Author Archive for Dan Simerlink
New Video from Microsoft: How Easy are You to Buy from?
In this short video, Jim Wilson shows short demos of the Cincom Acquire Sales and Product Configurator. This technology can be used to deliver expert systems for use in many industries and can empower your users with the expert knowledge that your company veterans have built up over the years.
How to Sabotage Your Sales Channels and Guided Selling Process (Part 2)
Information Idle Time (Wasted Time)
Because the customer fulfillment process is usually a manually driven, asynchronous process, there is almost always a queue in front of each process task. These queues can stretch the customer fulfillment process timeline as much as 600%. There are several process tasks where time delays from waiting are typical
Creating a Guided Selling Solution to Energize your Order Management Process
Have you ever noticed how the latter stages (back office) of the order management process usually receive the most attention from six-sigma projects, lean initiatives and other process improvement methodologies? The quote-to-order process (front office) is often overlooked and therefore contains the greatest potential for cost reduction and gains in efficiency.
Creating a Guided Selling Solution [...]
Overcoming Internal Barriers to a Guided Selling Solution, and Product Customization – Aligning IT, Sales & Engineering
Internal projects can be just like the tale of the blind men and the elephant (Slashdot, 2008) Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant. One blind man feels the leg and thinks the elephant is a tree, another feels the ear, and…you get the picture.
How to Sabotage Your Sales Channels and Guided Selling Process (Part 1)
Self Sabotage. To some extent we all sabotage the very goals that we want to accomplish. I vigorously work out at the Rec center a few times a week, but at times found myself buying & eating half a box of Fig Newtons and half a bag of Doritos as I’m driving home – notice [...]
Sales Channels, Profitability Ratios, and Guided Selling
Dan Simerlink, Cincom Systems
Indirect or Direct Sales Channels? Long discussions on the benefits of direct, indirect and mixed sales channels have often filled the Outlook calendars of many an executive. Indirect channels hold the promise of scalability and lower presales costs; direct sales channels have the benefits of focus, and control. A recent Cincom survey [...]
Product Configuration & Quotation Management – A Guide to Return on Equity
During tough economic times, a strong Return-on-Equity (ROE) will insure a firm’s efficiency at generating profits from every single dollar of shareholders’ equity. Based on a recent Cincom survey, the Best-in-Class companies had an average ROE of 19.32%, while the industry average companies had an average ROE of 5.58%.
Below are some practical ways that you [...]
The Carrot & the Stick: How do I get my employees to use the CRM System & Product Configurator?
We’ve all seen it before, our organization spent tens of thousands of dollars on a new CRM system, and the expectation is that this new system will benefit the business by cutting costs or making the employees’ tasks easier. After several months, only a handful of people are using the system, and many people are [...]