Commercial Excellence in Kordsa
13 May 2016
Vahe Hanamirian
Commercial Excellence is trend! Because in today’s global and highly competitive business world companies require excellence in all aspects. Just like in a hundred meter run, champions are determined today by miliseconds and not by just seconds, as in the past. Today, if one wants to be among the best, one needs to strive for perfection. In the past several tens of years, this philosophy was very well known, but priority was given to operational excellence. In fact, most successful companies reached such high levels of operational excellence, that differences could hardly be noticed. Just like examining a photo-finish after a race. Only in the recent 5 to 10 years, have companies started to notice that improvements are necessary for their commercial approach too. B2B companies especially, were resistant to change. Their commercial view was by arguing that they just had a comparably smaller number of customers whom they managed by caring for them in a customized way. Kordsa was one of those companies, which had reached a high level of excellence in most operational fields. Being a leader and usually a pioneer, we looked to improve our commercial approach. A few years back, we had established a Market Development Unit within our Technology Department which was carrying out the ‘marketing’ of new products developed by the Technology Team. Although borders were set and marketing responsibility was not stretched to standard products, still some important sub-processes such as; Market Intelligence, Marketing Communications, Value Pricing were defined, owned and exercised frequently and quite successfully.
Within the second half of 2013, we started to discuss how to develop further. Soon it become clear, that an objective assessment was needed possibly under an experienced guidance to avoid a trial-and-error approach. Then we decided to work along side a consultant. From early December to late March a core team of us worked with a consulting company. An objective assessment was made and later recommendations were designed specifically for Kordsa. Management gave full support to the Commercial Excellence Project and implementations proposed to the Executive Team. These were put into effect almost immediately.
Today a Marketing Department is established parallel to the Sales Department. Marketing is reporting to the CEO and has subfunctions such as; Market Intelligence, Marketing Communications, Strategy and Pricing, Product and Service Innovations. Within Sales the responsibility of Segment and Channel Management is owned which plays an important role, as segments define generalized approaches.
Another project team will guide Marketing and Sales through the implementation phase. Of course improvements are endless, so fine tuning will be carried out continuously and more intensively within the next 1-2 years.
The objective is clear: Creating more value!
For our employees, customers and stakeholders.
Differentiating keyword will continue to be INNOVATION in Products, Services and Approaches.