A major telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny trans­formed its sales oper­a­tions and reduced prod­uct launch times by 43%

Key results

About the client 

This pro­gramme was with one of the lead­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies in South-East Asia. 

The chal­lenge

The com­pa­ny want­ed to assess oppor­tu­ni­ties in its ‘Go to Mar­ket’ (GTM) sales process to reduce the num­ber of days tak­en for prod­uct launch­es. It want­ed to improve the prepara­to­ry work by its sales department. 

After study­ing the exist­ing GTM sales process­es and its Man­age­ment Con­trol Sys­tem (MCS), and engag­ing key stake­hold­ers to under­stand avail­able oppor­tu­ni­ties, we dis­cov­ered that the fol­low­ing need­ed to be done: 

• Train all rel­e­vant per­son­nel — inter­nal staff and deal­ers —before launch date. 
• Mon­i­tor all GTM sales-related activ­i­ties to ensure time­ly com­pli­ance and esca­late any delays. 

• Pro­vide out­lets prod­ucts and devices, and Point of Sale Mate­ri­als (POSM) on or before launch date. 
• Estab­lish for­mal Ser­vice Lev­el Agree­ments (SLAs) with inter­nal and exter­nal parties. 
• Remove redun­dant steps in the process, which cause unnec­es­sary delays. 
• Cre­ate a rou­tine forum for all depart­ments relat­ed to GTM sales to meet and update their indi­vid­ual sta­tus and issues.

What we did

First, we estab­lished a base­line for the num­ber of days tak­en for three main prod­uct launch types, based on his­tor­i­cal records and infor­mal SLAs: 

• Major launch­es: 135 work­ing days 
• Mod­er­ate launch­es: 55 work­ing days
• Minor launch­es: No prop­er records

Then, we designed, installed and suc­cess­ful­ly implemented: 

Man­age­ment con­trol sys­tems 

We test­ed, installed and imple­ment­ed the new­ly agreed MCS nation­wide with trans­par­ent plan­ning and report­ing across all regions to allow for tar­get­ed mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties to improve vis­i­bil­i­ty. This included: 

• Estab­lished tar­get SLAs, that trig­gered time­ly plan­ning events, such as advanced train­ing and POSM mate­r­i­al preparation. 
• Stan­dard­ised plan­ning and report­ing tools to assist sales plan­ners in their dai­ly activ­i­ties. They were instruct­ed to mon­i­tor, record and esca­late any delays for each type of launch. 
• For­malised meet­ings with key stake­hold­ers in GTM sales. 
• A dash­board for man­age­ment inter­ven­tion, when required. 

Sales process map­ping 

We improved the over­all GTM sales process by map­ping and under­stand­ing the exist­ing oper­a­tions struc­ture and process­es. We then iden­ti­fied gaps and areas for improve­ment and designed and imple­ment­ed improve­ments, such as: 

• Elim­i­nat­ed redun­dant steps in GTM sales activities. 
• Mon­i­tored prod­uct deliv­er­ies and reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed sales planners.
• Con­duct­ed lessons learned ses­sions a week after every launch event to dri­ve con­tin­u­ous improvement.

Results

After the trans­for­ma­tion, depart­ments were able to work in uni­son to ensure that launch­es were car­ried out in a more struc­tured and method­i­cal man­ner to meet planned deadlines. 

The depart­ments achieved sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits relat­ed to GTM sales: 

• Reduced major launch prod­ucts (requir­ing SIM cards) times from 135 to 99 work­ing days. 
• Reduce mod­er­ate launch prod­ucts (with ven­dors) time from 55 days to 46 days. 
• Reduced mod­er­ate launch prod­ucts (with­out ven­dors) time from 55 days to 31 days.
• Achieved minor prod­uct launch­es in 6 work­ing days.