Is Your Sales Force Ready to Sell More?
I know you are thinking "what is he talking about? the sales force was not the problem, it was our low productivity, long delivery times, late deliveries, poor quality and high costs that caused our problems. Sales has done a bang up job covering us with our customers, they've worked really hard.. Lean has fixed all that." Well you are right but that was then and this is now. Your new Lean enterprise is undergoing significant transformation that won't end with production, and if you are good it will not end at all. All major departments must work together to fully take advantage of Lean, otherwise the next bottleneck you encounter could be a major issue.
You've Done It. Now What?
So, congratulations, you have success implementing Lean in your production operations and you are starting to reap the benefits. Well you now have a different opportunity to tackle. Theory- of- constraints as well as Lean teaches us there is always a bottleneck in a process and once you de-bottleneck at one place the bottleneck just moves! That's why it's called continuous improvement. There is always something to do better.
Strategic Vision Needed
It is important to keep sales leadership and other stakeholders apprised, and involved, in the gains being achieved in production. The easy way to do this is at the start of the journey. If the company started their Lean journey with a high level value stream map then it is more likely that this need was identified early, and the enterprise is working as a unit. The VSM is the manager's tool to ensure that the FLOW of the lean transformation is not disrupted, and all the necessary projects get developed in every department, not just production. This is not always the case, though, and I have seen more than one situation where increased production went unsold because the sales force and processes were not adapted and ready to take on more market share. In one particularly tough situation production layoffs resulted because sales did not rise even though the production team worked hard to increase productivity and reduce costs! Ironically at the same time the production people were laid off the sales force was being increased. Ouch. The overall improvement effort faltered, exacerbating an already dysfunctional "us vs. them" situation between sales and production. Morale took a serious hit and years later the lesson is still not learned.
By launching lean as an enterprise-wide effort you can immediately begin to challenge the status quo in all areas, not just production. It is up to management to look forward, and ensure the benefits of Lean flow through the whole organization.
Here a few resources that could get you thinking about how to lean-out your sales processes:
http://www.articlesbase.com/six-sigma-articles/creating-a-lean-sales-process-1708665.html
http://www.slideshare.net/haraldhenn/lean-management-in-sales-service-and-marketing
http://www.salesperformance.com/
