it. Consequently, the objective of the case study was to develop the sales process suitable for case company’s needs. The objective was turned into a research question form in order to clarify it: What kind of sales process would fit the case company’s needs? The case study’s scope includes a revision of the current customer relationship manage- ment activities regarding sales. In addition, the actions taken regarding customers espe- cially after the described sales process is the focus of this study. By actions the study refers to the activities, data, roles and responsibilities related to customer relationship management and sales. Therefore, an intended outcome of the case study is a re-engi- neered sales process description and suggestions for next steps. The case company will benefit from this study by having clear visibility and direction of the actions taken in sales. Additional benefits include a more systematic way of working, clear roles and responsibilities and metrics related to the sales process. These outcomes were also thought to be beneficial to even out the revenue in a long run. 5 2 Method and Material This section begins with the description of the research approach used in this study and why the approach was selected. The second sub section describes the used research design. The third sub section goes deeper into the collection and analyzing methods of the data used in this study. Finally, the last subsection discusses the validity and relia- bility concerning the method and materials used in this case study. 2.1 Research Approach This thesis was conducted as a qualitative case study research. A case study research is a research method where an individual such as a group, an organization, a process, etc. is investigated. A case study’s target is to find a solution on a research question regarding the selected individual. Case study research seeks to find the best possible answer to the research question. In order to find the best possible answer, there is a need to find variety of evidence related to the case study. By evaluating and analyzing the found evidence the answer to the research question can be formed. (Gillham 2010) In addition to any theoretical research a case study does not begin with theory and liter- ature review, instead it begins with a contextual understanding. It is essential to under- stand the context of the current challenge regarding the individual. This enables finding the suitable existing literature for the specific research. Reviewing existing literature in this order makes finding an answer for the research question more likely. (Gillham 2010) Case study research is a qualitative rather than quantitative method. It means that the research is descriptive and based on conclusions whereas in quantitative research sta- tistics and mathematical content matters more. The qualitative method enables focusing on understanding the situation and meaning of the evidence. This means that with qual- itative methods it is possible to see the situation and help to realize viable explanations for it. Although qualitative methods are primary in case study research, quantitative meth- ods can and usually are used too. There is a need to collect all the case study evidence as data into the case study data collection. (Gillham 2010) 6 According to Gillham (2010), a case study is a main method which includes different sub methods. These sub methods are often used for data collection such as interviews, rec- ord analysis, observations and documents. These different collecting methods used for the same research question are known as multi-method approach. (Gillham 2010) The case study research method was selected for this thesis as a research method be- cause the objective was to investigate a set of actions (individual) of the case company. In order to do so multiple evidence needed to be gathered and analyzed. In addition, the qualitative method enabled analyzing and finding explanations for the collected data and evidence. The case study method also enabled finding the best solution for the study’s research question in the light of conducting and evaluating evidence of the individuals. 2.2 Research Design This section describes the research design which illustrates the actual flow of this study. Figure 1 shows the research design of this case study. Figure 1. Research design for the case study. 9 Interviews with case company employees and managing di- rector Case company internal material from Managing director and case company internal site The first set of data included an interview of the case company head of sales and mar- keting. The Head of sales and marketing was selected as the respondent, because he had the most interest and knowledge towards issues related to sales and marketing, the CRM tool and also customer relationship management. The initial scope of the study was realized and defined in the intro session. In order to properly define and scope the study, emails were exchanged after the intro session with both the Head of sales and marketing and Managing director. This data was used to clarify the case study objective, scope and outcome further. The second set of data included interviews, current tool and documentation, internal ma- terial and discussions with the Head of sales and marketing. This data set was used as evidence for the Current State Analysis. Interviews were conducted to all the staff in Finland and the CEO of the case company group to gain as real a picture of the current state as possible. To gain an even more realistic picture additional data such as related internal documents including sales process descriptions and instructions were used. The data also included the used CRM tool and the content found within. The third set of data was used to propose a solution. Data set 3 included global man- agement team interviews in order to find out the needs and vision of CRM at the case company group level. The interview respondents included the group CEO, Group Head of Sales and Group Head of Insights. The selection of respondents was made together with the Head of Sales and Marketing at the case company. The selection was based on the level of expertise and the level of insight to the topic to gain as accurate an under- standing as possible. 