Background
A prominent pharmaceutical company applied the Lean Sales methodology to their field sales operations. Despite satisfactory sales results, management and sales personnel sought to explore potential improvements in productivity and performance.
Challenge
Field sales staff were constrained by time-consuming, non-sales related activities. These tasks, including sharing product presentation materials, participating in events, and managing invoicing information, had gradually accumulated, limiting the time available for value-adding sales activities.
Approach and Methodology
The company undertook a structured approach to reassess and optimize their sales process:
- Process Mapping: Initially, the sales process was mapped to identify all activities. It was noted that due to a lack of focus, the process was inefficient, with sales staff engaging in tasks that were not directly adding value.
- Activity Analysis: Each activity within the sales process was scrutinized to determine its value addition and necessity. The key focus was on identifying which activities could be:
- Eliminated: Remove activities that do not add value or contribute to sales outcomes.
- Delegated: Assign certain tasks to other roles within the organization to free up sales staff for core selling activities.
- Improved: Enhance the efficiency of necessary tasks performed by sales staff.
- Automated: Implement technological solutions to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks.
- Workshop Implementation: Through a one-day workshop, the team successfully identified opportunities to increase the time available for value-adding activities by 110%.
Outcome
The implementation of the Lean Sales method led to significant improvements:
- Increased Selling Time: Each field sales representative gained an additional 11 days per month for sales-focused activities, such as meeting customers, understanding their needs, and closing new business.
- Organizational Impact: This change translated into a 110% increase in available sales time at the organizational level, effectively doubling the potential for sales performance.
- Support Role Adjustments: To facilitate this shift, the company incurred some costs, including hiring two support staff, to handle tasks reallocated from the sales team.
Conclusion
This case study demonstrates that applying Lean Sales principles, such as eliminating non-value-adding activities and optimizing sales processes, can lead to substantial improvements in sales productivity. The practical application of concepts like value and waste within the sales process can lead to significant time savings and potential for increased sales performance.
Value and waste are pretty simple concepts in practice.