HELP! Integration Solutions Engineers VS Sales staff - Time Management 1

[cramathic]

Hello:

At my firm, we are at huge road block, which keeps burrying 2 engineers.

I am looking for procedure for sales staff with quotations and lead times on projects.

Our integration department consists of two engineers, mechanical and electro-mechanical. We have 50 or so members on the sales team.
We have no procedure in place for sale of custom solutions. A custom solution is sold like a standard off the shelf product.

Current Logic:
1. Sales person calls the integrated solutions group (ISG) for a ball park dollar for a project.
2. Sales person gives customer dollar amount and says a lead time of 4 weeks. (Some projects are 6 to 8 weeks).

Problem:
1. Projects take longer
2. Projects cost more
3. Customer scope creeps
4. ISG is burried 22 weeks of projects for 2 people to
5. Quotes are inaccurate (sales person engineers it)

I am looking for procedure to establish with sales staff.
Proposed Procedure:
1. Quote
2. Purchase order with 1/3 down
3. PO goes through review commity for approval
4. PO approved customer gets drawings to approval within 2weeks and delivery time.
5. Once customer approves drawings, the clock starts
6. Project ships to customer.

Any put on a procedure to sales staff and engineering, would be helpful.

 

[MikeHalloran]

It doesn't matter what you write in your procedure; the sales staff will ignore it. They respond to money, only.

What you need to do is structure the sales commissions so that they are maximized for projects that are delivered on time, within budget, profitable, and working to the customer's complete satisfaction.

E.g., their commissions are reduced:
100 pct if the project is unprofitable
10 pct per week late
10 pct per irate customer call after delivery
... or something like that.

So long as sales persons are doing the engineering, and screwing things up before you ever get involved, and/or their commission is based on gross sales, that river of shit you're in will never stop.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[KENAT]

Plus, even if you came up with a process, what makes you think management wouldn't decide to ignore it when it suits them? That happens here where we have a process that required Engineering's approval before specials are bid.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[ajack1]

Whilst I can see Mike’s point I am not sure taking all the commission from a sales guy is a positive move, what happens if it is not their fault it went over budget? My guess is they would leave PDQ and much as engineers don’t like it no sales = no company.

If this was my problem I would try and set up a way that the sales guy gets a better way of calculating time and cost, this will never be 100% accurate but you should be able to come up with something that flags up the difference between a 4 week project and a 8 week project fairly easily.

From there I would take one sales guy off the road a week, based on 50 guys one off every week and put them in with engineering to see the problems you have and why they occur. Sure you will lose one weeks sales from every guy but if things are as bad as you say I think you could make a strong case that it will save the company money long term.

From there it is just review and refine.

 

[IRstuff]

Seems to me one solution would be to make at least part the commission proportional to the gross profit eventually made on the project. Cornering the cat is one thing, but skinning the cat is what should really count.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Assuming that all parties involved see this as a problem - sit down and talk about it. If you are the only one - then we have another story to talk about.

If everyone can get their two cents in and "buy" into the process - you might have more success. Also, make sure that as a part of the process, you sit done every month or two months or whatever and review what is working, what is not and how to "tweak" it.

Communication is the answer here - I believe.

 

[tygerdawg]

I had a similar problem once upon a time. I developed a standard template for a project's tasks and resource assignments in MSProject. Then I made a Master project and used the template project file for each of the various projects, modified as necessary for that project's particular needs. When the template & master are properly designed & built, then the resource levelling function gives a reasonably accurate answer for "when". It took a couple of days to set the template & master, a few weeks to modify the team's behavior to work this way. The master got updated daily and the system worked fairly well.

My method was validated to some extent when a large systems integrator used to brag that they did everything by this method using Primavera software, including turning down work because they were max-ed out on resources and could not complete jobs by customer required date.

Now, if your sales team is totally out of control and rolling around the deck like loose cannons with their "throw it over the wall to Engineering" mentality, then nothing you do will correct the problem you have.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com