What is the Sales Personnel’s Role in S&OP? First of all, the Sales Personnel is part of the Roles and Responsibilities of S&OP.
A multi-departmental cooperation is a necessary component of a successful S&OP planning process. Sales Personnel in S&OP are responsible for nurturing customer relationships and gathering critical market data. In other words, they can greatly enhance the accuracy of a detailed forecast.
Competing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Drive Conflicting Job Focus
The company evaluates Sales Personnel based on sales volume, customer service levels and profit margins. Sales Personnel usually focus all of their energy on activities that will increase sales. They frequently regard administrative tasks as being mundane and necessary but not something worthy of their time. They may often view operations planning as just another low priority administrative task.
Sales Personnel in S&OP is in charge of Mutual Appreciation to fuel Mutual Success
Operations Personnel need to be savvy regarding how they highlight the value they bring to Sales Personnel. They can achieve this objective by developing metrics that illustrate on time delivery. But also few to zero product quality based returns and high customer satisfaction. There’s many things to do in order to gain an appreciation for the steadfast work of Operations Personnel. For example, creating a routine format, like a monthly group meeting. Sharing these metrics will help Sales Personnel gain an appreciation for the steadfast work of Operations Personnel.
Silos Can Be Eliminated with Cross-Functional Collaboration
In addition to sharing routine performance metrics, highlighting joint successes between the Sales and Operations Departments will facilitate the elimination of organizational silos. Documenting “success stories” that showcase the benefits of multi-functional collaboration, is one way to do this. For example, publishing an article in the company newsletter on how, working collaboratively together, a new customer’s needs were reliably met despite possible roadblocks that could have arisen, is one method to instill mutual pride and a sense of teamwork among these different organizational departments.
To conclude, even most reticent members of the team can fully appreciate the role of Sales Personnel in the S&OP process.
Learn more about Roles and Responsibilities of S&OP:
Sales & Marketing Leader’s Role in S&OP
