What your company should be doing to promote revenue growth during the downturn – PwC
Troubled economic times amplify the challenges facing the revenue growth strategies, making the case for new markets and new products even harder to justify. However, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) believes that now could be the opportune time to address sales force inefficiencies and opportunities that might have been disregarded in the past.
In the annual Southern African Financial Services Journal, PwC reveals an internationally adopted Revenue Growth framework founded on an in-depth data driven analyses of a firm’s strategy, its customers, channels and the interrelationship between these parties.
Ernst Maritz, head of financial services advisory at PricewaterhouseCoopers SA says, “Managing customers and sales has never been more important than it is today. In uncertain market conditions, South African business leaders are focussed on growth, challenging their sales investment strategies and juggling tough decision making on market coverage, customer mix, product diversity and payment risks.”
Improving customer focussed activities is key to increasing growth as it reinforces confidence in meeting customer needs during the economic slump. In light of this, a more detailed understanding of customer value is essential in order to revitalise the sales strategy and implement relevant decision making.
In smaller markets, where companies compete aggressively for the same customers, organisations need to make drastic changes to truly make a difference.
3 differentiating attributes successful companies are concentrating on:
- Focus on organic growth opportunities: It is more expensive to acquire new customers. Increase revenues from existing customers through better channel management, retention, account penetration, cross selling and up selling.
- Take an “outside-in” view of your sales organisation. Pay attention and understand exactly what process your customers follow to purchase products and services and build clear, segmented value that can be implemented through your sales channels.
- Execute brilliantly! Earn the right to sell through superior customer experience. Place an emphasis on creating world class selling techniques and services. This will place your business in an opportune position to grow revenue.
Maritz concludes, “As the global downturn enters the recovery stage, the time has come to refocus the sales organisation on the activities that add the most value. Businesses should be careful and should prepare for growth without losing the ability to respond if the upturn takes longer than expected.”
The new frameworks that have been developed by PwC provide a vehicle for understanding the implications of change. The framework is particularly helpful in understanding the interrelationships across the different components of the sales organisation. This understanding is essential if business owners are focussed on increasing revenue over the long-term.
