1. Optimized sales can lift revenues and profits by more than 10 percent
2. Significant levers: Adapting products to customer needs, aligning sales resources to target customers, innovative sales concepts and differentiated competencies
3. Chemicals industry: Digital sales channels and online marketing not yet relevant – personal customer contact is key

Munich, November 3, 2014

Ever more companies in the B2B business consider excellent sales and good marketing to be extremely important in achieving organic growth. Companies whose corporate culture focuses consistently on customers and results and who employ innovative sales approaches can raise their profitability and enhance their competitiveness. Those are the key findings of the Roland Berger Strategy Consultants study, "Commercial excellence: Perfect compound of intuition and facts". The analysis is based on a global survey of companies in all of the principal markets in the specialty chemicals, food, aviation, IT, telecommunications and mechanical engineering industries.

The Roland Berger study found that optimized marketing and sales processes harbor additional revenue and profit potential: 40 percent of respondents firmly believe that they will be able to increase their sales revenues by more than 7 percent. A further 30 percent even expect profits to rise by over 5 percent. The sentiment is even more optimistic in some sectors like the chemicals industry.

"European and American firms see optimized marketing and sales as a significant competitive factor in the fiercely contested market," explains Carolin Griese-Michels, Roland Berger expert for sales excellence in the chemicals industry. She goes on to say, "It's only through greater customer centricity, more efficient processes and innovative approaches toward product differentiation that companies can avoid falling prey to the dangerous downward price spiral that comes with commoditization. Once products and services become interchangeable to customers, price is the only thing that counts."

Customer centricity is key to success

In their efforts to develop the optimal Sales organization for their business needs, the best companies apply three main levers: adapting their product and service offerings to their customers' new needs, managing their sales resources specifically by target group and product portfolio, and purposefully building expertise and leadership qualities in the Sales team. All of this helps because firms that know their customers well and that align their sales activities consistently toward customer segments are in a position to stand out from the competition. It's their knowledge of what their customers want that better enables them to command a price premium and thereby protect their products from becoming commodities.

Online marketing and sales, on the other hand, are rated by survey respondents as much less important. "If you're selling complex products with specific utility, such as those in the specialty chemicals industry, you need to be very much in touch with your customers and have a thorough knowledge of their needs," says Carolin Griese-Michels. "Anonymous sales relationships through online channels are no help in warding off product commoditization. The survey found that what really adds value for customers is being personally advised by someone who treats them as an equal and has an in-depth understanding of their needs."

Innovative key account management is called for

Respondents are all in agreement that the main sales channels in the BtoB business are key account managers, traveling sales reps and people in technical sales, these individuals representing the personal point of contact with the customer. So technical skills and expertise in the selling discipline are all the more important as a factor in making companies stand out from the crowd. More than half of study participants base their key account management on the more traditional sales tools like framework agreements and wining & dining customers to increase their loyalty. But what the study also shows is that chemicals companies, in particular, tend to prefer innovative, collaborative sales models, such as partnerships in R&D or in marketing. American firms are often more innovative than Europeans in this respect.

Though the study participants consider innovative key account management, value-based marketing and customer-specific pricing to be significant sales levers, many firms remain hesitant to implement such measures. "Companies that consistently apply these levers are doing more than just exploiting new revenue and profit potential – they are also protecting their products against commoditization and growing pressure on margins," says Carolin Griese-Michels in summary.