BCI Australia Sales Management Analysis - Book Report/Review Example

BCI Australia Contact: Michael Lobrin Position: Manager for NSW, WA & QLD 0 INTRODUCTION BCI started in the early 90s solely based in Asia. About 4 yrs ago they went into Australia and merged with Omniquant (OQ) who established themselves in 1980 servicing Australia- wide. For the purpose of this assignment, we will be looking at BCI Australia. BCI bridges the information gap between, on the one hand , architects looking for products and technologies they can specify for their projects, and on the other hand, suppliers of construction products and services seeking to have their products specified and their services procured. In doing so, BCI Australia conducts more than 100,000 face to face and phone interviews with architects, developers, engineers and contractors every year, reporting on multiple billion dollars worth of projects in Australia. Organisationally, there are always two teams operating at each BCI Australia office location – the research team and the sales team. For the purpose of this assignment, we will not divulge information o nthe research team, but focus solely on the sales team. The sales team, also often 2-5 people per office, identifies possible customers from sources such as referrals, yellow pages, exhibition catalogues etc. The typically call these companies in “cold”, introduce BCI’s service and then arrange for a meeting. The products sold involved a subscription to information, sometimes for a specific region, eg. Western Sydney or St.George regions; or a specific group of projects, eg. Office and hotel projects, for a one year term. Subscriptions are paid in full upon/ after the signing of the subscription form. The subscriber then recieves a username and password that allows him/ her to access the BCI database and retrieve information in the “information sector” he/ she has subscribed to over the internet. BCI Australia is profitable and has demonstrated its ability to sustain rapid rates of growth. Group turnover grew about 30% annualy in the last 2 financial years. 1.1 Key Issues To improve internal staff performances. Motivate staff outbound calls to customers. Implement an effective training system that will continually improve their performance. Communication between staff and clients. 2.0 PROBLEMS/ ISSUES 2.1 Staff Performance The kind of sales people that are hired, the way they are trained, the incentives used to motivate them, the criteria used to evaluate them, and the way they are supervised can all affect perceptions of role (Johnston 2009: 195). The way that BCI Australia approaches managing their staff is on a self autonomous system. The majority of staff are hired on a referral basis. In terms of hiring, there is definitely key attributes that BCI look for: - Willingness to learn - Knowledge of the construction industry - Good communication skills - Able to work autonomously This could prove to be a problem because the quality of hires is questionable as it lacks depth (Refer to Appendice ) As said by Michael “I won’t lie this job you can either do it or you can’t. so the current sales people know exactly what needs to be done and the type of people that would enjoy working here”. Therefore to be considered an applicant for BCI you would have to know someone who currently works there, hence they are limiting their pool of candidates. Training is another issue which will be discussed in detail further on. Incentives include: Being a member of BCI/OQ Providing staff with a 12K car allowance, commission on sales. TARGET 8 sales per month An average sales price can range from $2400 to as high as $19200 in one SALE - the sales person will receive 5% of the total value in commission regardless whether they reach target or not If the sales person achieves target 3 months in a row. it will move from 5-8% UNCAPPED Incentives are given depending on what promotion they are running There are high costs associated with choosing the wrong person for the job (Johnson 2009:248). Personal characteristics may have less influence on a salesperson’s long-term performance but when new staff have no personal traits they can become fed up, quit or be fired before training and experience can turn them into productive employees. The measurement of staff performance is not measured accurately within BCI Australia. It is based upon what the staffs advises the sales manager via the CRM system, it does not go into depth and no background check is conducted to see how well the staff is actually performing. 2.2 Motivation and Expectations Motivation is an individual’s choice to (1) Initiate action on a certain task (2) Expand a certain amount of effort on that task (3) Persist in expending effort over a period of time For our purposes motivation is viewed as the amount of effort the sales person desires to expend on each activity or task associated with the job (Johnson 2009:216). BCI Australia has high expectations on their staff. These include: Genuine curiosity in clients needs and total commitment to supporting staffs goals ‘Boundary less’ customer service beyond their expectation, individualised trained and an ongoing interest in their organisation Research quality that is driven by an uncompromising focus on relevance manifested in depth of information, contact details, accuracy and timeliness User friendly, cutting edge information delivery and software solutions that encompass their prospecting, lead management, specification and product selling, sales coordination, back office functions and information management Lastly: a passion to be the best These high expectations could prove detrimental to the quality of each individual employee, because there is a lot of pressure on each individual to be the best. This in turn can lead to lower performance. Fortunately, there are things the sales manager can do to minimise the negative consequences with role perceptions. IN RECCOMENDATIONS, TALK ABOUT HOW A SALES MANAGER CAN MINISE THE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES WITH ROLE PERCEPTIONS A motivational tool for BCI Australia is to have available the current and past sales figures, so that staff can measures