New Procurement: Critical Developments From Process To Practice: Fill & Download for Free

Many companies push hard for sales and revenue growth, but this is often a messy process. Why? When you have a small and very busy team, you aren’t taking the time to build a sales pipeline with a proper lead qualification & follow-up process.The same people that are running the business or targeting investors are left to follow up leads. When sales follow-ups are being done by the CEO, VP of Sales, VP of Marketing, or it’s done by committee, follow-ups can take days. Hot leads turn into cold ones quickly. Because everyone is moving so fast and juggling so much, feedback isn’t recorded so they can’t be optimized. Leads are dropped and not re-engaged.There just isn’t enough time in the day to get it all done. It results in a sloppy process, little documentation of qualification criteria, and a lot of waste. The amount of money spent on tactics to generate leads goes to waste when the leads aren’t qualified or converted. Sales suffer because there are lots of unqualified leads to sort through to find the gems.How can you improve their lead qualificationInstead of reacting, companies need to take a breath and be proactive. Create a simplified sales funnel to procure, qualify, and track prospects. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but there does need to be a formal process in place to be efficient. Here are the four steps companies should follow to better qualify leads:Document your processDocument feedbackMake someone the ownerOutsource anything you canDocument your processEach business may have different criteria for qualifying leads. At its core, however, leads need to demonstrate three things to be viable:They must have a need for your productThey must have the budget to buy your productThey must have the authority to purchaseIf a lead fails to meet one of these three criteria, they likely aren’t qualified prospects. It’s better to find out early in the process rather than invest the time and energy into a prospect that isn’t qualified to buy. Research shows that two-thirds of lost sales result from sales reps not properly qualifying leads.The specific way you get the answers to these questions isn’t as important as getting them. You should have a documented process to qualify leads before turning them over to sales.Document your feedbackFeedback is often overlooked when everybody’s trying to hustle the next sale. Yet, it’s a critical step to define what’s working and what’s not.Think about sports teams, for example. Coaches will analyze hours of tape to find specific things that led to success. They’ll break down processes so they can train on the right techniques. They’ll stop doing things that aren’t working. They will adjust their playbook each week depending on the team they’re targeting and what works best to meet their goal. They will use the feedback they get to refine their process to meet their goal: winning the next game.In sales and marketing, feedback is just as important. Getting feedback from your clients and your leads can help you refine your process and better qualify leads. It’s not always the best teams that win, it’s the ones that focus on the right things. Documenting your feedback can help you focus and spot trends – either good or bad.How Exceed documents lead intentExceed uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to analyze a lead’s intent based on their email conversation.This information is then rolled-up into Exceed’s conversation analytics to provide you with valuable feedback.Contact us to learn moreSet up a structured system that measures the quality of leads the same way no matter who is doing the work. Track where leads came from, what messaging they responded to, and whether they eventually closed. Tracking customers throughout the sales funnel can yield important data to help manage pipeline flow and marketing efforts.Make someone the ownerWhen things are done “when there’s time,” it’s easy for them to get pushed to the back of the queue. When they are done by committee, often nobody takes ownership. It’s crucial that one person becomes the point person for developing the sales funnel and managing the progress.Leaders can set goals, deadlines, and key milestones. However, someone has to own the process to get it accomplished.Outsource anything you canThe best systems will create efficiencies in your process. Consider outsourcing anything you can that doesn’t take knowledge of your business. Using SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) or software that can handle tasks automatically can save you time and money.For example, freelancers can be used for data entry, documentation, and researching prospects. AI-fueled software, such as Exceed, can be implemented to do follow-up and scheduling.Use AI to drive conversations and qualified leadsOrganizations incorporating AI into their marketing and sales process are finding a streamlined approach to grow their deal pipelines. Combining the efficiency of automation with the human-like intelligence of AI, Exceed works alongside your sales team, qualifying leads, and scheduling new opportunities for reps.AI-powered Email Assistants: Automate lead follow-up with 2-way SDR-like conversationsAI-powered Chatbots: Engage and qualify website visitors, answer questions, and schedule meetingsAI-powered Qualification: Ask qualifying questions through email and chat, then pass qualified leads on to sales repsAutomated Meeting Scheduler: Once qualified, Exceed can automate the scheduling process by syncing with your rep’s calendar.You can significantly improve the process of engaging and qualifying your inbound leads as you intelligently source opportunities through the sales funnel. If you are unable to schedule during AI conversations, Exceed’s automation can re-engage leads or scale outreach based on leads already in your CRM.Acquire > Qualify > Schedule or Re-EngageIt’s a cold hard truth: 90% of startups fail. Those are tough odds. The companies that survive have more than a good idea, product, or solution; they have systems to drive the revenue process. The core of any good sales organization is good lead qualification. This makes sure good leads are not being ignored and companies won’t waste time on unqualified leads.

