Setting up a result-oriented strategic sales force management as well as an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) is a central milestone for a company’s success in the medical technology market in many ways. On the one hand, solid and well-maintained customer relations with hospitals, large doctor’s offices and laboratories guarantee sales in the long-term and on the other hand, important KPIs are identified, pursued and adapted according to the sales channels. Application areas are a sales channel mix and channels, target group and customer segmentation, customer demand research as well as incentive and CRM systems.
In the case of a non-transparent and barely coordinated sales strategy, customer segmentation and KPI definition, Homburg & Partner’s STAR approach (Strategy – Segmentation – Targeting – Approach & Argumentation – Results) ensures an intact and target-oriented sales management. The maintenance of key accounts by the sales force will become efficient in the long-term and the approach has been proven to facilitate the achievement of economic performance targets that are well-founded internally. To do so, we implement five steps which are agreed upon with you both strategically as well as situationally:
A clearly defined strategy is crucial for a medical tech company to be able to boast a successful sales structure, since in the process of sales optimization it is necessary to constantly and consistently orient oneself towards this strategy and its sales targets. For precisely this reason, the STAR approach helps you to identify basic and success-oriented milestones for your market development.
In practice, critical information asymmetries will arise frequently regarding defining target groups and addressing customer needs. Thus it is absolutely essential to describe customer types and to classify them according to quantities such as test volume per time unit or number of laboratory devices and to identify relevant target groups including their medical technology requirements for your products and services.
In a further step, the STAR approach identifies the logical and most efficient sales channels based on which your sales force will aim at the target groups. Sales teams are then structured efficiently internally and are divided content-wise and geographically according to the customer needs in terms of visit frequency and technical know-how.
The concrete sales approach is then entirely oriented on the term “value selling” – the direct connection between your sales offer and your customers’ benefit. In the process, the argumentation is derived from which the concrete sales channel mix is determined, whereby we will find the optimal combination for you from the various sales channels such as field sales, telephone or online sales or classic channels such as wholesale or direct sales.
Finally, our STAR approach is not limited to defining realistic sales targets, but it also identifies and establishes the KPIs relevant for the sales area. To this end, we develop a control mechanism that you can easily operate in order to keep an eye on targets and to be able to transparently establish and implement a fair and performance-oriented incentive system.
Homburg & Partner can look back on many years of experience in employing the STAR approach to fundamentally renew a messy sales force management and an insufficiently organized sales channel planning, determining and implementing them efficiently in the long-term in the interest of your company’s success.
Do you have questions or would you like to discuss the topic? Then feel free to contact our experts Dr. Michael Scholl, Karl-Hubertus Gruber and Dr. Michael Marquardt.
