NOVEMBER 2017CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM18FROM SALES AS AN ART TOWARDS SALES AS A SCIENCE ­ HOW SALESFORCE.COM ENABLED PHILIPS TO STRENGTHEN COMMERCIAL CAPABILITIESLAZAR DETCHEV, VP - HEAD OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION NORTH AMERICA, PHILIPSne of the enablers to execute on our compelling vision and strategy is to unlock the entrepreneurship of our commercial organizations by equipping them with the right capabilities allowing them to drive sustainable impact. Coming from different ways of working across the geographies and businesses, scattered and different tools and limited management attention, we aimed to bring one way of working, a single source of truth for our business and fact based decision making. We wanted to focus on each sales professional by providing him with the right tools that are easy to use and experience, with coaching and guidance on how to become better and more efficient, ready for tomorrow. To do this, in 2014 we set-up a global transformational program, Market to Order Excellence with the bold ambition to:· Increase fact-based decision making· Create a single source of truth for all information related to our Commercial Performance and Accounts· Implement one standard way of working and reporting on our commercial performance · Foster best practice sharing between all global entities · Drive Continuous ImprovementI had the privilege to run and deploy the program, and in 18 months we harmonized the processes and implemented Salesforce.com across 100 countries and trained 15,000 sales professionals globally on how to use it to manage their funnel of opportunities effectively. Today, three years later we clearly see the benefits of laying down this solid foundation resulting in increased visibility and transparency in our business allowing us to make fact-based decisions and collaborate better with our customers. Doing such a transformation in a global scale and in a short period of time is quite a challenge and we learned a lot about how to execute a sustainable change that delivers business value. For those of you that are embarking on similar journeys, I would like to share some of our learnings.1. Do not focus only on the toolMany organizations focus primarily on implementing CRM as a tool and wonder afterwards why it does not yield the expected long-term results. Leveraging a great technical platform like Salesforce.com which is intuitive, easy to use, accessible OLazar DetchevcXoinsights
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