Our research shows that, if done well, investing to build a carefully chosen group of marketing and sales capabilities can yield a massive return—as much as five or ten times that of an investment in hard assets such as factory equipment. However, companies rarely calculate the ROI of building marketing and sales capabilities. Too often, leadership looks at marketing and sales as an expense rather than an investment in top-line growth.
It is possible to measure the ROI of building marketing and sales capabilities; in fact, it’s necessary to measure ROI to be effective. The best-performing companies focus on building capabilities that are directly linked to specific growth and margin opportunities by instilling ROI discipline. For example, a building-materials business found there was enormous value available (about two percentage points of margin) from improving capabilities in transactional pricing, sales, and local tactical marketing. Historically, the company had found it hard to fund the investment required to build those capabilities, given that it was a large expense without a return in the same year. But when executives calculated the internal rate of return of a serious and sustained performance-linked investment to build those capabilities (such as new account-planning tools, pricing software, value selling, sales-manager training, and targeted hiring), they found it was four times greater than building another manufacturing plant.
Knowing what needs to be fixed. It is virtually impossible to fix something if you don’t know what’s wrong with it. Yet while most businesses rigorously measure and track key performance indicators, few apply the same approach to capabilities—and if they do, they typically look at individual rather than true institutional capabilities such as tools, methodologies, core processes, and systems. Companies should not only know their marketing and sales capabilities but also how they compare against their best-performing peers.
Acquiring this knowledge requires undertaking a diagnostic that reveals capability strengths and weaknesses—and does so with sufficient granularity and analytical rigor to allow action to be taken. When a global chemical company benchmarked the specific capabilities of its marketing, sales, and pricing functions, it found that while one business unit was strong at delivering value, its strategic marketing capabilities needed improvement to drive growth. Just as important, the company rolled out a shorter version of the diagnostic on an annual basis to gauge ongoing performance and to spot emerging trends.To know more visit
http://allindiayellowpage.com/.