Six Sigma has been applied to almost all domains and has yielded results as well...

Can you think of ways in which data driven decisions can impact Sales...?

Can Six Sigma help you in orchestrating the right product for the right target audience...?

Put on your thinking caps and come up with ideas that can help the Sales force in meeting their targets!

Common perception that people have about Sales is that it just involves selling the product / service to the customers. Whereas, sales has a lot more to it.

Regardless of whether a business uses a direct or indirect sales strategy, or a combination of the two, sales managers need to work with sales people on techniques. New customer acquisition and customer retention require two approaches. A sales strategy lays out the steps and methods necessary for customers in different stages. Potential customers need communication that introduces the brand and product or service in ways that show how it can solve his or her problems. Current customers require more personal communication about new features or benefits to keep them engaged. Promotions and referral discounts work to motivate current customers to spend their money and to spread the word to others.

Right customer can be targeted in the right manner with the right offerings if the data is properly worked with and Six Sigma focuses on data driven decision making.

Six Sigma talks about process improvement , and sales is always driven by number of processes. We can divide this interpretation in form of DMAIC approach as below :

 

Define: What does sales expect to gain?

 

Measure: Loyalty(Gathering data in a way that allows the team to draw conclusions and act on them is critical. Conducting short interviews with buyers and prospects is a good way to understand their critical-to-quality attributes (CTQs) relative to the buying process.)

 

Analyze: What Do Customers Value?

 

1. Identify key themes.

2. Cross reference interview findings with sales performance data

3. Drill down to the root cause

 

Improve: How should the company sell differently?

 

Control: Measuring to sustain improvements

I agree to your points. Lean Six Sigma is not just about process improvement. It is also about process design. Designing a sales process for a new offering is an important challenge that companies face very often. This is area offers an immense opportunity for DMADV kind LSS projects. In recent times, I have worked with two well established organizations in digital marketing who found absolutely new opportunities while utilizing Lean Six Sigma.