- Siemens combines the real world with the digital world
in ways that empower our customers to make better decisions
and create sustainable industrial innovation.
Traditionally, our main focus has been on using field sales
to build customer relationships,
primarily with scope on large and mid-size corporations.
Meanwhile, the SME customer segment was partly covered
with field sellers focused on the upper end of SMEs.
A few years ago, we developed a growth strategy
based on scaling up our customer base
to better cover long tail and SMEs
that can benefit from our integrated hardware
and software solutions.
To proactively connect with these smaller firms
and efficiently serve this broad SME market,
we recognized a need
to augment our existing field sales operations
with new inside sales capabilities.
That meant we would have to hire and train the right people,
support them with the best technology and tools,
set up effective KPIs and incentives,
and get the broader organization on board.
For support getting all these success factors right,
we turned to BCG.
- Traditional field sales practices are often still based
on personal relationships and gut feelings,
and this can be a smart way to serve large accounts.
Inside sales, however, can be a more effective
and efficient channel for serving the SME market.
Inside sales lends itself to a data-driven approach
using automation and other digital tools
to support various systematic transactional activities
in ways that can increase conversion rates
and compress cycle times.
Inside sales also gives companies the ability
to reach customers using a low-touch
but high-frequency approach.
In our experience, a properly organized
and motivated inside sales team
using standardized tools and processes
can have more customer interactions
and greater productivity than field sales reps.
- The first two big issues we faced
were figuring out the inside sales processes
and selecting the initial countries
where the inside sales reps would focus their efforts.
BCG's expertise and knowledge of best practices
were very helpful as we worked closely together
to choose the target markets,
selected the inside sales hub location,
developed the end-to-end sales processes,
and defined the entire operating model
for the inside sales operation.
Based on all these steps, we figured out the customer base
and created a strong overarching business case.
Once we had the customer base
and the volume and productivity targets in place,
BCG helped us define the number
of inside sales reps we needed,
and supported us throughout the hiring
and recruiting process.
Together, we worked to define roles,
build compensation structures,
and find talent with inside sales experience,
an engineering background, and native speaking ability
to serve customers in our initial target countries.
- We helped Siemens HR conduct over 100 interviews
so that the initial cohort of inside sales reps
could be hired within three months
after posting the job openings.
We also defined an effective training and onboarding package
for this new role, which enabled the sellers
to quickly start conducting customer calls
and the inside sales hub to begin booking orders.
- Together with BCG, we co-created the inside sales function
using a cross-functional approach
that incorporated the views of all essential stakeholders,
including the countries, business units,
marketing, finance, human resources, and IT.
This collaborative development method
helped us achieve buy-in and alignment
across the organization.
It also enabled us to increase transparency
and provided useful guidance for making important decisions.
With our new inside sales capabilities,
we have managed to increase our coverage in the SME market.
The plan now is to scale the benefits
of this approach globally.
(bright upbeat music)