2012
Work Experience
Report
Waleed Waseem
Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................3
Introduction ................................................................................................................4
Projects .......................................................................................................................4
A. Uniworld Sales Process – USP v1.0 ..................................................................4
The Pyramid Strategy ..........................................................................................6
Method for USP v1.0 – The Local Sales Process ................................................8
Method for USP v1.0 – The Global Sales Process ............................................11
USP v1.0 Implementation in Shanghai Office ..................................................11
B.CRM Software Management ............................................................................12
Analysis ....................................................................................................................13
Uniworld Sales Process v1.0 ................................................................................13
CRM Evaluation ...................................................................................................14
My Skills Record Sheet ...........................................................................................16
Executive Summary
This report provides a detailed account of my internship at Uniworld Logistics as
Marketing Trainee. It gives the intuition behind the Uniworld Sales Process and the
Customer Relationship Management Tool.
The Uniworld Sales Process helped to set a culture of planning in the sales team
and it created transparency between management and the team. It helped both the
sales team and management to measure and improve upon the success that they
have experienced so far and find the root cause of any failures as well. The sales
process helped achieve three main objectives:
1.
Management by Objective
2.
Accountability
3.
Measure and Improve
However an excel based process can only go so far in integrating a worldwide
network, thus I also conducted evaluations of different CRM solutions to fit the
company’s needs. It was found however, that due to the complicated nature of the
business operations, an off-the-shelf solution would not be suitable. Thus the
existing in-house solution has to be edited in the following way:
Improving the process to create a smooth flow
Improving design and usability to improve adaptation
Avoid using jargon to help integrate newcomers
Introduction
Working as a Marketing Trainee at Uniworld Logistics (Hong Kong) I was part of
the Marketing and Communications Department and worked on the Uniworld
Sales Process and planning and evaluation of the Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) Tool.
Projects
A. Uniworld Sales Process – USP v1.0
Uniworld offices are currently run as standalone silos with very little integration
and communication. A large growing firm such as Uniworld needs a systematic
approach to manage efficiently and effectively all the activities happening in the
business. The global market is ever changing thus it is necessary that we be able to
track and trace every part of our business on every level.
There are a number of advantages to having a well thought out sales process
namely:
 S.M.A.R.T Goals & Objectives : ( Specific, Measurable , Achievable,
Responsible and Time Specific )
 An Integrated Strategic Approach at every level of business which helps
Uniworld in forecasting and budgeting
 Higher Success Rate in winning business and improved customer
relationships
 Reward and Improve the sales community in order to achieve motivation
and career growth
For Uniworld specifically, a formal sales process can only further assist the
excellent sales team that is in place and assist management in properly identifying
key areas of success.
From these above reasons came about the Uniworld Sales Process (USP v1.0). It is
a formal sales process based on our Global Business Development Strategy called
“The Pyramid Strategy”.
The Pyramid Strategy
Uniworld is currently made up of 3 levels, Country, Regional and Global. On the
country level, we have Trade Lane Accounts. These accounts are the largest in
quantity. On a regional level we have Key Accounts and on the global level we
have Global Accounts. The Pyramid strategy is to integrate all these accounts on
not just the global level but also a regional and country level. As a global entity,
integration is a key factor.
Objective of USP v1.0
USP v1.0 was created with the intuition of not being a disciplinary tool, rather a
motivating one. For any sales process to succeed, adaptation and implementation is
the most important thing, and this cannot occur if the process is disciplinary in its
nature. Thus it is important for the sales process to be simple, easy to record, easy
to understand and easy to implement.
There are 3 objectives of this sales process:
• Management by Objective
• Accountability
• Measure and Improve
These 3 objectives are what drive the sales process and what should be the main
drivers of success of any management no matter what the industry.
 Management by Objective (MBO)
"Objectives are statements of specific outcomes that are to be
achieved" A sales team should not be doing tasks just for the sake of
doing it. The sales process will have set targets and goals that are set
before the month so that throughout the month, the sales team has an
objective that they can refer back to. This is accomplished through the
pipeline. It is used to set goals and objectives.
 Accountability
Through
MBO
comes
accountability.
Accountability
sets
responsibility to people thus increasing motivation in people to
complete certain tasks. Without accountability, a manager can never
measure a sales team’s performance and a sales team cannot question
their customers about previously made agreements. In USP v1.0,
accountability is set in tandem with management and the sales team
so that both have a say in what the responsibility should be.