10 2.4 Validity and Reliability Discussion When conducting a case study, validity and reliability are one of the most important fac- tors to consider. Jorma Kananen states that validity and reliability are much difficult to consider in a qualitative research than quantitative, since qualitative interacts mostly with humans as objectives. Quantitative research relies on systematic and rationality of data and randomness is often an exception. Qualitative research relies on humans’ feelings and thinking where randomness is common. (Kananen 2011) In qualitative research reliability and validity means the study’s credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. These factors can be considered by various ways such as:  documenting, especially reasons and grounds behind decisions  familiarizing with different data collecting methods in advance  systematic and reasoned interpreting (Kananen 2011) In this case study both reliability and validity were considered from the planning phase. All the actions, reasoning and data collection were documented. Also the data collection methods were studied beforehand and selected keeping in mind the reliability. Both reli- ability and validity were also kept in mind when making interpretations during Current State Analysis and forming the solution. 11 3 The Current State of the CRM and Sales Process at the Case Company This chapter describes the current state of customer relationship management with the focus on the sales process at the case company in 2016. The actions related to custom- ers, data, roles and responsibilities and the management of the process were investi- gated. This approach enabled a comprehensive investigation of the current state of the sales process and CRM at the case company. After a comprehensive analysis it was feasible to point out the strengths and weaknesses of current sales process and its management. Revealing the weaknesses enabled the selection of viable focus areas for development. This enabled selecting the relevant ex- isting literature that helped form the solution proposal for the problem. In the first subsection the orientation and the mindset in both group and local level are described based on the interviews of the group CEO and Finland’s Managing Director. Section 3.2 dives into the details of the current actions on the overall CRM, and more precisely, the sales process at the case company. In the sub-sections of section 3.2 parts of the sales process are separately analyzed. Thereafter, the current process manage- ment and related issues are discussed. Finally, the last section 3.4 outlines the key find- ings of the current state as strengths and weaknesses of the sales process and also its component’s weaknesses in a form of a fish bone diagram. 3.1 Customer Relationship Management Orientation According to the CEO of the case company group, the first step of the CRM is to under- stand that CRM is not a tool, but rather the case company culture. Secondly the two objectives of the case company group should be in mind continuously: delivering good value and continue building relationships both externally and internally (Case company internal material, 2014.) In order to reach these objectives there is usually a need for processes and tools, however the CEO thought it is essential to remember that pro- cesses and tools cannot function without a strategy and objectives. In another words, strategy and objectives can exist without processes and tools. Although the processes and tools are not the initial objective, the need for a sales process has been recognized and it has been described at the case company. 14 revealed that account management has been currently defined and implemented at Swe- den and UK. For Finland, account management will be defined and properly imple- mented later during 2016. All in all, the employee interview results indicated that the described steps in the sales process are taken. However, the steps after are undefined, unstructured, done by only a few individuals and based on memory. In addition, the interview respondents acknowl- edged that the main pain point of the sales process is closing the deal. Most respondents thought that ineffective deal closing is strongly connected to the quality in the previous step, developing a compelling offer. There were only guesses why these two steps were the pain points, because there is no feedback from the customers nor analysis done after a lost assignment. In other words, the case company lacks structured after sales actions. This conclusion is supported by lack of documentation and guidelines after the final step of the current sales process. 