Sales Force Alignment

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Situation

• $800M high end computer manufacturer
• Market share eroded to the highest and most complicated computing needs, based on inroads of cheaper cluster computers
• Regional sales alignment model, instituted in the earlier days became less effective as sales personnel needed to interface with very different high-needs customer segments
• Regional sales tended to be concentrated in one or two of the company’s core markets at the expense of others

Actions Taken

• As part of an overall turnaround of the company, the sales force was realigned and re-incentivized to focus on customer segments not regions
• Top 10 segments where company value proposition was superior identified
• Instituted market managers and dedicated sales force within “Super Regions” for each of the chosen segments
• Value propositions, sales training, and sales materials all customized for high priority segments
• Sales force compensation harmonized across organization
• Individual lead generation activities and targets instituted by customer segment

Results

• Closed roughly 10 countries for sales who did not have any core customer segments
• Market managers attained singular accountability for sales support
• Sales force focused on high priority segments based on high current and high future applicability
• Sales slide (3 year trend) was halted and began to be reversed within 4 months
• Product development redesigned to be more customer pull versus technology push making products more relevant to targets
• Overall program resulted in $100M annual cost reduction (20% in sales/marketing) while increasing sales levels