With
the increase in organization complexity and runaway expectations in
market growth, a re-organization of the field force can deliver
significant results in a short time. Is there ever a right time for such
a re-org and why should one do it at all? While there are several
reasons mandating such a decision, let us examine a scenario where
historical performance can assist in fine tuning the go-to-market model.
Say, your organization expects
you to grow your business by an enormous percentage over the last year.
By sheer dint of hard work aided by some charismatic leadership and a
fair bit of luck, there could a possibility of landing a great year.
However, a bit of additional homework can also help. Ask yourself a few
questions:
a) What were the numbers of transactions executed in the last year?
b) How many of those could be considered outliers – both at the top and at the bottom.
c) What would be an average deal size without considering the outliers?
d) What was the average volume of deals executed by each sales rep?
e) How many sales reps have met their quota over the last 3 years? Is there a room for a growth in quota?
f) Was the number of transactions per rep influenced in any way
by the limitations of process complexity? If yes, could a simplification
result in a positive change?
g) What has been the trailing 3-years y-o-y growth in deal size, deal
volumes and Outlier size and volumes? Is there a predictable pattern
that could be used as a sustained learning?
Armed with the above perspective, draw up a reasonable estimate of
how much the sales team is currently equipped to deliver and temper this
with your judgmental estimate of macro economic growth factors.
Do you still see a gap to budget? If yes, pick up the
cudgel now because here is where a re-organization can help you. Expand
headcount, Realign priorities or focus, Create a newer SWAT team, Go
after newer markets, Regroup teams, Attack process times on lead to
order booking, Hire mavericks capable of challenging conventional wisdom
etc and anything else you infer it will take to bridge the gap. Narrow
down your efforts to counter the immediate challenge posed by the
incremental terrain and then re-group the other parts of the
organization around that. And all the while, resist the temptation to
just rotate executives around.
Make no mistake, for a reorganization to work; it needs to be much
more than a vanilla job rotation – moving around executives does have a
near-term impact but longer term benefits can also be secured with
carefully analyzed historical information.
Using Historical Performance to Aid a Reorganization
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