3.2.1 Customer and Sales Opportunity Information The case company has a tool to support the processes, but the tool usage has decreased over time. The CRM tool is the main source of customer related information. The case company’s internal sales document stated that “Contact information centrally is ever so valuable”. Contact information is the most used data that is collected and saved about the customers at the case company. Each time a new lead or opportunity is recognized the lead contact information is saved into the CRM tool. Based on the discussions with the Head of sales and marketing, the data goes through a certain pattern. Firstly, the contact information and company are added, then the new sales opportunity can be added. Secondly, the crucial information on an opportunity are added. The most crucial information includes the customer name, opportunity level, probability estimate, estimated amount of the opportunity and brief de- scription of the opportunity. Figure 3 describes each opportunity level and probabilities. 15 Figure 3. Opportunity levels and probability definitions. (Case company internal material, 2013.) According to the employee interview results and the content of the CRM tool, severe gaps in the way of adding, saving and updating customer data were found. Some re- spondents said they had never added any data. Others said that they had done some- thing previously, but not engaged in any action recently. Mainly two people, the Head of sales and marketing and the Managing director, had taken the most actions regarding saving the customer data into the CRM tool. 3.2.2 CRM Tool The CRM tool used at the case company consists of work spaces that can be created according to company needs. Current work spaces at the case company are: Employee network, intranet, marketing CRM, project management and sales management. The only work space currently in use is the case company CRM. The workspaces consist of different applications which can be added to the workspace according to the needs of the company. The only currently used parts within the CRM module are applications: contacts, company and sales. Based on investigations made on the CRM tool, it was discovered that many opportuni- ties and functionalities are available. Not only functionalities regarding customer man- agement but also internal business supporting functions. Other functions than CRM, have not been utilized at the case company, which is why the entity is referred to as CRM tool at the case company. 16 Even though there is a CRM tool, the interview results strongly indicated that it is not in frequent use. As mentioned earlier, mainly two people are using the tool at the Helsinki office. All the respondents stated that currently the most frequent users are the Managing director and the Head of sales and marketing. Regardless of the low level of use, the respondents did realize the importance and the benefits of the proper tool usage. When asked about the reasons, common answers included hurry, lack of interest and forgetting in addition to the following:  no one appointed responsible for the tool  old data  no motivation factors  mainly used as a contact list  missing some functionalities e.g. following an assignment after closed win. The list of pain points above, are most probably a result of lack of usage and motivation to use. All the mentioned pain points make forgetting easy, especially when in a hurry to do other work. 3.3 Management of Sales Process and CRM Due to the small size of the case company and to the target of having all employees working 100% for customers, there is not enough resources to appoint full time workers only on internal functions. This means that even though the case company has e.g. a Head of sales and marketing appointed, the person cannot only focus on sales and mar- keting, but has to also conduct services to customers too. The limited resource seems to be the problem behind the responsibility and ownership issues, regarding the Manag- ing director. CRM at the case company is mainly described by the sales process. The management of both is an essential part of efficient and effective execution of both. Based on the interviews it became apparent that there is no evidence of management of the CRM or sales process. One crucial part in order to evaluate how the processes are functioning is measurement, yet there was no evidence nor documentation of any evaluation criteria of CRM or sales process. However, as the company measures the financials there is sales amount metrics in the financial side of the case company. The case company does 19 Figure 4. Current CRM Activities on the Sales Process. Figure 4 describes the sales process from the customer relationship management view. This was done in order to reveal the actions related to CRM in order to reflect the process against the company’s two main objectives: generating and building profitable engage- ments with our clients and to build and strengthen beneficial relationships with stake- holders. In Figure 4, the customer related actions are in rectangular boxes, customers in eclipses, data in datasheet shapes and the CRM tool is on the bottom. The dotted line shows the data that is only sometimes saved into the tool and the solid line shows the data saved into the tool most likely each time. At the top, there is key account management which could be started from almost in the beginning, but it is marked in italic, since its concept will be implemented to Finland later. The two question marks represent the lack of after sales or the last customer lifecycle stage, customer retaining. The question marks were the part of the current state which were stated as the most scattered and uneven points of action. These are the weak- nesses of the overall sales process regarding the CRM. In addition, the management of the sales process was in a rather poor condition. The process lacks the owner and the entire process evaluation and metrics are missing. All in all, the overall situation has two aspects to consider. Firstly, the actual process and its weaknesses and secondly, the process management part and its weaknesses. The strengths of the process lay within the first half of the process. All the elements support each other from the beginning to around the half way of the process. One of the biggest strengths is that the personnel is very process and tool oriented, which indicates that the understanding the need for processes is known. Table 2 below summaries the strengths and weaknesses of the current state of the CRM’s sales process. 