Several software companies offer procurement modules, as well as standalone applications. From ERP packages like SAP, PeopleSoft, and Infor, to standalone procurement support systems enabling start to finish support of procurement events like Ariba, to cloud based systems providing Auction technology, literally dozens of companies offer procurement technology.Automating procurement transactions (POs) and redesigning the internal and vendor processes supporting them, along with workflow automation is a critical first step in achieving control over purchasing, vendors and spend management. Including spend analytics software enables visibility and control over utilization of contracts and transparency to rogue spend in the organization.Moving to automated RFx events keeps all interactions between vendors/bidders and companies in one place, providing a legal virtual paper trail in the event of a dispute by losing vendors in a competitive bid situation.Adding reverse auction technology enables a company to take advantage of highly competitive categories that don't require customization of products or services.Overlaying technology on top of bad processes will lead to failure. All procurement processes from category management, specification development through payment and vendor implementation need to be aligned with leading practices. Governance accountabilities, legal/contracting, supply chain and payment processes all need to integrate with the new procurement processes. Implementing Vendor relationship management programs is key to success.Finally, managing change internally will align employee behavior with the desired changes to achieve the significant efficiencies and savings to be gained by embarking on a procurement transformation journey.Transforming procurement takes time, commitment of resources, and active/ongoing executive management involvement to achieve. It is not as easy as installing a new version of MS office. It requires a good deal of organizational will.

The B-29 was a huge gamble. The program ultimately cost $3 billion dollars, versus $2 billion for the Manhattan Project that developed the nuclear bomb. Hap Arnold was understandably determined to do whatever was necessary to make the program succeed. His deputy, Lauris Norstad, later said that "Arnold's life was that B-29 ... he was into every damn detail of that B-29" (Wolk 2010). Corners were cut in development and procurement, included ordering 500 production aircraft at the same time as the prototype. These began coming off the assembly line in September 1943.One must question whether these aircraft were cost effective. Each aircraft was hideously expensive, at over half a million dollars, or five times as much as a Lancaster. Each required over thirteen tons of aluminum, half a ton of copper, 600,000 rivets, nine and a half miles (15 km) of wiring, and two miles (3 km) of tubing. In addition to the regular crew, each aircraft required 74 relief and ground crew. Great things were expected from the aircraft, but they were judged a failure in their original design role as conventional high-altitude daylight strategic bombers. They were more successful as low-altitude nighttime fire bombers, but only because Japanese air defenses were pitifully inadequate. (Losses to interceptors averaged just 0.24% of sorties.) Their employment as the world's first nuclear bombers, albeit in the Silverplate variation, has probably muted what would otherwise be justified criticism of the B-29 program. No other aircraft could have delivered the nuclear bombs to Japan. B-29 Superfortress, U.S. Heavy BomberNever before had so many new ideas been put together so rapidly in a single aircraft. The advances were startling and included the following: a huge new airframe that was a total departure from previous Boeing practice; new engines that had to go through a long and costly development process before they became even remotely reliable; new propellers that gave almost as much difficulty as the engines; a new pressurization system, larger than any previously attempted; a new high-lift, high-wing loading-wing design that promised range but at the cost of high landing speeds and tricky handling; a new and totally untried central fire control system; and many other less critical, but still untried, items.Further, the press of the war effort required that this amazing new airplane be built in a brand-new factory, staffed largely by untrained personnel, many of whom had never touched an airplane before.The aircraft was also intended to be deployed from remote fields in China and from tiny Pacific islands, where fuel, supplies, and maintenance would be difficult to assemble. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's pledge that the aircraft would go into action from Chinese bases by April 1944 placed an almost intolerable deadline on the program.Finally, all of the money, intellectual effort, and priorities invested to create a nuclear weapon in the Manhattan Project would have been utterly wasted had the Boeing B-29 Superfortress failed, for it was the only aircraft capable of carrying and delivering the atomic bomb. Boeing B-29 SuperfortressI have not found a cost breakdown of the B-29 project.Here’s where the Manhattan project money went in 1996 dollars: The Costs of the Manhattan ProjectIn 2012 dollars: The price of the Manhattan ProjectWalter J. Boyne, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, published these figures in his book: Clash of Wings: World War II in the Air. Clash of Wings: World War II in the Air: Walter Boyne: 9780671793708: Amazon.com: BooksB-29 Super-fortress: An Aircraft Ahead of its Time at the Right Time!B-29 design and production