Who leads: sales or production? Spoiler: neither of them
Salespeople sell what they know rather than what the clients need. They use personal connections rather than industrial or functional competencies to close the deals. Salespeople do not fully understand the products they are selling. On the other hand, production or service delivery cannot provide what the salespeople have promised. Technicians do not know how to talk to customers. The production/service delivery teams are siloed and hardly involved in sales.
Does this sound familiar? The more complex and technologically advanced the products and services you are selling, the more significant the gap between the two functions, especially in the B2B environment. However, there are some exceptions. Management consulting is one of those exceptions.
Consulting partners manage the implementation of the projects they sell. During execution, any false promises made in the sales process will become a headache for that same partner.
Most salespeople (often called partners) come from service delivery or "production." They started their careers as consultants who worked on projects. Compare this to other B2B industries, like high-tech, where sales and production career paths are clearly separated. Professionals rarely rotate between the two functions. This rigid separation makes it difficult for people to understand both parts.
HOW DO CONSULTING PARTNERS COMBINE THESE COMPETENCIES?
Service providers are involved in the sales process from early in their careers in the consulting profession. In other B2B industries, this is not common. For example, in the high-tech industry, asking a technical specialist to help with sales is often seen as underutilizing their competence. It can even be perceived as shameful for the techies involved in sales. This approach leads to salespeople over-promising. As a result, the technical specialists will struggle to implement what the sales team sold without sufficient technical expertise. Additionally, new "breakthrough solutions" are not sold as the solution is outside the comfort zone of the salespeople.
In consulting, although not ideal, there is a culture of interaction between experts. Most solutions are at the intersection of expertise, and a whole group of expert partners gets involved in the sale. This helps break down "siloes" and allows the team to offer a more complex solution. Team KPIs reinforce this behavior. Conversely, in many other B2B industries, KPIs are specific to each product category. This hinders the sale of complex, multi-product solutions.
Companies with established siloed organizational structures not only struggle to develop constructive interaction between salespeople and production but also have trouble providing for market needs. The product/solution portfolio is structured around technical competencies, while the client needs are cross-product/solution and industry-specific. To meet these needs, companies must assemble the solution across departments like a "patchwork quilt." This is very inefficient.
Companies should build their organizational structure and processes, not around products and channels but the clients. To do this, take a detailed look at a sample of your clients: how do they formulate their business needs? How can these needs be grouped and translated into our products and services map? Which organization structure could better help you provide the products and services your clients want?
This may not require a full-blown restructuring of the entire organization. Rather, adjusting functions and their relevant processes and KPIs can be sufficient. The task is to organize employees so that there are no administrative barriers to finding the most suitable solution for customers and the company. This issue is typically addressed in my transformation programs.