20 Table 2. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Sales Process. Weaknesses can be further investigated with a root cause diagram also known as a fish bone diagram, seen below in Figure 5. Figure 5. Root cause diagram of the Sales Process’ Weaknesses. The fishbone diagram provides an overall view of the different element’s weaknesses that all together cause scattered and ineffective sales activities. The weaknesses on the fishbone, i.e. process management, activities, people and data were considered to be the most critical factors causing ineffectiveness of the sales at the case company. By defining activities, roles and responsibilities the process execution can become more effective. Thereafter other weaknesses can be more easily solved. When there is clear understanding of who does and what other aspects such as improving the performance of the process can be tackled. 21 Process management done correctly enables monitoring, evaluating and motivating as- pects which can result in decreasing the effect of other weaknesses later too. As for the poor performance regarding the current sales process third step, developing a compel- ling offer, it is out of the scope of this study. It was excluded from the scope, because it is believed to be improved as a result from accurate management of the sales process. Based on the weaknesses revealed by the Current State Analysis, the next section dis- cusses existing knowledge on sales, CRM, professional service offering field and basic process characteristics. 24 sales and optimized business processes to support and compliment the customer centric business model and culture. CRM includes the knowledge about the customer and the acquisition, analysis and use of that knowledge. One of the biggest parts of CRM is sales activities, since during sales most customer facing activities or touch points occur. (Don- aldson 2007, Ala-mutka et al. 2004) According to Ala-mutka et al., a customer centric business model includes six divisions: customer strategy, operating models, business processes, information technologies and management, strategy monitoring and control and customer and market knowledge. Customer strategy is used for segmentation, which are used in customer management planning. Strategy is converted into operating models which are procedures for specific customer segments. Operating models include the way of interacting with customers. Business processes enable the physical flow of service offering and cash flows of the business. (Ala-mutka et al. 2004) All the above mentioned activities and strategies are managed with customer infor- mation. Information technology provides help in the storing and sharing of the infor- mation. Strategy monitoring and control views how the strategy is fulfilled. By the cus- tomer and market knowledge is meant that the whole CRM is related on those two as- pects. (Ala-mutka et al. 2004) The six divisions exclude improvement aspect which is the reason why Ala-mutka et al. has introduced a “waterfall” of customer centric development of business which begins with the knowledge of market and customer and ends with management of change. The systematic steps are: (1) Market and customer knowledge (2) Customer strategy (3) Operating models (4) Business processes (5) Information management (6) Monitor and control (7) Change management. (Ala-mutka et al. 2004) 25 CRM includes all the aspects related to customers and sales and the sales process is a rather big part of it. Sales can and are viewed separately from CRM thus it should be considered at all times especially in professional offering services where the customer relationship is a fundamental part of the company. 4.2 Sales Process Kaisa Hernberg (2013) defines sales as being interaction between the buyer and seller. In addition, according to her, selling refers to a process, where one party actively inter- feres with another in order to reach a specific objective. The actual sales process is a sequence of operations whose purpose is to reach a business transaction. The sales process can be divided into separate steps. Figure 7 describes the steps of two different sales processes. Figure 7. Sales process steps (Vahvaselkä 2004 and Green 2006) Both Vahvaselkä and Green include closure in the second last step. This step might end with either customer accepting the offer or declining it. If customer declines the offer, Vahvaselkä strongly recommends to clarify the real reason behind the rejection. If the reason behind the rejection is based on a misunderstanding, the benefits of the services should be revised. In addition, for the summary of benefits Vahvaselkä suggests to aim at something positive. According to the both examples in Figure 7, the last step of the sales process include some after sales or marketing actions. These actions should be additional sales, evalu- ating current needs and offering services accordingly, making the customer feel cared for, confirm the customer satisfaction and/or gain feedback, providing information on new offerings and regular nurturing of the customer contacts. (Vahvaselkä 2004) 26 In addition, Bill Donaldson has divided follow-up actions into three parts in his