Perils of Sales Automation - 1998

1. Avoiding the Unseen Perils of Sales Technology
By Shep Parke
Sales & Field Force Automation Magazine
Cover Feature
Spring 1998

2. Avoiding the Unseen Perils of Sales Technology
By Shep Parke
Sales automation's past is littered with the wreckage of technologies and projects that failed to deliver
the promise of radical improvements in sales effectiveness.
The history of sales technology includes examples like Metaphor's promises of store-specific marketing
insight and sales program planning, packaging, and measurement; Nielsen's Sales Advisor, designed
to deliver automatic sales analysis and pre-packaged reports and presentations; Spaceman's many
ways to analyze and reconfigure product promotion plans, including in-store product shelving and
display arrangements; Sales Technologies' territory targeting and reporting system, geared to enable
companies to leverage new product launches across multi-tiered sales channels; and Brock's quot;Take
Controlquot; solutions designed to support the full customer life cycle, from marketing to sales to service,
using integrated tele-center operations.
Then there was quot;pen-based computing.quot; Go Computing introduced the promise that we could quot;lose the
keyboard,quot; replacing it with a sleek, black, magnesium e-notepad, revolutionizing selling solutions. After
three years and millions in venture capital, Go failed in 1989.
A particularly painful example was a major telecommunications company's early-1990s sales
automation investment. Estimated at more than $30 million, it was the largest yet in the industry. To
support its highly publicized program, the company moved to equip 5,000 field salespeople with laptop
computers and customized sales software. The first of its kind on this scale, it would merge a number of
the leading sales tools then available-IBM ThinkPad laptops, Aurum's Sales Track opportunity
management software, and XcelleNet's RemoteWare communications software. Finally, an enterprise-
level, best-of-breed sales solution-the industry had finally matured.
After three years of effort and never achieving full rollout or full integration, the company pulled the plug
on this platform, and began a painful process of reevaluation and selection for its second-generation
solution-which continues today.
All these examples held great sales effectiveness promise, and many smart, successful people spent
millions trying to make them work. Eventually, however, most resulted in ineffectiveness and, over time,
failure. Why?
Because even today, we continue to think technology first and selling effectively second, if at all. Yes,
the technical infrastructure-the hardware, the software, and the network-available to support selling has
taken longer to mature than we thought it would, even five years ago. But, while technology certainly
still has limits (and always will), it has never been our primary problem-our approach to designing
selling solutions is.
The key here is quot;designing selling solutions,quot; solutions that help sell, not just administer sales
information.
Since the first dual-floppy laptop computer (the Toshiba T-1200) in 1986, we have said, quot;Here's a great
new technology-how can we use it to help our salespeople?quot; Then we say, quot;Let's show them the tools
and ask them how they think they can best use them.quot;

3. We arrange field trips, office visits, and work-withs, all to see quot;how they really work,quot; but also to show
them the newest demos. Exhausting this, we turn to consultants and sales automation gurus to help us
avoid the pitfalls. With us, they conduct visioning and solution design sessions, sales solution vendor
analyses, and of course, more demos.
Is Anyone Listening?
Through all this, our salespeople tell us that to really sell more effectively, they need four things:
1. More and better sales information-especially accurate, advance knowledge of
customer sales opportunities, competitive threats, and service problems
2. Better value proposition, business case development, and sales presentation
knowledge and tools
3. Better, more straightforward ways to manage orders, agreements, and
contracts
4. Simpler ways to communicate with marketing, service, shipping, each other,
alliance partners, and the customer
These are things you would expect salespeople to ask for.
Interestingly, they do not tell us they need:
Customer profiling
o
Opportunity management
o
Call reporting
o
Forecasting systems
o
But still, we return to headquarters, consider these requests, compare the cost, complexity, and risk of
building tools that really help sell, versus standalone sales administration tools like call reporting,
forecasting, and expense management. And in the end, we deliver the admin tools.
We explain this away by convincing ourselves that quot;we need to move slowly in the first phase, so the
salespeople can get used to new technology and processes.quot; And because it will cost more and take
longer to deliver the real selling tools, we decide to quot;self-fundquot; the project by generating quick hits that
will reduce costs and create more selling time.
We then concoct intricate investment returns around office closings and administrative headcount
reduction, and convince ourselves that you really can't tie specific sales increases to sales technology
investments, that these must simply become costs of doing business, just like electricity, telephone,
and rent.
This approach has done one thing successfully: It has moved sales administrative work from people
who do it well, to people who do not-driving remarkable inefficiency in the process. Sales
correspondence, presentations, and reporting that for years had been managed effectively by clerical
experts in support offices around the world have now been moved to salespeople with portable,
electronic typewriters. And along with these quot;time-savingquot; tools, we have delivered extensive training to
ensure each and every salesperson can now quot;type their own.quot;

