As the case study shows, one year after the acquisition the combined division is making significant contributions including serving as a catalyst for $1.4B in new projects for EDS. This specifically shows how the aligning of organizational structures and cultures is critical to the success of a merger, especially in an area as time- and resource-driven as enterprise and strategies sales. In assessing and approaching new accounts that were working on transformational initiatives, MCS/A.T. Kearney needs to first focus on the industries they have the greatest expertise in. For A.T. Kearney these include manufacturing, consumer products, transportation, chemicals and pharmacy. For MCS, communications and electronics industries are the strongest industries. Targeting new opportunities in each of these segments by finding corporations who are seeking transformational initiatives to regain their value chain, supply chain, manufacturing or financial performance, and the combined team of MCS / A.T. Kearney has the depth of expertise to be trusted advisors (Buchen, 2001) to the senior management teams of these organizations. As a result of the depth of expertise and insight by each of these industries, the sales teams of MCS / A.T. Kearney could quickly earn credibility and also provide immediate value even during the sales process by offering suggestions from their analysis prior to meeting with senior executives. As transformational initiatives are outsourced only to those firms which have innate knowledge and appreciate the nuances of one company in an industry to another, bringing this industry expertise to the forefront is critical. For each individual prospect, the teams from MCS / A.T. Kearney would do a thorough analysis of their current condition, including the areas where it is clear transformational initiatives are needed. From this initial analysis the teams would meet with senior management and discuss how their longer-range plans and objectives can be met through the use of the MCS / A.T. Kearney insights and industry expertise. Throughout this sales process the objective of tailoring all deliverables to prospects and clients to provide solid evidence of the company's ability to deliver exceptional value based on industry expertise is critical. For MCS / A.T. Kearney to be successful with this strategy they must emerged as the trusted advisor to prospects and customers alike (Buchen,...
The organizational structure would also need to be highly cross-functional to ensure that the maximum amount of expertise was being applied to each specific prospects' and customers' needs (Le Meunier-FitzHugh, Piercy, 2008). Recruitment would concentrate on MBAs and graduate students in operations research, strategy, finance and related fields from the top business schools in the nation. The career path would be from associate to engagement manager to partner, which is very comparable to how A.T. Kearney managed career paths in the past. Finally on compensation, the positions would have a base salary of 75% of total compensation with 25% being from bonuses. All bonuses would be indexed to customer satisfaction with implementations to ensure a high degree of collaboration took place internally. Customer satisfaction surveys would be used to define an aggregate score for each implementation. If the score was 4 or greater on a scale of 5 the team completing the initiate would receive their bonus. Finally on the issue of control, the practice director would have final authority for costs, schedules, commitments made to the client, and all sales management activity. As the MCS/A.T. Kearney corporate structure has shown, disengaging this division from the broader EDS organizational structure has helped to retain its independence. This is critically important for both the MCS and A.T. Kearney employees to have mastery and control over their own work as well. Most important, this distancing from EDS further solidifies their position of being impartial trusted advisors to their clients (Buchen, 2001).
If this was the case, the client would probably feel overwhelmed by a team of people all trying to influence them. Instead, the sales force needs to have people with a business approach and with a relationship building approach, as well as someone with a sales approach. The next consideration is the training required of the staff. Considering that the approach to be used is based on teamwork, it is
category of accounts are more of a waste of time to going on sales calls to than many are worth in terms of profitability. This is becomes clear from an analysis of the case and the two tables. Sales Reps will resist automating these accounts as they represent their comfort zones. They can count on selected smaller job shops to place replenishment and refill orders, and the sales reps
Thus, the pitch should include talking points for describing it to customers. Describe the importance of customer relationship management (CRM) to sales management. CRM is important to sales management for many reasons (Customer relationship management, TechTarget). It helps them optimize information shared by multiple employees and streamlines business processes such as taking orders. and, it allows the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the goal of improving customer satisfaction and
In the long-term, we need to focus on improving the financial performance and improve out financial position. Based on the brief market analysis, we identified those products that are more popular among consumers and the type of consumers we should address these products to and we will try to focus on them. We will also take under consideration the cost structure of our production and try to focus on those
CRM is not "speed dial" on your desk phone or the telemarketers' desk, it is a set of technologies that need to be selectively and carefully applied to selling strategies. At the intersection of the book and the article assignment is the use of CRM as an enabler of building relationships of trust with employees. Critique of the article The authors, writing this in 2002, were insightful and even prophetic in the statements made specifically regarding
Sales Channel Comparison Consumer Channel (Lands' End) Land's End is a world leader in multi-channel retailing and multi-channel management, selling online, over the telephone, through its own stores, affiliate stores and through Sears' larger retail outlets. Sears Holdings acquired Lands' End in 2001 and has since then continually integrated the company's products into the Sears selling channels as well. The core focus of the company from a product standpoint is casual and
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