book Sales Management Principles, Process and Practice. These sections include activities in cus- tomer service, customer satisfaction and customer referral. Customer service includes proper billing, training of customer and needed installations. The satisfaction of the cus- tomer is assured with proper handling of complaints and periodical checking in of the customer and reassuring that the offered services were as expected. Referral is the op- portunity to make additional sales and it is done by asking for new sales leads from the customer. (Donaldson 2007) Gaining a long and beneficial customer relationship requires active contacting and nur- turing of the customer. This should be done by both sales individuals and the whole selling company towards the customer and the whole customer’s contact interface. Main- taining the relationship between these entities requires comprehensive understanding of marketing and sharing of necessary information between all stakeholders. (Vahvaselkä 2004) The concept of account management and key account management (KAM) enables companies to improve the relationship quality between the supplier and customer. KAM is a sales-oriented approach of customer relationship management and is based on cus- tomer relationship instead of transactional selling. The basic concept of KAM is to decide its key customers and those accounts potential, make a plan for the relationship building with the right resources and manage the relationship with the customer continuously over time. (Donaldson 2007) 4.2.1 Roles and Responsibilities The sales persons in a professional services offering company are more or less the pro- fessionals, regardless of their own preferences. Professionals sell their knowledge and know-how either by being responsible for specific customer relationships or by being included in the sales negotiations as additional resource for sales personnel or as their support and help. (Vahvaselkä 2004) According to Vahvaselkä there are four key aspects for successful professional selling:  real customer centricity 29 We all have heard the phrase if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Most managers accept it uncritically, and many believe it passionately. But it’s not true. There are lots of ways to manage – values, personal example, praise, fear, threats, inspiration, team creation, message alignment – which doesn’t require measure- ment to be effective. (Green 2006) Green suggests that measurement is not the only way to manage, yet it is a very common way of doing so. In the same vain, Kaario et al. state that the sales function performance can be evaluated in two ways, by assessing the sales person’s competence and actions and by measuring the business results of sales activities. (Kaario et al. 2003) Donaldson has introduced three aspects for sales management including a clear defini- tion of selling, the activities in form of tasks that the sales personnel must conduct and sales management responsibilities. Donaldson introduces a six-stage planned approach for evaluation of sales performance and evaluation of salespeople. These steps include: (1) Clarifying sales objectives (2) Specifying sales tasks to achieve sales objectives (3) Writing, or rewriting, a job description with key and secondary tasks (4) Establishing suitable evaluation measures (5) Involving salespeople (6) Taking action. (Donaldson 2007) Steps 1 to 4 are self-explanatory, those steps need to be defined and described before moving on. Step 4 needs more investigation, as there are many measurements available in the literature. Schnerrer introduces a basic metrics for sales force in the paper Effect Solution Transition on Steering the Sales Force: For New Marketing and Sales Metrics. The following metrics introduced are basic sales related metrics. These basic metrics are measuring the financial results of sales. (Schnerrer 2014)  Sales Quota Achieved  Number of New Customers 30  Number of Sales Closings  Average Gross Profit Per Customer  Sales Expence to Total Sales  CSP – Cost Per Sales (Schnerrer 2014) In addition to these basic metrics, Kaario et al. have introduced a table with different category sales metrics. The metrics helps to measure the planned activities and process efficiency level. These metrics are not restricted only to financial results, thus there is also those metrics included. The other categories are non-financial results’ metrics, sales efficiency metrics and sales activity measures. Table 3 shows the sales metrics that Kaario et al. have collected into their book Selling Value, with the categories shown on the left. (Kaario et al. 2003) Table 3. Summary of metrics for measuring the value to the provider. (Kaario et al. 2003) 31 Although Kaario et al.’s summary of metrics introduces quite a few metrics, they also suggest keeping selecting the measures simple. Too many metrics might make manag- ing the sales too difficult. Metrics selected should be the kind that sales people can affect to increase motivation. In addition, Kaario et al. suggest that metrics should focus on the outcomes of the process. This way the focus will be on the right place and more benefi- cial than when focusing for example on the activities of the process. (Kaario et al 2003) 4.3 Process Basics A process is defined in many different sources of literature. John Holt mentions a few different sources and definitions in his book A Pragmatic Guide to Business Process Modelling, e.g. the Oxford English dictionary’s definition: A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result. Holt himself defines process for the purpose of his book as being something that includes a number of activities