salesINSIGHT Benchmarks established in New Zealand

salesINSIGHT in partnership with David Forman, the leading sales training organisation in New Zealand, launched the inaugural Sales Insight™ survey in April 2007. The aim was to explore current issues in sales management and set a benchmark for performance across New Zealand.

Senior managers of over 200 organisations were invited to participate to score their company’s sales team against the rest of the country. The survey established New Zealand norms with just over 40 blue chip participating companies, including Fonterra Brands, Frucor, ABB, Energizer and Sanitarium.

Whilst each organisation received their own individual report, they were also able to benchmark to “best practice” across each of the 4 dimensions. Out of a total possible 100% score each, the following norms were established:

Customer Strategy & Innovation 55.4%
Talent Management 61.3%
Process Improvement 56.2%
Metrics & Rewards 56.5%

Best practice scores in each dimension hit the high 80’s, with the lowest scores being in the low teen’s showing a hugely diverse range of scores and practices, and no doubt, business results.

Survey commentary was also captured, and along with the overall scores a number of interesting trends were identified.

1. Planned customer growth remains difficult
While many organisations had some sort of CRM tracking system, sophisticated account management strategies were generally seen to be under-developed. It could be speculated that most NZ sales teams, being small, are under-resourced and therefore spend little time focused on long range planning.

2. Rising to the challenge of talent shortages
All reported difficulty finding quality salespeople but had begun to invest more readily in existing staff to increase skills, productivity and retention.

3. Opportunities for increased best practice transfer
Given the isolation of many sales managers in geographically dispersed areas of the country, and their inability to talk to competitors or connect with counterparts in other industries – there is a general interest in any channels that can bring them information on best practice – including this survey.

4. A wide range of remuneration systems in place
A surprising number of sales organisations do not have a commission plan in place. Team bonuses are on the increase, but top-performing organisations still see the merit of individual incentive schemes.

For more information call Ann Kenna on (614) 13 751 551 or Ron Latham on (614) 12 143 039.