Increase Emerging Market Sales Force Availability for Customers

Business Issue:

From January to December the average salesperson spent 52% of their day on Non-Value Added (NVA) activities such as travel, meetings, and customer service issues. This figure represents a gap of 12% from a target of 40% resulting in a cost of poor quality of $625,000 from labor and travel reimbursement costs or $1,500,000 in missed revenue.

Process Problems

Solutions Implemented

• Revise scheduling procedures
• Redraw sales territories
• Implement territory management training

Results of Action

The focus of the project was to increase the productivity of the sales force with the goal of generating additional revenue. A reduction in time spent on NVA activities will increase the amount of time the sales force can spend generating sales. Annual revenue from sales are projected to increase by $980,000 as a result of the improvements of this project. Graph below shows an increase in average number of appointments scheduled per day.

Tools Used

• Sales staff survey
• Time management data collection
• Process maps
• Pareto Charts
• Cause & Effect Diagrams
• FMEA
• Hypothesis testing