which all are in a responsibility of a stakeholder role. Each activity produces and/or consumes an artefact. An artefact is also known as output, meaning that it is something that comes out of a process or an activity. (Holt 2009) In addition, ITIL (The Cabinet Office, 2011) describes process as being a structured ac- tivity set which are designed to reach a curtain objective by taking one or multiple inputs and turning them into outputs. According to ITIL Transition, there are four main charac- teristics of process: measurability, specific results, customers and responsiveness to specific triggers. (The Cabinet Office, 2011) In addition to process definition there is a picture showing the process model in Figure 8. According to the process model, there is always something to trigger the process. Process inputs go into the process and after the process the outputs come out. The process includes activities, procedures, work instructions, metrics, process roles and im- provements. (The Cabinet Office, 2011) 34 The most useful learning considering the field the case company operates on, i.e. offer- ing professional services, was that all the consultants are sales people, regardless of their own opinion. This means that all the employees form the sales organization or sales force of the company. By learning this, the fact that the sales people responsibilities belong to all employees became indisputable. The most usable learnings while investigating existing knowledge on processes and sales processes were the importance and need of process management. Processes cannot run effectively without management, but the way of doing so is not restricted only into metrics but a combination of metrics, performance level, people management and so forth. In addition, as learned from ITIL Transition (The Cabinet Office 2011), it was understood that metrics are actually part of the process, not the control. However, met- rics support the control and monitoring. By combining the results from the CSA in section 3 and the Conceptual Framework cre- ated in this section, the next section describes the proposal for the re-engineered sales process. 35 5 Developing the Sales Process of the Case Company Based on the Current State Analysis and existing knowledge together with the needs and visions of the case company the proposal for the re-engineered sales process is conducted and explained in section 5.1. In addition, for the sales process re-engineering the roles of sales manager and sales person are described on role cards and can be seen in the section 5.2. The re-engineered process was done in order to clarify the flow of actions, people, tool and information of the sales process. The role cards were created to clarify who is re- sponsible and for what. In addition to the defined process flow chart, activities, roles and responsibilities also the process control and management side was considered in the form of metrics. A set of sales metrics for the sales process were selected and proposed. Metrics were introduced to help the case company manage the process. The metrics are described in section 5.3. 5.1 Re-engineered Sales Process for the Case Company In order to model the re-engineered process, the basic information of the process was defined and described first. This was done based on the process characters in ITIL pro- cess model (The Cabinet Office, 2011). The process name is sales process for case company (Finland office), the owner is sales manager and its trigger is a need for in- creasing sales. Process customer is the case company since the objective of the process is to gain more sales for the company. Process inputs are leads, sales opportunities and outputs are mutually beneficial customer relationships and increased sales. In addition, the process is measurable and has its own metrics which are discussed more in section 5.3. Figure 10 shows the proposed re-engineered sales process as a flow chart, from the point of view of customer facing activities. The first step of the process is to recognize a potential customer and/or sales opportunity. The process ends with gaining feedback form the customer. Although the last step of the process is gaining feedback, there is a continuity loop also on the process. After the actual process, there must be a follow-up since the customer relationships must be maintained. The loop goes from feedback back 36 to contacting the customer. This was visualized into the process flow chart as seen in Figure 10. The experience gained and the Conceptual Framework helped to identify an additional step for the case company’s original sales process: follow-up. This can be seen in Figure 10 on the top right hand corner. Follow-up includes a new activity: get feedback. Getting feedback helps sales management analyze customer satisfaction on the services offered and conducted and also the effectiveness and efficiency of the sales process. These help to develop both service quality and the sales process itself. Figure 10. Re-engineered sales process -flow chart One of the most important factors of the re-engineered sales process is that after finish- ing an assignment and gaining feedback from customer, there is a need for follow-up in order to keep in touch with the customer. The main purpose of the case company is to land and expand sales during the assignment. However, if it is not possible, follow-up will keep the relationship between the customer and case company on going. The re-engineered process description takes into consideration also the information and its flow into the CRM tool. Process activities were described in a separate process activity document for the case company. The