Author Archive for Donna Hedge Burns
Donna Hedge Burns is a public relations specialist for Cincom Systems, who specializes in ERP, product configuration and other smart selling technologies.
The Sales Challenges of Complex Manufacturers
Streamlining the quote-to-order process improves competitive advantage
Overcoming Hidden Agendas in the Complex Sale
Agendas grow out of motive and intent. So, when motives and intentions are not open and transparent to all involved, “hidden agendas” inevitably develop. These hidden agendas are often buried or disguised within the subtext or context of many situations. This tendency to camouflage motives is especially prevalent in too many complex sales cycles.
2010 Trends: Manufacturing
What’s on the horizon for the U.S. manufacturing industry in 2010? Jerry Miller, director of Cincom’s Manufacturing Business Solutions, sat down to offer his insights of the year ahead from the economy’s effects to what Twitter can do for manufacturing to going green.
Using Product Configuration for Sales Force Automation
When the Semiconductor Equipment Manufacturing Center at Air Products, introduced their GASGUARD product line back in 2000, the thousands of options and product combinations made selling it a herculean task.
Selling Smarter in Your Dealer Channel
When other people are selling your products for you, how do you help them sell smarter? How do you help them prefer to sell your products over others?
Alcatel Reduces Order Processing Times from Hours to Minutes
Alcatel, a full spectrum telecommunications provider operating in more than 130 countries, needed to provide its key customer Telstra with new equipment quickly and accurately. The implementation of an Integrated Selling and Product Configuration Solution has helped transform Telstra’s service requests into complete orders for needed parts in minutes instead of hours.
Opportunity for Advanced Analytics Exists for Electrical Equipment Manufacturers
The majority (86%) of electrical-equipment manufacturers rely on a combination of direct and indirect (distributors and dealers) sales channels. That’s 15% more than the composite benchmark. Yet, none of the survey participants rely on advanced analytics and lead escalation to ‘learn’ which channel partners can deliver the best sales performance by each type of lead. [...]
Information Confusion: Selling with Dealers in Specialty Vehicle Industry
Selling to-order vehicles would be easier if the engineers who designed them also sold them. But that’s simply not scalable if you want to achieve any type of global selling and service success.
So you are tasked with this challenge as a Director or VP of Channel Sales, Marketing Operations or Channel Management: How to get [...]
Complex Product Often Equals Complex Sale
Rule of thumb: If the product is complex to manufacture, then it’s probably complex to sell. Case in point: Fire engines.
Growing Complexity Forcing Front Office Focus
Companies have spent considerable time, money and resources implementing enterprise backbone (ERP) systems to improve the performance of their “back office” processes (finance, manufacturing, purchasing, etc.). Companies selling complex products and services must now move their focus to the “front office” (customer sales and service). The need for this shift is driven by several trends: