Implementing ISOL’s first SFM:
The struggle of defining a success-model process from ground up
2022/2/18
Author: Thierry Walter
Table of Contents
Hi! My name is Thierry Walter and I have been working as a Sales Representative at Innovative Solutions since 2019.
In this article, I would like to share with you my experience in leading the implementation of ISOL’s first Sales Force Management (SFM) solution. The goal of this piece of writing is to give insights into my first implementation project, its current state, aspects I struggled with, and where I intend to take it henceforth.
About the author
First, a few short lines about myself. Originally from Luxembourg, I studied Applied Languages (English – Japanese) at Aix-Marseille University in France and came to Japan in 2016 as an intern at the Embassy of Luxembourg in Tokyo and an exchange student to Sophia University. Upon graduating, I became a Salesperson at a Japanese used car exporting company where I served African and European markets for 2 years. Thereafter, I joined ISOL.
From first contact with Sales Representative to project initiation
Now, to the project at hand. To keep the length of this article within reasonable boundaries, I will not cover in detail the definition of what a SFM solution is. From my understanding, a SFM solution records all the stages in a Sales process, and helps with analysis, planning, implementing and controlling Sales activities and building customer relationships within a single and connected database.
Why did we as ISOL decide to implement a SFM? In the latter part of 2019, we were contacted by a Sales Representative of a world-leading SFM solution provider after registering for one of their webinars. The agent proposed to show us how their solution could benefit our company on an internal (centralized management, knowledge accumulation, and productivity gains) and external level (nurturing hot leads and gathering customer feedback to drive change) . After a first remote meeting, we decided to subscribe to their solution. We agreed that their SFM fits our needs; to centralize our customer data, which had been fractionated into several formats and Excel sheets, countless entries, and was difficult to manage.
Moreover, the solution was thought to serve as a Sales training platform for me. The idea behind this was that I would define and learn about our company’s Sales process while integrating that process into the SFM and actively use it for my selling. That way I would be able to improve the way I act as a salesperson.
As I was to become the main user of the solution, I was put in charge of its implementation. We signed the contract for a 1-year-subscription to the basic cloud service, with fully-fledged customer support.
What were my thoughts on implementing a SFM? For me, it was to become the first time in my career using such a solution. At my previous job at a used-car exporting company, I did not have any IT solution at my disposal to manage customer data. I remember that I used to take notes on paper or ask my colleagues directly to get information on our customers. There was a part of me not knowing what to expect of a SFM, but I was looking forward to finally having all the relevant information regarding a customer or negotiation in one place.
Impressions at the beginning of the implementation
During the first months, I regularly communicated with the Sales Representative who also was assigned as customer support agent for ISOL. We received lectures and on-hands training to start using and customizing the SFM, which was a great starting point.
One of the challenges of a fully customizable solution is that while technically it is possible to do just about anything, you do need to have specific ideas of what you would like to achieve with it. In my case, I lacked Sales experience in the Japanese market at the time.
The agent would ask me questions along the lines of:
“How do you usually manage activity [A]? In activity [A], many companies struggle with problem [B], so I propose our SFMs’ solution [C]. Is that something that would benefit you?”
As I had never actively engaged in [A], I had never been confronted with problem [B], so judging whether solution [C] was appropriate for our company was difficult. Therefore, I tended to often (too easily) agree with the proposals the agent made. This led to a customization that I believe is to some extent a misfit to our company’s needs.
The more possibilities I learned about, the more difficult it felt to make the SFM fit. Starting to use the SFM was simple but implementing it to fit our needs became a more and more complex task over time.
Status of implementation after 1 year
At the time of this article being published, about one year has passed since we started using the solution, and recently the decision was made to extend the contract for one year. There are functions that we are taking advantage of, like our customer information databases and email communication functionalities. However, we are not at a stage where we can say that we take full advantage of the solution’s capabilities. We noticed that the official process of doing Sales for our company was not clearly defined, and we are following up on it now. Some data categories are being left unused, and other data categories that might be useful are missing. The solution boasts powerful reporting and graphical dashboard features that, if successfully unleashed, would leverage the quality of reporting at our internal Sales meetings.
I received many suggestions and feedback from colleagues and superiors on how to better put the solution to use, and I am grateful for their continuous support. I intend to follow through on them and make this an attractive solution for everyone in our company.
Lessons learned
I have learned that planning and communicating with the potential users of the solution is key to a successful implementation. In the beginning, I thought that I could make a plan on my own to meet the needs of all potential users. Instead, I missed the critical step of doing surveys among colleagues and asking basic questions like the following:
“Who wants to use the solution and what for?”
“How and in which order should we proceed?”
“How do individual use cases fit into the bigger picture?”
I have also learned that the person in charge of implementing a new solution plays a key role in encouraging potential users to use it. If he/she is not proactive about it, the employees who are supposed to use the solution will not be either. I believe that the person in charge of the implementation needs to become at least as enthusiastic about the solution as the Sales Representative who sold it. Otherwise, he/she will struggle “selling the solution” internally.
Next steps
Even though the above content might seem an unpromising start, I am optimistic for the future of this implementation project. Our customer database within the SFM serves as a solid basis to help me explore other functionalities in the near future.
In my opinion, the SFM solution implementation project needs above all active Salespeople who use the SFM daily. Starting this year, I intend to focus my efforts towards active Sales and I believe that I will be able to put the SFM to good use while doing so.
I hope to cooperate more with my colleagues, actively promote the tool to them and find out how we can get more value out of it. I am also lucky to have the support of my superiors who have agreed to assist me in making this implementation a success.
I will end this article here, but hopefully, there will be an opportunity in the future to make a second report on the status of this project. Thank you for reading until the end.