Accountability is set with the Pipeline and the Weekly Sales Plan
Report (WSPR).
 Measure and Improve
The final objective but maybe the most important one. After MBO
and Accountability, measuring and improvement automatically comes
about. When you have set objectives and targets which then have to
be met, management can analyze where the problem was if they were
not met and what we did best if the goals were accomplished.
Constant improvement is an important facet of all organizations but
especially global ones as the global market changes on an even faster
pace than the local market. This is achieved with the help of the
Dashboard and Scorecard.
The Uniworld Sales Process will not be just an excel sheet to input data into. The
USP v1.0 is designed so that all the above objectives are clear. When met, the sales
process of the company will become smoother and more efficient, allowing for
better control for both the sales team and the management.
Based on “The Pyramid Strategy” the Sales Process on the country level is called
the “Local Sales Process (LSP)” and the process for the regional (Key Accounts)
and global (Global Accounts) called the “The Global Sales Process”.
Method for USP v1.0 – The Local Sales Process
The Uniworld Sales Process is based on a set of rules:
1. Target
Management by Objective
2. Prospect
3. Quotation
Accountability
4. Negotiation
5. Close
6. Measure
Reward & Improve
7. Improve
The goal of the sales process is to measure and monitor every step in the process.
Starting with: Target
o To set targets, we built up a pipeline. This will be the budgeting
section of the process. The sales people sit down at the end of the
month to set their budgets for the next month. The sales team is
required to set budgets for potential volume, potential revenue and
potential gross profit. While these are the basic measures, we also
measure other categories such as growth opportunity with a customer,
new leads created and the sales phase the customer is in. This is the
most important part of the budget as it helps to increase accountability
as well as improvement for the next month.
 Prospect
o The sales process records prospecting through two parts called
Weekly Sales Plan Report (WSPR) and Weekly Sales Call Report
(WSCR). The weekly sales plan is set on Friday for the next week
while the sales call report is filled in when a sales call is made. The
account manager has to fill in what type of sales calls will they be
doing in the coming weeks and what outcome they expect from it.
From that comes the Sales Call Report in which they record the actual
sales call and what the result was.
 Negotiation
o When a sales person states on his pipeline that a number of his
customers are in the negotiation stage, management knows which
customers it can focus that have the highest possibility of closing.
 Close
o Once a deal is closed, the details of all the contracts completed by a
sales team member are recorded into the Monthly Sales Report (MSR)
which is pulled out from the UGS by the system administrator. From
this report all the activity can be measured into quantifiable terms
such as Gross Profit, Volume and Revenue.
 Measure
o This section is the second most important section of the process. In
the sheet “Dashboard” figures are constantly updated as numbers are
entered into the weekly and monthly reports. These numbers reflect
the performance of the sales person in a particular month. The sales
“Dashboard” measures throughout the month the performance of the
sales team and it can provide them with a measure of progress.
 Improve
o Improvement is the most important step of this process, and if
improving was not the goal then all this process would mean nothing.
To help the company improve on our strengths and correct any
weaknesses that may exist, the “Scorecard” is created. It is a scorecard
of the performance of the sales team. It scores people based on an
internal perspective and a financial perspective. Internally it scores
sales on no. of sales calls, no. of new leads they generate, and the state
of their pipeline. From the financial side, it measures Volume, No. of
jobs and the Gross Profit. The Dashboard can help a manager and a
sales person analyze whether all the internal effort is actually leading
to tangible results on the financial side.
Method for USP v1.0 – The Global Sales Process
The global sales process is also based on its own set of steps:
 Mapping
 Qualification
 Strategy
 Pre-RFQ
 RFQ
 Post RFQ
 Implementation
USP v1.0 Implementation in Shanghai Office
Part of the implementation process included going to the Shanghai office and
helping the sales team to understand and implement the process. This started with a
discussion with the sales team to better understand the current process in place and
how USP v1.0 can be integrated into it. After understanding the existing process, I
presented our process and how we could seamlessly integrate the two. After the
introduction, I conducted a workshop to take the sales team step by step through
the process to help them understand on how to manage it on a daily basis.
B.CRM Software Management
Part of my duties were to evaluate and implement a suitable CRM software that
could replace the excel based sales process and move the process into the cloud.
This is very important for Uniworld as it handles a large amount of business over a
large number of countries and a software solution can handle this data efficiently.
