Driving sales with personal analytics

DRIVING SALES

WITH

PERSONAL ANALYTICS

PROJECT EXAMPLE

Client:

European energy and raw material supplier

Project:

Optimization sales department

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Reference customer

Initial situation

Leading European energy and raw material supplier with sales > 50 bn. EUR. The company employs > 100.000 employees.

The sales management of our customer was confronted with a variety of challenges: There were complaints from major customers about a lack of attention by the sales representatives. At the same time, long-time customers were migrating to the competition and growth rates with new customers were not satisfactory.

To confront and solve this state of affairs the company conducted a sales optimization project based on a standard optimization approach. A large number of interviews with sales representatives were conducted. The result of the project was mediocre: there was no acceptance of the results from the sales representatives and therefore no backing of the top-management. The project had failed due to a lack of steadfast transparency.

At this point in time a contact with Santiago was established. The personal analytics tool and method was to be used to generate unbiased and unconventional transparency on capacity usage and allocation. The personal analytics method draws on communication mass data readily available in the companies systems to create a clear and valid picture of (individual) sales (communication) activities.

Project target The first and primary target was to generate real transparency on the time allocation of the sales team. How much time was salesactive time and how was the rest of the day occupied? Based on the analysis of the historic communication data of 3 months from telephones, iPads, calendar appointments etc. profiles of the sales team were to be developed. It was the target to derive best practice patterns in customer interaction based on benchmarking.

Finally a set of optimization measures was to be identified and aligned. The measures needed to be concise to clearly show the way forward to an improvement of the situation.

Client:

European energy and raw material supplier

„Early involvement of the employees, the use of real, historic data and a thoughtful team of Santiago consultants were keys to success for this project.“ Sales Manager

Project:

Optimization sales department

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Project approach In a first step a communication to all the stakeholders was kickedoff. Since the analysis of the data builds on the interpretation of the respective sales representative, it was important to involve everybody from the start and clearly communicate the targets and the approach of the project.

In a second step the data generation had to be organized with the IT department. The software to extract the relevant information (telephone, mails, appointments etc.) was implemented and historic data from the last 3 months was generated as raw data.

The following step targeted the data interpretation. Since the raw data from the systems did not always provide the allocation of the addressees to units or organizations, it was important to accomplish this step with the sales team. At the end of this step the necessary transparency on the sales activities was achieved.

Therefore the first analysis included (examples):

 A clear overview on sales-active time per customer as well as the allocation to administrative work and internal projects.  The sales-active time was further broken down into time with existing customers and time with prospects  The media used to get into contact with the customers (meeting, phone etc.)  Successful patterns in the communication with customers (when, how and with whom?)

In a fourth step, internal and external benchmarking on sub-unit level and comparison to industry peers was used to identify areas where further analysis was necessary.

The last step completing the project was a short and intense implementation, steered with targets and consequent progress and success tracking. Crucial for the success was the fact that all optimization levers were developed hand-in-hand with the sales representatives. Thus a high commitment to the detailed optimization roadmap was achieved and the measure were not imposed on the sales team.

Client:

European energy and raw material supplier

Project:

Optimization sales department

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Facts

Project results

 Provision of uncontested transparency on performance

The sales department was overwhelmed by the project. With the transparency based on real data at hand, each sales representative was able to get a view on how they spend his/her time. That was often an eye-opener because the own perception was different from the data. By this means the necessary motivation to change was generated.

 Focus on main sales department with 300 sales representatives  Tailored and aligned improvement measures  Increase of sales by 18%

The derived improvement levers contained some drastic changes within the sales organization:  Newly cut sales regions  Change of sales representatives  Program on optimized media application and patterns  Redesign sales training Finally a total forecasted sales increase of 18 % was achieved.

Whereby this increase was generated as much on existing as on prospect customers.

Success factors For the successful completion of the project „Driving sales with personal analytics“ the following factors were crucial:  Early involvement of all stakeholders and clear communication of project targets  Generation of sound and valid transparency of the time usage per person/unit  In-depth sales know how to derive pragmatic and concrete improvement measures  Integrative usage of program and change management methods and instruments  Transparent success tracking and communication

Client:

European energy and raw material supplier

Project:

Optimization sales department

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About Santiago Advisors

Role of Santiago Advisors

Santiago Advisors is focused on strategic and organizational development of companies. Sales optimization is one of our core competencies. We build our expertise on a multitude of successful projects as well as strategic partnerships.

These types of strategic projects draw on solid transparency based on real data. Derivation of tailor-made improvement levers and a road-approved methodology for the implementation are pivotal to reach the next level of sales excellence. Santiago carries out the analysis, delivers the tailor-made concepts and plans and supports a stringent implementation together with the clients team.

Contact Santiago GmbH & Co. KG Buchenweg 13 D – 47877 Willich www.santiago-advisors.com

Dr. Juan Rigall Managing Director +49 151 20 33 53 21 juan.rigall@ santiago-advisors.com

Christian zu Salm-Horstmar Managing Partner +49 151 20 33 53 23 christian.salm@ santiago-advisors.com

“Personal Analytics” targets the mass communication data employees produce every day working for their company. It helps to identify inefficient interfaces, communication hotspots and weak performing processes. The method delivers its value especially at sales and headquarter organizations, at global and regional interfaces of central structures and is also used to measure reorganizational success (e.g. after PMIs).

“Personal Analytics” delivers a sound base for any improvement to be made. For the part of the improvements, the necessary know how and do how is critical. Santiago provides that know how and combines it with deep process and structural expertise. As a result, improvements can directly be anchored in the structure of the company and mechanisms to sustainably re-enforce the change can be designed.