4. quot;But Look at the Graphs!quot;
My personal experience with this-a painful one-came in 1983, my first full year as a first line sales
manager with Procter & Gamble. I went into a Computerland in Atlanta, and using my own money,
eagerly bought one of the first Compaq portable computers (you remember, it looked a lot like a sewing
machine), and one of the first copies of Lotus 1-2-3. With these incredible new productivity tools, I then
spent the next six months creating new ways to track my sales teams'quotas, attainment, and so on.
The time I spent doing this, of course, was all time that I wasn't out helping my sales team sell. I think
our sales unit won the quot;toilet seatquot; award two years running-this was not for exceeding quota. But we
did have great management reports, with graphs, too.
It should be very clear what's wrong with this picture: In the interest of applying new technology to
reduce costs not to improve effectiveness, we do just that-reduce costs, and hurt effectiveness.
So what's a better approach?
To answer this, let's take a quick look at four simple sales processes:
1. Learning about products, programs, competitors, and customers
2. Preparing sales plans, analysis, and presentations to help salespeople address sales
opportunities
3. Scheduling and conducting sales calls
4. Following up, preparing order requests, and reporting sales results
Working the way we do today-and have for years-we focus on three of the four bullets (the sales
administrative ones), and deliver these sales technology capabilities:
Product, program, competitor, and customer information database(s)-some
fed by external data sources, some fed by our internal systems, and some
(especially the customer information) fed by the salespeople themselves
Electronic sales planning and presentation development tools
Electronic sales-order configuration and management tools-most often, not
integrated with the product, program, competitor, and customer databases
Electronic territory, account, opportunity management, and reporting tools-
usually, but not always, integrated with the product, program, competitor,
and customer databases
For some reason, we find it extremely difficult to focus on the third part of the process, scheduling and
conducting sales calls-especially quot;conducting.quot;
This is a fundamental solution design problem. For some reason, we have tremendous difficulty
focusing on conducting better sales calls. We know a great deal about managing administrative
information surrounding the sale-the planning, the preparation, the analysis, the call reporting, order
management, and the like-but very little about actually improving the sales call itself.

5. So how do you focus on conducting better sales calls?
By doing something that comes quite naturally to anyone with experience, either as a consumer or as a
business manager: By focusing on how the buyer wants to buy. By focusing on how they buy today, on
what they like, on what they don't like, and on what they value and will pay for.
At this level, it is really quite simple-too simple, really. To better understand, let's look at a real example
of how to improve a business services sales call-using technology, of course.
Let's Pretend
Let's say you're a sales executive with MegaBizCom, a (hypothetical) business communications service
provider operating in the Southeast.
After months of negotiations, Wolf Camera, an Atlanta-based, national retailer of
high-end photographic equipment and services, has just announced the
acquisition of Fox Photo (450 additional outlets) from Kodak, and the company is
now faced with integrating these new outlets. The faster its communication and
data-processing staff link the newly acquired outlets into its current architecture
and services, the faster the company leverages this investment.
This is a great sales opportunity for MegaBizCom, which has the products and service capabilities to
help them do just that.
Let's take a look at two ways this opportunity might be addressed. The first is the way most businesses
work today, and the second is a better way.
The Wrong Way: “Meetings with the Vendor”
1. Your Atlanta salesperson might see the news about the Fox Photo acquisition in the morning
paper. If the news was missed, it could be several days until this selling opportunity becomes
known. (Elapsed time: 1+ days)
2. Once known, your salesperson calls a contact in Wolf's IS department and says MegaBizCom
has tools and services that will enable the beleaguered IS department to rapidly assess,
configure, and integrate communication and data-networking needs for the acquired locations
into their existing service plan-are they interested? Yes. So, he schedules a time to meet to
discuss how this could work. If the salesperson never saw the news, someone from Wolf might
call the salesperson-with the same result, an initial meeting to discuss the details and plans.
(Elapsed time: 2+ days)
3. The initial meeting is held with members of Wolf's staff and several people from MegaBizCom,
including two representatives from the Atlanta office, and two more you sent over from
Birmingham. Your sales team explains what tools and experience you have doing this sort of
thing. They ask questions, making notes about the scope of the customer's needs. At the end of
the meeting, everyone agrees on next steps, including more detailed analysis of the acquired
locations, developing an initial cut at how to best integrate them, the costs, and time frames.
They then schedule another meeting to review all of this. (Elapsed time: 3+ days)

