Implementing changes in the sales department. Part 2/12. Premises for managerial decisions.

When making managerial decisions, it should be noted that sales teams usually have large but unstructured market knowledge. Additionally, individual employees present a different attitude (openness) to proposed changes. Therefore, you should take the following approach related to the personnel functions in the sales department:

  • First, catalog the tasks performed by employees,
  • Then diagnose the intensity of these tasks and distribution to individual team members,
  • Perform a full mapping of the customer service process to be able to identify step by step its positive elements building a stream of value for the customer, and those points that for the final recipient did not constitute any added value,
  • Present and discuss with the whole team the conclusions of this analysis and ask for an opinion on the proposed directions of change,
  • Start implementing changes and monitor implementation progress,
  • Engage directly in processes.

In this process, the manager should assume the position of an active participant in changes, involving all interested employees in order to obtain the widest possible perspective and dynamics of reorganization.

In the context of the process of implementing changes, the manager should be guided by his own concept, which will be based on a checklist that allows analyzing the organization in terms of the value stream for clients. This may be due to the following premises:

  • The team has not previously dealt with modern management systems,
  • Employees are apprehensive, mainly afraid of job losses,
  • The pay scale is below market standards,
  • Recruitment of new team members is time consuming and requires significant expenditure (team verification will be unavoidable anyway),
  • It is necessary to motivate employees to learn new things and perform more demanding tasks.

It should be remembered that a manager cannot suddenly or drastically make a slowdown or even stop the sales and customer service processes. Therefore, the manager should adopt the concept of implementing changes based on intense motivation factors that will lead to increased involvement in work and building employee openness to new challenges. The basis for all decisions made will be team cooperation as a basic element of work culture in the entire sales department and the company.