Focusing on profitable innovation.
Avoid proliferation
- B to B sales teams are repeatedly asked by their customers to develop specific items.
- unnecessary complexity in the production chain
- and/or multiple stocks of non standard products.
If handled and channelled with insufficient care, such demands may induce uncontrolled item proliferation, resulting in:
It is any sales person’s natural, generally well-intended tendency to accept those demands.
It is a manager’s responsibility to keep such initiatives under control, with a view to avoid any negative impact on industrial performance.
Be firm yet flexible
- In most cases, satisfying the customers’ particular needs can be achieved while protecting the production and commercialisation processes’ fluidity.
- a list of standard products, shared by the entire sales organisation,
- a clear distinction between « standard » and « specific » item management procedures, from client request handling down to production scheduling,
- simple guidelines that help the sales team to reword / redirect specific enquiries (« be able to say no » while fulfilling the customers’ needs).
It is a matter of acting beforehand, organising and training :