6. 4. The sales team goes away and does the detailed analysis, calling contacts at Wolf, calling some
people from Fox Photo, calling engineering people within MegaBizCom to discuss integration
options. With the analysis complete (they hope), the team prepares a draft document outlining
their findings, including initial thoughts on the best approach, costs, and time frames. (Elapsed
time: 6+ days)
5. The second meeting is held to discuss the approach. After a couple of hours the sales team
realizes they missed some important information-say 15 additional Fox outlets in Key West. No
problem, the sales team agrees to rework the numbers and fax a revised draft tomorrow
afternoon. (Elapsed time: 8+ days)
6. Wolf receives the revised draft-it looks good. They call the sales team back, let them know they
will review the proposal with the president at next week's management meeting to get approval
to proceed. (Elapsed time: 9+ days)
7. During the management meeting, the president and marketing director announce they have
revised the outlet merger plan-the company can't make money on the 35 outlets in Mississippi,
and has decided to sell them to a quot;Backyard Burgersquot; franchisee there. No problem, though-
they both agree that the outlet communications and data networking integration plan looks
good-and, with the revision to eliminate the Mississippi outlets, they give the go-ahead to
proceed. (Elapsed time: 10+ days)
8. Wolf's IS director calls your sales team, informs them of the need to do the Mississippi revision.
They agree to get him a revised integration services proposal by the next morning. The next
day, they receive the revised proposal and review it with finance and legal. They agree to
approve it, and call your team back to get them started. (Elapsed time: 11+ days)
9. It takes two days for you to assemble your team and begin the work. The project is finally
underway. (Elapsed time: 13+ days)
The Better Way : “Collaborative Design”
1. Members of MegaBizCom's support team see the acquisition announcement, which comes to
them urgently in their morning email via a filtered news search service. (Elapsed time: 00:30)
2. They research Fox Photo's existing site locations to prepare an estimate of the existing service
information by site. (Elapsed time: 01:30)
3. They prepare a preview of what they think the most important integration issues will be, as well
as the 20 to 25 key questions that will need to be answered to complete a full integration plan.
(Elapsed time: 02:30)
4. They also prepare an initial financial pro-forma illustrating how an overall integration could save
costs, freeing up money that could be used to enhance overall existing services in several
areas. This done, they email Wolf's IS team their initial assessment, and follow up with a call to
offer assistance. (Elapsed time: 03:30)
5. The email outlines the initial findings, the key questions, and the pro-forma. Included in the
email is a link (and password) that enables Wolf's staff to review the site integration-
configuration tools on your quot;preferred customerquot; Web site. (Elapsed time: 03:35)
6. When you make the call, they conference in their two key operations managers, forward them
the assessment email with the instructions and password to get into the quot;preferred customerquot;
Web site. (Elapsed time: 03:38)

