As a CRM Platinum Consultant with over 17 year’s business experience focused on Trade Promotion Management (TPM) and Sales Force Automation (SFA) solutions for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Manufacturers, I always learn something new and interesting on each project.
For example, CPG Manufacturers of Appliances have different selling channels: Retail and Builder. Within the Builder Market, the life cycle of a lead varies based on construction phase and before an opportunity can begin. The construction location can be single family homes, multi-residential like condos, townhomes or apartments, even hotels and restaurants.There are also different levels of service that can be offered at time of delivery. It is critical for a Sales Manager to understand the market and the phase of the construction site to qualify and submit a bid at the right moment and network with distributors to ensure product and services are delivered.
Customer Challenges:
An Appliance Manufacturer seeking a solution to grow sales and profitable net income in Builders Market. They are faced with several challenges including:
- Lack of visibility to new builder market opportunities
- Lack of visibility to construction sites in the US
- Lack of visibility to contacts such as architects and general contractors
- Lack of quote system to prevent overselling and accurate pricing
- Lack of monitoring price by project at the bid level for legality reasons
- Lack of bid compliance
- Lack of analytics
Scenario:
SAP helped our Appliance Manufacturer manage and qualify Builder leads with our SAP CRM SFA solution. Within our SFA solution, SAP provides:
- Account and Contact Management
- Lead Management
- Opportunity Management
- Quote Management with integration to SAP ECC to support product, price and quantity
at time of sales and invoicing
In addition to the standard solution, our team developed a daily interface to a Third Party Vendor who works with local municipalities to capture submission of permits and maintain its current phase i.e. Pre-Plan, Planning, Design and Start. The interface also included the creation and update to a contact information including general contractors and architects.
This automation simplified the data entry process for the Sales Team allowing them to focus on the information in the lead and determine next course of action. Each lead is qualified based on phase and surveys.If a lead qualifies, the next course of action is to generate an opportunity. The opportunity leverages SAP CRM Sales Methodology approach. Within this cycle, quantity, product, price and type of delivery service are added to the opportunity to understand the cost and net profit of the project.
Once the opportunity cycle reaches a win, a final quote is generated to secure product, quantity, price and type of service. The quote quantity provides a threshold to protect the project and avoids the distributor from over buying.
Increased Leads = Increased Profitable Sales
SAP CRM SFA Solution after 2 years has provided my customer:
- Visibility to 8,000 – 9,000 new and updated leads per monthly; and over 100,000 leads per
year - Visibility to construction site details
- Proactive approach networking with distributors
- Doubled share in Builders Market from 6% to 13%
- Doubled profitable net income
- Access to over 30,000 architects and general contractors
- Controlled Pricing and Quantity secured by SAP Quote to prevent overselling