their performance against benchmarks which have been set. Attached to this report is past sales figures, this is the guides to which staff adhere to (Attached are sales figured for 2010). Expectations and demands of how the sales person should behave, together with pressures to conform, are communicated to the sales person by members of that person’s role set. (Johnson, 2009: 195) BCI Australia expects employees to conform to the values of the company as well as to meet levels of sales targets. These sales targets are achievable. BCI have not set targets that are too high. 2.3 Training There are many different approaches that BCI Australia use to train staff. Training salespeople is a huge industry. The subject of sales training usually produces considerable interest amongst managers at all levels of the company. Sales managers have a variety of objectives for training. National account manager want the sales training to provide specific details about certain industries and teach the sales reps to develop close relationships with customers THIS NEEDS TO BE DISCUSSED IN RECCOMMENDATIONS – RELATIONSHIP WITH CUSTOMERS. Market managers are interested in how much training sales representatives receive in dealing with complex customer problems. Product managers hope the sales people have been well schooled in product knowledge, specifications, and applications (Johnson, 2009: 299) WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE OBJECTIVES OF SALES TRAINING ON P300 OF TEXT. BCI Australia’s staffs undergo an extensive sales course training, that runs for a few days, is theory based and does not have many day to day practical examples. This style of training can be significantly problematic as they don’t have enough on the job physical training and are expected to work self autonomously. Staffs of BCI Australia are to work minimum 38 hour workload per week. Standards to which BCI employees must adhere to: Communication Dress code Personal privacy Internet/ E mail protocol Inbound calls- answering the telephone Mobile phones at the workplace Mobile phones and GPS whilst driving Personal communication Computer care Use of company printers and faxes Computer games and personal information Listening to music Expenses Food and drinks Kitchen duties Work areas No smoking Data storage Key holders Stationary Leave This is a very extensive list of rules and regulations which employees must abide by. This could prove as restrictive for the creative flow of a sales manager when dealing with customers needs as well as their own. 2.4 Communication CRM is a comprehensive business model for increasing revenues and profits by focusing on customers. More specifically, CRM refers to “any application or initiative designed to help your company optimize interactions with customers, suppliers, or prospects via one or more touchpoints- such as call centre, sales person, distributor, store, branch office, web or email- for the purpose of acquiring, retaining or cross selling customers (Jonathan, 2009:67) BCI Australia uses a comprehensive CRM system where employees write about their interactions with clients. It is these interactions that allow employees to keep on track with customers needs and wants, and how customers have percieved their experience. This provides the tools for acquiring, retaining and cross selling A problem that exists with the CRM system as mentioned by State Manager Michael, “the main problem i find is that im based in NSW. yes i have weekly and sometimes daily meetings with the Manila team, QLD and WA team. however i can only review on their word and what they write in the CRM. however, i like to call some of the clients that my BDMs call just as a customer service call to see how they went. i have found in the past that BDMS will wite in the CRM they made and completed X amount of calls but did not make them - automatic dismissal. End of the day the results dont lie. if theyre performing i let them be. if theyre struggling i sit down and find out exactly why, i listen in on their calls and we do a conference. as long as it takes. i will not fire someone for trying.” Another problem is that if BDMs do not communicate and document the information correctly, there is a miscommunication for future client relations. Recommendations: As aforementioned, the problems faced by BCI are many. These are improving internal staff performances, motivating staff outbound calls to customers, implementation of an effective training system and improvement of communication between staff and clients. The sales management at BCI needs to come up with a solid plan to address all these issues. (L.B. 1985) As in long term step, a call center for follow-up sales staff support can be a successful step. These service centres will help improve sales, and this in turn will motivate the sales staff and compel them to perform even better. Call centers work to everyone’s benefit. They provide a myriad of benefits to the company and to the customers. With the establishment of a call center, BCI will shift from its decentralized approach of many departments to the establishment of one stream lined department that focuses on providing quality support. Companies using call center structure experience alot of customer satisfaction and less operational expenses. Monitoring staff performance would also become easy in the process. A call center for sales support, will keep the sales staff at BCI. They will realize the importance of their task to the company and its revenues. It will be a domain of the company which will be fully dedicated to enhance and improve sales. It will completely motivate the staff at BCI. Calls quality will improve and so will a platform be staged to ensure that better staff and client relations are developed. In order to develop strong relations with customers, it will be important to direct specific training to sales staff at the call center. Customers would expect to place one call and be directed to a knowledgeable representative who will resolve their problem. This means that it would be important to ensure that the sales staffs know how to handle the customers and the technical support that is expected of them. Regressive