7. 7. During the call Wolf's service team and operations managers-aided by the assessment info and
the driving questions-collaboratively define the details of exactly which locations have which
service needs and existing services, what new service capabilities are available that will
enhance their combined operations, and what additional information is required to develop the
detailed integration and implementation project, costs, and time frames. You end the call by
agreeing to exchange the additional info required via email that day, and to expect a firm
services proposal via email the next day. (Elapsed time: Day 1, just before lunch)
8. After lunch, Wolf's IS director forwards the overview of the services integration assessment to
his executive management (CEO, CFO, etc.) via email, suggesting that, if they agree to this
general approach, you could begin executing services integration for the acquired locations as
early as next week. He also calls each of their assistants to make sure they personally put the
emails in front of the executives. (Elapsed time: Day 1, just after lunch)
9. About 4:00 p.m., the CFO's assistant calls to let him know about the Mississippi quot;Back Yard
Burgerquot; deal, and he forwards this new information off to the integration planning team via
email, along with the originally scheduled info. (Elapsed time: end of Day 1, following the
acquisition announcement)
10. The next afternoon Wolf's operations managers have reviewed and agreed to the proposed
integration services approach, costs, and time frames. The IS director has a 15-minute
discussion with the CFO, who approves the deal. He calls MegaBizCom's integration services
team lead to let them know they can begin work immediately. You schedule work to begin the
first of next week. (Elapsed time: end of Day 2)
Comparing the two approaches, there are several fundamental improvements in quot;Designing the Right
Solution Collaborativelyquot; versus quot;Meetings with the Vendorquot;:
Reduced solution-agreement cycle time: 2 days versus 13+ days (almost two weeks faster)
Increased solution-definition accuracy, buy-in, and support, due to response speed, focused
pre-prepared questions, and electronic communications
Services integration collaboration, versus quot;meetings with the vendorquot;
Wait... What about all the sales information we need to collect, analyze, and take action on?
You might have noticed that in neither selling situation was there any reference to collecting,
documenting, or communicating important sales information-such as contacts, opportunity descriptions,
meeting recap notes, solution proposals and implementation plans, agreements, contracts, and so on.
This is because none of this kind of information collection has anything to do with helping the customer
get a better solution (that is to say, selling).
And, just to finish the point, let's compare how we would collect sales information in each of the two
situations.

8. How Sales Information Should be Tracked and Used: “Don’t Make Them Type”
quot;Meetings with the Vendorquot;-In this approach, once the sales team found time after all the meetings, the
travel, and the proposal work, they would type in their updates of what they did, who they did it with,
and what they believed would happen. They might also forward copies of their supporting materials, so
these can used by others later. Net, they would have to find additional time to type this up and forward
it on to the right people.
quot;Collaborative Designquot;-In this quot;collaborativequot; (and electronically enabled) approach, if we correctly
design the integrated collaborative solution design process and enabling applications, this important
sales information is collected automatically as a result of the work done (again, electronically)
throughout the sales process. As a result, using this approach, the system would track who worked on
what, with whom, for how long. What was agreed to and accomplished in each collaboration session,
as well as documents prepared and used in the work process, would be indexed and archived for easy
access in the future, and all this information would then be viewable by each management constituency
whenever they wished.
Bottom Line
So, what can we do differently? How can we design better sales effectiveness solutions?
Three simple but powerful things:
1. Start with the buyer, not the seller. Understand how the buyer can buy better first.
And then, from this perspective, design selling capabilities that enable better buying.
2. Focus on ways to enable buyer and seller collaboration, especially around problem
solving and solution design. It's through effective collaboration that value is built and
enduring relationships are founded.
3. Enable buying and selling work to be aided by data-rich communication tools; then,
using these tools, track and report the work automatically-don't make every one
quot;type after the fact.quot;
What will we gain if we do these things well?
Customer value, understanding and insight, competitive advantage through solid customer
relationships, and the hearts, souls, and commitment of effective salespeople everywhere.
Shep Parke is a partner with Accenture's Global Customer Relationship Management practice. His primary focus is
on business-to-business selling effectiveness solution design and implementation. Parke began his career with
Procter & Gamble, where he sold paper products 1980 to 1985. From 1986 through 1991, he sold and led the
design and implementation of enterprise-level sales automation solutions with Sales Technologies. From 1992
through 1994, he helped WANG Laboratories restructure its field sales operations during its Chapter 11 turn
around. And from 1994 to 1996 he helped build KPMG Consulting's national sales-effectiveness practice.