process activity descriptions can be seen in Ap- pendix 2 at the end of the study. Within the activity document, the information details and 39 to gain transparency and to help in making development decisions in the future. The following table of metrics was selected to be taken into use initially: Table 4. Suggested case company sales metrics (Based on Selling Value by Kaario et al. 2003) Category: Measure (unit): Per what: For what: Results – non finan- cial Customer reten- tion/loyalty (%) Customer group For evaluating if the formed rela- tionships are mutually benefi- cial. Results – non finan- cial Customer satisfaction (bad, satisfactory, ref- erence) Customer For evaluating the performance level of the ser- vices. Efficiency Length of sales cycle (months) Customer For time trans- parency and helping the cus- tomer activity planning. Efficiency Hit rate (%) Customer group For the knowledge of ef- ficiency and ef- fort against re- sults. Activity Proposals made (number) Customer group To view the de- velopment of proposal quality and activities re- lated. Table 4 above includes the metrics suggested for the case company sales management. The number of selected metrics was kept low, on purpose. It was thought that having a few only will help in evaluating the process in the beginning. Also as the resources of the case company are limited, there is no need to implement a heavy set of metrics to avoid too restricting activities and the risk of reduced motivation. These metrics can and should 40 be reviewed and evaluated in the near future to assure they are essential. The metrics could be evaluated e.g. when the key account management is implemented. The metrics defined in Table 4 were selected, because they focus on the level of results, efficiency and activity rather than financial results, which are measured already in the finance and profitability calculations at the case company. As customer relationship man- agement is a very important aspect of the case company’s sales the metrics should also seek the information and level of performance regarding customer relationship manage- ment. The proposed metrics were also selected, since with them the end part of the process, which includes new activities, can be monitored better. 5.4 Suggestion for Next Steps According to Donaldson’s six step performance improvement list, introduced in section 4.2.3, the next step after defining metrics is to involve the sales people and take action. The personnel should be informed about the re-engineered process flow chart, activities, role cards, responsibilities and metrics defined, and they should receive training. Training and informing is an essential part of the implementation of the re-engineered sales pro- cess and should be the next step. When the sales process is up and running, the CRM tool clean-up is needed. The clean- up should include going through and verifying the existing contacts, companies and sales opportunities. After the clean-up decision about the tool migration can be revised. The revision of the tool migration is easier done, after the implementation of the developed sales process and the tool data cleaning, since then the real need for a new system can be thought through. There is no point of making such a decision, when the process that the tool is supposed to support is not working fully. However, once the process has been developed the decision can be made. In addition, the need for key account management is still valid and needed to be imple- mented in line with the sales process. It would be recommendable to do a revision and evaluation of the suggested metrics while implementing the account management. The key account management might include similar metrics which is the reason that the two should be aligned in order to gain an adequate level of measurement. If the account 41 management implementation should be postponed, the sales metrics should be re- viewed anyway a while after the process implementation. If the other weaknesses discovered in the Current State Analysis in this study should continue to occur regardless of the re-engineering, it is suggested that further investiga- tion is made. The metrics defined in this study should provide more transparency regard- ing the problem. With the proposal for the case company completed, the next section provides the con- clusions and evaluation of the proposal. 44 References Ala-Mutka, J., Talvela, E. (2004). Tee asiakassuhteista tuottavia – asiakaslähtöinen lii- ketoiminnan ohjaus. Helsinki: Talentum. Donaldson, B. (2007). Sales Management – Principles, Process and Practice. Third Edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gillham, B. (2010). Case Study Research Methods. eBook: Continuum. Green, C. H. (2006). 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How do you experience developing offers – what is the best way? 8. Why services are hard to push into production at the pipeline? 9. Experience in succeeding at closing the deal? What kind of offers/proposals are accepted at customer end? 10. What happens after closing the deal? 11. How actively (and how) sales expanding is done within customers? 12. When an assignment has been done – how the customer relationship is kept warm? 13. How are these actions saved/recorded into the CRM tool? a. If not recorded – why not? 14. Why the CRM tool is not used frequently? 15. Who is responsible of sales? a. How do you contribute in order to improve sales? 16. What do you think is/are the most critical factor in sales and customer relation- ship management? 17. The worst pain point of case company’s sales process? 18. The worst pain point within customer relationship management