training will have to be provided in this bid. A call center will also serve to motivate the sales force. There will be significant job enrichment and as their services become more efficient, their targets will be met. They will have more incentives at their disposal to look forward to and this would improvise their overall performance. For the company on the whole, it will ensure their customers are retained. This will be particularly help those customers who tend to get frustrated by lack of follow-up from sales staff. Retention training must be offered to sales staff to ensure that customers are loss. On the whole such a call center will be very lucrative in managing the overall performance of the sales force. Regular reports will be generated by the management which will prove to be very beneficial for processing of calls. Managers will be able to monitor both the length of the calls and the hold time for each call. They will in this way be able to assess how their agents are interacting with customers. The weaknesses of the agents will be worked over and the customers will be trained accordingly. They will be appraised about areas to improve and how to make their interaction with the clients more effective. (Simpson 2002) It is also important for the management at BCI to minimize negative consequences with role perception. Perception is an influential aspect of our intuition. It emulates into reality eventually. Role perception of sales force is a very crucial aspect of work places today. It plays a pivotal role in an individual’s performance. If role perception is misty and unclear, it can lead to under performance by an individual. BCI will consequently suffer and loose important man hours. Thus in the interest of the organization it is important to conjure a clearly defined role relayed to everyone in the sales staff. This is very important to minimize the negative consequences of role perceptions. As mentioned the pressure on sales staff is immense at BCI. It is thus important to neutralize this kind of pressure. Personal responsibility should be taken when earnings are not met instead of blaming everything on the sales force. It is also important to ensure that forecasts set before them are realistic enough and the rest of the organization is in sync and is supporting the sales staff. An elaborate training programming needs to be conducted for every sales rep hired at BCI. The objectives of the training program should be in sync with the requirements of the marketing department, the production department and the management team. The crux of the training should be to ensure that the sales team is well versed with ways in which relationship with customers of every domain is to be established. The objectives of the training should be well chalked out and should ensure the following: Ensure that sales associates are sound in their knowledge of the basics. They must be trained in areas of specialty and for special industries and customers. This will ensure that every customer is dealt in the way he should be. Every sales personal must complete and master the basic training first. Once that is complete, they should be asked to go up to the specifics of selling real estate. Remove any inhibitions of the sales people when it comes to meeting people. They should be open to making contact with strangers. It is important for the business in the long run. Thus, sales training should ensure that the personnel are taught how to contact strangers. Ensure that sales associates are independent. The focus should be to instill confidence in them and make them more efficient. Conduct role plays of certain selling situations to strengthen on their basics during the training situations. Any poor producers should be terminated. It must be assumed before the start of the training that the sales people known nothing. Teach them as if they are complete lay men. Keep refreshing them with what was trained to them before. It is important as it is not easy to remember everything. Hence it should not be assumed that the sales associates remember everything forever. There is also the problem of incorrect reporting of calls as observed in the CRM section of the paper. Even this problem needs to be resolved. In order to resolve this program, the CRM should be made a little more technologically advanced at BCI. The CRM should be able to track the number of calls made by each staff and even record them. Their claims can then be verified against what the system itself reported. Once the sales rep will know that there is a system monitoring and validating their claims, this practice of incorrect report will automatically subside. Conclusion: The paper is a sales proposal for BCI Australia. BCI started of during the nineties. They have progressed rapidly since then. BCI Australia is profitable and has demonstrated its ability to sustain rapid rates of growth. Group turnover grew about 30% annualy in the last 2 financial years. The paper talks about the core issues facing the BCI Australia and recommends ways in which to address them. The main issues outlined in the paper are: To improve internal staff performances. Motivate staff outbound calls to customers. Implement an effective training system that will continually improve their performance. Communication between staff and clients. The paper recommends ways in which sales team can be developed effectively and be able to generate greater revenues. One of the biggest recommendations suggested by the paper is the setup of a call center for follow up sales staff support. The core purpose of the call center would to be better able to serve customers, to retain them and to sustain healthy relationships with them. Paper also suggest ways in which training can be further improvised and how the negative consequences of role perceptions be minimized. There are only positive implications of the suggest strategies and they will only lead to strength the organization and its sales staff as a whole. References: L, B. (1985). Strategy and Environment: A conceptual study. Porter. (1990). Competitive Strategy. NY: NY Press. Simpson. (2002). Business Studies. London: Cambridge University Press. Read More