What is Sales
Process Engineering?
The Sales Automation
Association (SAA) has long supported the view that analysis of one's
entire sales process is an essential step in the journey to improving
results of an organization's marketing, sales and customer service
functions. Process analysis is conducted to suggest better ways
to serve specific business goals and should be well thought out prior to
selecting the software and hardware involved in any automation-related
effort. Since automation is not always the best solution for an
organization's problems, skipping such analysis can lead to costly
mistakes.
As a whole, the profession seems to know where sales process analysis
fits in, but what is sales process engineering? To answer that
question properly, we need to examine the three major terms involved.
Let's begin with a term most modern authors on the subject have agreed
upon already: "process." A process has been defined as an
activity that adds value to one or more inputs and produces an output to
an external or internal customer (see Harrington, 1991, p. 9 and Melan,
1993, p. 14). To achieve proper management and control of a process,
modern observers suggest that processes have clearly defined boundaries.
This rule is offered to make it easier to study and control a process.
Unbounded processes offer more opportunities for things to "fall through
the cracks." This begs us to define what is meant by "sales."
The dictionary defines sales as the exchange of title to goods or
services in exchange for valuable consideration. Unfortunately, close
examination of the classical definition of sales reveals a serious
shortcoming. The classical definition focuses too narrowly on a
transaction, a moment in time. A modern definition of sales must
expand the scope to look at sales as a process which leads to (causes)
an exchange of title to goods or services for consideration, and the
process which will most likely cause that transaction to occur again
in the future! To ensure that we look at the whole process involved,
sales is defined for our purposes as the set of antecedents,
behavior, and consequences involved with past, current, and future
discrete sales transactions.
The new definition offered only uses the word "sales" as a place holder,
if you will, because it sits in the "middle" of a chain of events
encompassing marketing, sales, and service. To study sales as a process,
we must include a chain of events such as (but not limited to) discovery
of potential customers and their needs, the arousal of needs, and
fulfillment of those needs, as well as critical ongoing acts
surrounding the maintenance of a customer-supplier relationship (such as
timely fulfillment and agreed upon product quality). We then see the
proper study of sales as a process that includes behavioral as
well as mechanical components.
The proper study of sales as a process may encourage us to break down
barriers between traditionally organized departments, such as marketing,
sales, service, accounting, and so on, that have not been uniformly
focused on organizing their individual processes so that the system
as a whole would tend to produce more sales in the most efficient
manner. Most of us have known for a long time that everything people did
in an organization, from marketing to sales, from production to billing,
and from shipping to service, had something to do with whether a
customer would buy from us again. Our expanded definition of sales gives
us permission to look at all variables causally related to sales,
wherever they may be found.
This leads us to the definition of the word "engineering." The
dictionary defines engineering as the systematic application of
scientific and mathematical principles to achieve practical ends. For
now, we will leave well enough alone and suggest that this definition is
quite serviceable.
So we arrive at a complete definition of sales process engineering.
Sales process engineering is the systematic application of scientific
and mathematical principles to achieve the practical goals of a sales
process.
Students of the topic will likely observe that most texts on quality
improvement, process improvement and engineering ignore or only lightly
cover areas related to sales, marketing, and customer service. Most such
texts are decidedly manufacturing and product oriented in their
discussions. This raises a natural question: why the focus on
manufacturing and production? Why has the modern study of sales lagged
so far behind?
There are many answers to this question, but they fall into at least two
rough categories. One set of answers suggests that there are
operational difficulties in studying the field of sales, marketing,
and service that have not loomed as large in manufacturing. The
behaviors and variables involved in sales are more difficult to observe
and measure, and therefore, difficult to study from a systematic point
of view. A second set of answers stems from motivational factors:
post-WWII recovery has been strong for many of the world's nations;
after recovery, even the most war-ravaged economies have grown
complacent. Why study a field unless one needs to? Today, both of these
answers are being swept away. Modern computers, modern techniques of
field observation, and modern approaches to sampling are quickly
lessening the operational barriers. Competition, the lack of job
security, and a growing impatience with sales process problems are
providing the incentive to overcome motivational barriers.
From a more fundamental point of view, this leaves an even more
important question, namely, can sales ever be an engineered process,
in principle? If not, we'd better give up before wasting too much
time on the subject! Some people voice the concern that "sales is not
like other disciplines," implying that "too much" study is indeed
futile. This question will remain even when matters pertaining to
technique and motivation are resolved.
Yet, saying that a sales process is not exactly like things we already
know a great deal about is a poor excuse for failing to study further.
This sort of answer would prevent progress in any field. People speaking
about sales in this fashion display the classic symptoms of someone who
"knows it all," by definition. Such people are really saying, "I know
so much about sales as a process that I have proven that it
cannot be approached systematically. The sales process defies the
laws of cause and effect."
To refute such a position is relatively easy. One cannot empirically
prove the negative; one can only say that such and so has not been
observed yet. Further, since all known natural phenomena obey
laws of cause and effect, stating that the sales process is somehow
exempt from such laws would be tantamount to saying that the sales
process falls into the realm of the paranormal or supernatural. While
there are portions of the sales process that may fall into this
category, we are confident that enough remains in the realm of the
normal to continue our studies. The heavy rock standing in the way of
progress has been moved often enough by the levers of knowledge and
engineering to give us confidence.