To research and evaluate the sales process included:
- Evaluating in-house CRM solution
- Evaluate third-party cloud based solutions
- Write a comparison report
- Administer and implement the chosen CRM solution
Managing a CRM program was by far the most educational experience. Managing
demos, dates and deadlines was all part of the process. I learnt very important steps
in project management such as proposing budgets, comparing and evaluating
multiple software solutions and presentations.
I evaluated three different CRM solutions from SalesForce, Microsoft CRM
Dynamics and ZOHO CRM. Evaluation involved using demo accounts and
inputting sample data to see how each software handled data and what type of
reports it could produce. After the evaluation process, I developed a report i with
my recommendation to the top management for them to help make their decision.
Analysis
Uniworld Sales Process v1.0
I believe very highly in this process because I truly believe that it can reduce the
workload of the sales team and increase success. The sales process encourages and
rewards planning, which can help everybody involved to identify and measure
points of success as well as points of failure. While running in the Hong Kong
office, USP v1.0 created a culture of planning and proper implementation among
the sales team. It helped us to better measure the performance of the sales people
on an individual and team basis. This helped management to build an incentive
system that could reward the sales people on meeting their budgets.
As stated earlier, this helped achieve three main objectives:
-Management by Objective
- Accountability
- Measure and Improve
Most of the sales team would work separately and provide performance figures to
the sales coordinator at the end of the month. There was no cohesion or teamwork
happening between the two. There was a culture of hope based management in the
company. People would just hope that certain things would happen without much
idea on how to make them happen. With the sales process in place, budgets are set
in a team meeting together, while progress is continuously monitored by the sales
people to see whether they are reaching their budgets. The sales process is not time
consuming so adaptability has not been an issue.
The Shanghai office had very similar problems. They did not have much structure
and the sales team would work independently. The team had a hard time
communicating with management because they had no tangible reports. Creating
reports manually and properly formatting them to make them understandable was
very time consuming and required some skill. USP v1.0 provided them with the
advantage of automatic reporting which was easy to comprehend.
From proper pipeline management and sales process evaluation, the management
in Shanghai was able to do root cause analysis as well as find out opportunities for
growth.
CRM Evaluation
Customer Relationship Management tools have evolved a lot over time. From
being installed in excel sheets, to being loaded locally on computers to now all
being stored in the cloud; this is a constantly evolving market. Choosing the right
CRM tool is extremely important for a company of Uniworld’s size as a good
CRM tool can help double or even triple growth while an unsuitable CRM tool
would do just the opposite. This is why the planning and evaluation process is the
most important when picking a CRM tool.
As a freight forwarding company, Uniworld has a lot of requirements that are not
common in the service market. This is why purchasing an off-the-shelf software
would not work. After evaluating different software, I found that the best solution
for the company is to use the in-house CRM solution that was custom built to fit
our requirements.
The CRM tool, if properly implemented and adopted, can improve closing on sales
leads, increase efficiency of response to RFQs and improve transparency between
sales team and management. All these can be achieved by the in-house CRM
solution.
My Skills Record Sheet
Company: Uniworld Logistics
Date:
Position Title and Description: Marketing Trainee. Worked for the Marketing and
Communication department to create Sales Process, Marketing Material and CRM
implementation
Skills/knowledge
Relating to experience
acquired
1. Planning, organizing Creating and delivering
and time management
marketing materials to the
sales team on time require
me to plan well ahead and
organize my tasks to get
the job done on time.
2. S-A-A-S (software as a I was required to use and
service)
evaluate different S-A-AS software to create an
evaluation report.
3. Commercial Awareness By communicating with
the head office in India,
and visiting the Shanghai
office, I learned a lot
about how the offices in
different regions work
and
the
way
the
organization as a whole
operates.
4.
Creativity
and While creating the sales
Initiative/Numeracy and process (USP v1.0), a lot
IT literacy
of creativity was required
as there was not much
existing material to build
on. The process attached
displays that.
5. Communication Skills I was required to create
presentations to explain
the sales process to line
Supplementary Evidence
Evaluation
Attached
Report
Sales Process
Presentation to Upper
Management
Training Presentation to
6. Teamwork
managers as well as top Sales Team
management.
Working in tandem with
the sales team and
management
was an
invaluable experience as I
got to learn how to work
in teams of people that are
completely different from
each
other.
While
working
with
management, I had to
think about long term
goals however the sales
team plans on a day-today basis.
Index
Sales Presentation
Sales Kit
Trade Lane Specific Collaterals
Sales Proces
Crm Evaluation Document