November, 20218When sharing the experience with others, you still find companies not having their salesforce fully digitized ­ for miscellaneous reasons. Today, selling is beyond acquisition and is more selling business, less products and solutions only. Looking at life, especially in the automotive supply chain, the majority of business is within MNC environment and multi-year contracting with prices & conditions firmly locked in. Nevertheless, huge pressure comes in when customers confront non-contractual new price discount requests - often alongside the remark that products offered are fully overpriced, and the business should have not been agreed to before. This could be observed frequently across the globe. It feels familiar at a point, hearing the same thing - too expensive, prices down. That's like the starting point of all.Industry 4.0 and Customer ManagementSo how do digitalization and new manufacturing principles like industry 4.0 now into play for the salesforce? --well, data leave traces, and who can, will use them. Here we go--increased industrialization and moving towards 'Industry 4.0' is providing a chance of setting new ground rules, as there is breathtaking transparency in looking at 'true bottom prices.' Taking a full `Industry 4.0' setup into mind, direct labor doesn't play a role--most costs are depending on fixed cost elements amortized on volumes sold--quite transparent. Once the overall equipment efficiency (OEE) is known, the possible maximum 24/7 output defines together with the overall CAPEX the total business case clearly. This enables to identify true bottom prices for most industrialized mass production products--which then can be used in digitized systems to support the salesforce.Discount Mechanisms Frequent discount requests will always happen in the automotive industry, and there is nothing wrong with it when connected with good business made mutually. Nevertheless, and not seldom, they are unreasonable coming as a kind of shot out of the dark--questionable in some cases when the request is against contracted conditions, and the deal was made, not less connected with lower volume consumption against the initial scope too. Anyway, to be taken as a request and valid to ask for. The most effective line of defense for the salesforce is information "on hand" about customer's late payments, long payment terms, single-sided deductions, awards not given, or even accounts receivable overdue. Unreasonable discount requests can be more successfully questioned by highlighting inefficiencies to deal with--at the same time, relevant data must be on hand.Dirk SchneiderBY DIRK SCHNEIDER, VP SALES APAC, ELRINGKLINGERBIG DATA HANDLING IN SALES ­ NO WAY AROUND DIGITALIZATIONIN MY V EWIN MY V EW
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