Friday, August 16, 2019

Basic Pillars Of Sales And Operations Planning

By Anthony Rogers


Successful businesses have mastered the best sales strategies. These strategies are developed as part of your overall market penetration plans. Sales and operations planning helps you to establish the approach you will give the market, resources to be provided and returns expected. Though each business is unique, there are underlying principles that will guide all your endeavors.

Planning receives the attention it deserves once you understand the benefits it brings to your business. This is the secret to better profit margins using the least resources. You have an idea of activities taking place at the business, resource implications and expected returns. Good plans also lead to reduced inventory excess since you have an idea of market positions and situation. The chances of stock-outs are also reduced. This allows you to meet customer expectations.

Develop plans that involve gradual growth. Start small, including resource allocation. This is the trend for all organizations. You only invest where there are returns. This helps you avoid wastage of resources on envisaged future activities yet you are not sure that they will bear fruits.

Invest in the right people and the equipment or tools they require. Understand the activities and people at the center of the business. Know what the persons or systems require and provide it. If these people are not facilitated, they cannot deliver the expected volumes for your business.

Integrate technology into your operations. This is meant to ease communication, make it faster and enable you to reach more people. It also reduces drag time for people in the field and those working in offices. Clients and agents should find it easy to talk to your team. Use technology to monitor performance of different channels and also make decisions based on actual business position instead of assumptions.

The plans made must be unique to your operation environment and goods you are selling. Consider the needs of your customers and what they would consider as satisfying. Plans made should be in line with changes in demand and supply through the week, month or year. Revenue should be allocated to cater for high and low seasons through your operation year.

Take advantage of cloud technology. It allows remote access to files so that your operations are faster. Agents in the field do not have to travel to the office to access files. Different agents can access the same file simultaneously. You also have an inexhaustible storage for your documents. Decision making and collaboration will be easier using cloud technology.

The plans must receive acceptance and support at executive level. These are the decision makers who will approve resources. They must allow persons on the ground to make the decisions as well as access resources they require to deliver on their mandate. Nothing much can happen when the executive does not support your activities.

Monitor the effectiveness of the plans you make. Some will work while others fail to deliver desired effects. You end up allocating resources to channels that are not profitable at all. Monitoring reports help you to only allocate resources where there are returns to avoid hemorrhaging your investment.




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