Sales and Marketing with Lean Thinking

Tom Alpers points out that in many companies Lean Transformation is only seen as a method in production, industry and manufacturing. But he is an advocate of the view that lean production can only work if other aspects of the company also internalize the lean idea, i.e., the lean concept. As an example, he cites marketing and sales, which need to be transformed just as much Lean as actual manufacturing. When lean fails in companies, Tom Alpers often attributes this to the fact that the transformation in the direction of lean has only taken place half-heartedly or partially - i.e. only in certain areas of the company.

Lean means that the focus in sales and marketing must be on the customer. Companies must generate or organize continuous demand while standardizing their work processes. In addition, continuous improvement must become part of everyday processes. You are certainly thinking now of improving process durations or reducing costs. Equally, however, continuous improvement must also take place in accounting, human resources and marketing. Alpers cites customer partnerships as a factor in determining whether a company is truly Lean. He even goes so far as to say that a company that does not have customer partnerships cannot create customer value to its fullest extent.

Sustainability of all processes and concepts is the mainstay of the Lean philosophy. Lean in sales means that it is not about making a one-time sale, but always about striving for a partnership. So you strive for a partnership relationship with all your customers, and that's what marketing is designed to do, of course. Mutual respect, honesty and the shared benefits of the partnership are paramount. Create a win-win situation in every contract. Imagine a customer wants to reduce IT costs and hires the company that does IT maintenance to help. A Lean contract could look like this: both companies work together to improve the processes (continuous improvement), so that in the end the waste of resources and material is reduced more and more. This then benefits both companies, because the cost reductions are felt on both sides. The IT provider in the example can partially pass on to the customer the cost reduction that results for him in maintenance. If the provider can reduce costs on the customer side, there is also an advantage for both.

This is Tom Alpers talking about Lean Sales and Lean Marketing. Companies that correctly assess customer value can quickly experience a new approach to the customer. Many sales people intuitively follow this guiding principle, simply because they have realized that retaining customers is possible by creating value for the customer in question. Prices must also be based on the value created for the customer, otherwise they will be perceived as too expensive. Customers are increasingly recognizing that they are willing to pay a price for added value created. What costs are incurred on the entrepreneurial side is basically irrelevant to the customer.