We are confident enough that the answer to this question is "yes" that
we will proceed while awaiting still more compelling quintessential
proofs. Assuming that sales can be a well designed, purposeful,
and controlled process in a manner similar to other processes allows us
to make use of Ockham's razor: we'll take the simpler explanation for
what causes events to happen in sales processes, namely, natural events.
We'll opt in favor of the overwhelming everyday evidence that suggests
sales may be viewed as a process.
Notice that engineering is not defined as a science, and that it is
practical in nature. We are therefore free to make use of existing
scientific information and the work found in long-standing engineering
disciplines. This should help us grow the body of knowledge related to
sales process engineering more quickly than otherwise. In time, we're
sure that sales process engineering will become a profession unto its
own. The economics involved with the promise of increased profitability
and corporate survival should spur the development of this nascent
discipline like gasoline feeds a fire.
However, we must emphasize that sales process engineering is not yet
a formally recognized, separate engineering discipline. Until formal
certification procedures become available from a recognized professional
association such as the SAA, it would be premature to anoint oneself
with a title such as "sales process engineer" or to use such a term in
an organizational name. Knowing the goals of the SAA's committees, part
of the SAA's purpose will be to develop the body of knowledge and
related certification procedures in the near future. As of late 1994,
professional ethics suggest that we not anoint ourselves as 'sales
process engineers' in the meantime.
Having said that, it is still possible to outline the field of sales
process engineering, since it is likely to share certain key
characteristics with other engineering disciplines. First, it is likely
to exhibit an empirical as well as a pragmatic approach to
problem solving, that is, it is likely to stress the systematic use of
data and controlled tests to verify assumptions and determine such
practical information as process operating limits. Second, it will be
supported by the skillful use of available mathematical and
scientific tools. Third, it is likely to use quantitative as well as
qualitative specifications to guide the development and
improvement of sales-related processes. Fourth, it is likely to be
conservative, especially in matters relating to safety and health.
This last point deserves special mention. Although engineers do not
always control the goals or the jobs they are given to serve, as a
whole, we feel the field of sales process engineering has much to offer
humanity. This is because through careful study it is likely to be shown
that many of the tangible problems in any given sales process stem from
the ability to decouple language from behavior and the world around
us. It is possible to say and write things that are not true. When
applied to a poem or a piece of fiction, we can have beauty. The world
we speak and write about poetically offers a vision of things that are
not yet present, or that may never be. In sales, this wonderful human
capability gets us into trouble when we do things such as promise what
we cannot deliver. Therefore, the conservative nature of sales
process engineering points to a new world of ethics made possible,
where all of us involved in sales -- customers and suppliers alike --
have a greater ability to treat our neighbor as we would like to
be treated. In turn, we also stand a better chance of being treated as
we would like to be treated. We would not be surprised if some of
the classic cases of sales misengineering have occurred simply
because the applications failed to serve this goal.
Agreeing on what a discipline is, and strongly suggesting its proper
boundaries and directions is not the same as defining the kinds of
tangible problems a true engineering discipline needs to work on. Does
sales process engineering offer us anything, other than a fancy-sounding
name? What genuine questions does it promise answers to?
At least 11 such questions immediately come to mind, with many more to
follow.
1) What are we really producing of value in each step of our sales
process?
2) How much time does it take to produce those outcomes?
3) What does it cost?
4) Are we prompting and rewarding the essential buying and selling
behaviors?
5) Is our process producing consistent results?
6) Are we meeting our customer's specifications and expectations?
7) Are there further ways to satisfy or delight the customer?
8) Is anyone doing this better than we?
9) How could we do it even better?
10) Can our people do what we're asking them to do?
11) Is it worthwhile to close any performance gaps?
In other disciplines, these questions have been answered using familiar
tools such as auditing, cycle time analysis, cost accounting, behavioral
engineering, statistical process control, quality engineering,
benchmarking, industrial engineering and financial analysis, among
others. In the past when people were confronted with questions such as
the 11 raised above regarding their sales process, much hand wringing
and wishing has occurred. Somehow, we've known that the answers have
been important all along, but we have not been able to get them in a
practical fashion. In this article, we are delighted to present this
brief vision and definition of sales process engineering. As we look at
what the field is likely to encompass, we predict that yes, practical
ways to answer those answers will indeed be forthcoming.
Those of us close to the field have known that such a discipline as
sales process engineering would have to emerge, sooner or later.
Knowing there is a place its theoreticians and practitioners can "come
home to" should provide the confidence needed to take both small and
large steps to support the profession as it emerges.
References
Harrington, H. James. Business Process Improvement. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1991.
Melan, Eugene. Process Management. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.
© 1994 Paul H. Selden All Rights Reserved. Please call for permission
to reprint or republish.
Originally published in the Sales Automation Association's quarterly
journal, "Sales Process Engineering & Automation Review," December 1994.
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