Should changing the sales model be left to sales?
Long-time followers of ICDP will recognise the image on this blog as one we have used in the past to represent the challenges of implementing change at the same time as having to run the business. It came to mind again now in a slightly different sense – that the passengers in the car are changing the tyres on their own car. Both interpretations are relevant to this week’s blog.
ICDP firmly believes that the automotive distribution model has to change. It was the motivation for the research programme being established over thirty years ago, and if anything, with changes in customer behaviour and the opportunities through digitalisation, the need is even greater now. Yet over those thirty years we have seen wave after wave of change initiatives that have barely left a ripple in the water years afterwards. No part of the distribution model has been ignored – dealer networks, sales processes, lean supply, online stores, inclusive service, personal account managers, subscription and many others too numerous to mention.
Most recently, we have seen a number of manufacturers launch agency models that include the transition from franchise agreements to agency for the dealers, but behind that are many changes in roles and responsibilities and extensive new IT systems. Most of these have had a troubled start, and a few have been abandoned or severely delayed. We have commented on the reasons behind this and offered some solutions in our Omni-channel Cookbook, available on the ICDP website
However, at the risk of upsetting a lot of people and employing stereotypes that you may find simplistic, I would like to take that a stage further. The Cookbook emphasises that you must approach such wide-ranging and fundamental changes with a properly planned and comprehensive change management approach which is likely to extend over two or three years, potentially longer. The programme will need a Programme Director or Manager, and the natural thing would be to pick a promising executive from within the Sales and Marketing organisation and appoint them to the role. That is the pattern we have seen with the current programmes, and we have seen some talented individuals who fit this model.
But perhaps there is an alternative? The stereotypical salesperson has a personality profile which is not well-suited to leading a change programme. Their focus is near term, they tend to act intuitively, are not great listeners and don’t like process. Now, to all my friends and followers who have spent their lives in sales, I apologise and know that this does not reflect your personality and behaviour – it’s all those other salespeople who have fuelled such stereotypes. But if such a person were to be given the task of leading a change programme, you can imagine that the timeframe would be compressed, consultation would be minimal and there would not be a great deal of respect paid to quality gates that need to be cleared before moving to ‘go live’. We’ve certainly seen a number of agency projects that would fit that profile. Were those characteristics influenced by the personality of those leading the programme?
If we look instead for a stereotype that fits the needs of a major change programme, we want an individual who is used to working in multi-year programmes that require the synchronised delivery of multiple elements from different parties. Inputs are taken from multiple sources to define the design, recognising opportunities to improve on what has gone before, learning from competitors, and testing options with end-users before the final design is locked in. The deliverable needs to be developed to the point that it can be handed over to the end-user with a high degree of confidence that it will perform faultlessly from the day of launch. To achieve that, multiple quality gates are defined which must be cleared in order for the project to move forward.
Can we find such people in a car company? Well, I think that sounds pretty much like a product development environment. A vehicle programme manager – particularly in the extended form seen in a Toyota ‘shusa’ who is also accountable for the business outcomes of the project – arguably has all the skills and experience to handle a change management programme. Clearly, not all product development programmes result in blockbuster hits, any the many recalls that we see in our workshops are a clear demonstration that not every potential bug has been removed from every product prior to launch.
My point however (despite my own education and early career as an engineer 😊) is not to say that all omni-channel implementations should be led by someone poached from R&D, but I am suggesting that the most important skillset is in managing large programmes rather than being the best sales or marketing person in the organisation. There may be someone in the sales and marketing function who has the necessary skills, but it is worth casting the net wider. And that might just mean that the right person to re-engineer sales processes may actually be an engineer rather than a salesperson.