Lean Industrial Crm Takes Hold
By Larry Caretsky
Elimination of waste is the hallmark of an effective lean initiative. The single greatest area of waste that remains in the manufacturing operation is in Sales and Marketing. For this reason there is a strong increase in Industry specific CRM technology anticipated over the next eighteen months.
According to Larry Caretsky, President of Commence Corporation (www.commence.com/mfg./) "Countless experts and industrial executives have discussed the reasons for the recent changes in industrial sales - increased price pressure, global competition, and reverse auctions, to name a few. Some blame the Internet and its wealth of information; others blame cheap labor and the associated exodus to China and other countries. Instead of focusing on blame, the smartest industrial distributors and manufacturers view the current climate as a business challenge and focus on how to remedy the problem. And the solution is clear to leading industrial distributors and manufacturers, industrial consultants, and sales trainers: get a sales process."
Industrial distributors and manufacturers are not strangers to processes, reengineering, and systems. Plants and warehouses could not operate profitably without them. Manufacturers would not let accounting and purchasing departments improvise. Caretsky insists, "The more important and complex the task, the more likely that the effective principles and processes for successfully completing that task have been defined and codified. Yet, few have systematized their sales departments. Eighty-eight percent of distributor respondents
