TRIANGLE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
OF REALTOR® March 18th, Luncheon
Richard Spangler, Speaks on “Building Global Visions & Strategies”
Excellent article from The McKinsey Quarterly,
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Courageous companies can use the downturn to make their sales operations not only less expensive but also more effective.
MARCH 2009 • Anupam Agarwal, Eric Harmon, and Michael Viertler
In This Article
- Exhibit 1: Understanding the needs of customers and the economic value those needs represent requires an analysis of more than just gross margins.
- Sidebar: Managing sales force change in tough times
- Exhibit 2: An IT service provider encouraged its sales reps to use a standard operating model, including centralized support for preparing bids and conducting postmortems.
- Exhibit 3: Inefficient postsales processes diminish the quality of customer service and drive up costs.
There’s a reason companies fear experimenting with the sales force: it is the engine that drives revenue. No matter how patched up or spluttering that engine may be, the thought of overhauling it fills senior executives with dread. To keep sales flowing, companies will make piecemeal ongoing repairs as long as they can.
Yet extraordinary economic times force companies to take every opportunity to cut costs and arrest declining revenues and margins. Unfortunately, fear and the belief that it isn’t possible to be both fast and precise often result in two common mistakes: trimming only back-office staff and functions or instituting across-the-board cost cuts that include frontline sales reps. While both mistakes are understandable, they’re likely to yield disappointing results.
Reducing back-office sales staff and functions in the belief that this will hurt revenues less than reducing the number of frontline sales reps may have worked in the past, but greater complexity has made support functions essential to effectiveness. Also, not all sales efforts are equal, especially in a downturn. It’s crucial to determine where cuts will hurt customer perceptions and adversely affect their buying behavior; otherwise, important investments will be eliminated Full Report is a for fee report from The McKinsey Quarterly.
Hatch Asheville and the Media Arts Project present “Code Name : Open Source” a showcase of Asheville’s talented media and digital artists, along with our distinguished speaker, Teresa Spangler. This is an excellent opportunity to network and share ideas with business leaders and supporters of our regional Design and Technology Community. HATCH Asheville has brought in a special keynote speaker for the evening that starts at 8 PM. Spangler will give a short talk on “The Future of Open Source” from her past experience as a senior executive at Red Hat, Inc. and her work with Linux Operating System. And from her experiences as founder of Night of Dreams, a non-profit culture, corporate and community arts collaborative organization.
The evening will feature innovative local artists who have been awarded MAP’s Daniel DeLaVergne Media Arts Advantage Fund grant. The Daniel DeLaVergne MAAF grant is given to artists in order foster and promote innovative media arts and film in Western North Carolina. Half of the proceeds will go directly to funding grants for the 2009 cycle, for which the call for entries opens in late spring. The Daniel DeLaVergne Media Arts Advantage Fund is a joint initiative between Advantage West Economic Development Group and the MAP. The most recent winners include Llewellyn of Zenotopia, an animated film featuring puppet characters;
Gene Felice for a large-scale installation that employs audio, visual and interactive methods that will be powered by alternative sources such as solar panels and bicycle generators; and filmmaker Paul Schattel and his work, Alison All Over, a micro budget, professionally executed HD feature film.
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