All-for-one and one-for-all (page 1 of 3)

More often than not, this system creates channel conflicts among the different sales groups servicing the same customers from different touch-points - field sales, telesales and resellers. Instead of doing what is best for the organization and the customer, each group tries to protect its turf - and economic base - by hoarding rather than sharing leads, maintaining proprietary customer files and routing as much business as possible through its own channel.

While competition can be a strong personal spur, this traditional model may not be the most efficient way to sell, especially in highly competitive industries with complex products. The technology industry, for one, sparks fierce competition where mixed channel models help cover all bases with the customer. The smartest companies have realized that complex, multi-channel sales organizations require a high degree of coordination, cooperation and teamwork to be truly successful.

A prudent sales organization will motivate its sales representatives to exercise judgment when evaluating an opportunity and choose the most cost-effective sales channel, regardless of whose jurisdiction it falls under. Improved sales resource utilization - putting the right amount of resources behind an opportunity - results in higher win rates, shorter sales cycles, and lower sales costs.

A field sales representative typically costs more than a telesales representative. Yet companies shouldn't replace all their field sales representatives with telesales representatives, as organizations still need field salespeople out meeting with customers, providing them with high-touch, personalized care and attention.

But how does a company make it everyone's best interest to work as a team? At Oracle, we found the answer was to "hard-wire" the teamwork ethos into the entire sales cycle. This feat was accomplished by changing the technology, culture, and business processes. Let's examine each of these changes separately.

Our first challenge was technology integration. To function as a whole, the sales organization needs a collaborative IT infrastructure. The entire sales force needs to aggregate manage and share data across departmental functions (i.e., marketing, telemarketing, telesales, and field sales), business workflows (e.g., tracking marketing spend through sales revenue generation) and customer interactions (i.e., Web store, telephone, and in-person).

At Oracle, we migrated our entire business worldwide to the Internet and consolidated our global data in 1999. The next step was to re-engineer our business processes to support uniform global business practices and shared services.

For our worldwide sales organization, that entailed adopting a comprehensive e-business solution to integrate front and back office functions such as online marketing, a web store, telesales, incentive compensation, and order management. With this unified Oracle E-Business Suite, all of our sales groups worldwide now use the same forms, analytical tools, reporting procedures and forecasting methodologies.

The next step was to put the technology fully to work. In the pre-Internet days, our telesales division functioned primarily by selling over the phone, using a point solution to manage customer orders.

Starting in 1999, we reorganized our telephony-based call centers into interactive, multi-channel communications and coordination hubs, and recently re-named the division OracleDirect. This inside sales organization is responsible for telephone and Web sales, online product demonstrations and Internet seminars, as well as lead generation activities.

Having eliminated the technology barriers, we also had to re-engineer our business processes to enable the telesales and field sales organizations to work together more effectively.