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Product categories/business
lines requiring strategic
focus may potentially need a
separate sales force. Before
we decide, we also need to
consider stage of maturity and
scale of the businesses.
there, they keep on selling the mature category and
will not focus on a small category even though it is
strategic. If you have a small category and it is also
strategic we need to separate that category from a
sales prospective. Obviously, it’s an investment and
you do it only when the category is strategic.
In the example, customer value propositions are
very different and hence these two businesses need
different sales forces. Same sales forces cannot sell
very different value propositions. When the sales
force goes to market they are attuned to selling a
particular kind of customer value preposition and
very often they are not able to sell very different CVPs.
2. What happens when the customer value
propositions of different lines of businesses are
similar?
In this case, we need to look at how different
these two product categories are from the point of
view of strategic focus. Product categories/business
lines requiring strategic focus may potentially need
a separate sales force. Before we decide, we also
need to consider stage of maturity and scale of the
businesses. If the product is strategic yet small scale
and less mature from a market perspective, it requires
a separate sales force. Like a small sapling it needs
dedicated focus and attention before it stands on its
own. For example, one category is very big and the
other category is very small but strategic, then we
need to have a separate sales force.
The above points may be summarized in the
following decision tree:
In essence, we observe two key principles
a. We need to separate businesses with different
customer value propositions so that the respective
value propositions are sold and delivered effectively
b. Strategic business lines need dedicated sales
organization if they are small with respect to other
business lines of the organization. This focus is
needed to protect them and focus on their growth. P & M
We can understand the above easily if we keep in
mind that a sales force sells whatever they are able
to sell in the easiest way. If the mature category is
Vol. 10 Issue 1 • JANUARY 2019, Noida |
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