Ken Bannister, Contributing Editor

Such announcements are commonplace in today's business press, leaving little doubt that the sales and marketing department are still revered as corporate heroes when a large sales order is closed. Getting that order to the customer, however, as ordered, on time and with first-time quality requires the effort of many unsung heroes within the plant.

From the post-war 1950s to the 1980s, North American corporate philosophy surrounding the sales process often was "close the sale and we'll worry about design, quality and delivery later." Since many sales were closed in a wine-anddine forum, and in a somewhat indiscriminate consumer culture of the time that tended to be accepting of poor design, quality and delivery, countless corporations were successful in spite of themselves.

That all changed when the Japanese singlehandedly raised the bar, having been attributed largely with the responsibility for raising consumer awareness and expectations surrounding quality and service throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This state of affairs finally forced the North American industrial giants into compete mode by the 1990s. New heightened consumer awareness resulted in an intelligent customer who was unafraid to demand quality products at reasonable prices, delivered on time. Competing in this new world order forced many corporations to rethink their sales strategies.

A renewed sales approach
To be considered a viable contender in today's marketplace, a corporation must attain quality assurance certification. Many customers demand ISO 9000 or TS 16949 certification (quality assurance through audited documentation and procedural control to a defined international standard) as a contract bidding prerequisite.

With ISO/QS 9000 certification, the customer is assured that a qualified maintenance program is in effect and also that manufacturing equipment is being

Building on this newly established integration, the modern-day sales approach utilizes a corporate team effort to put together a winning sales proposal. This sales process calls for the salesperson to listen and document the customer's requirements exactly, so that these requirements can then be reviewed by a multi-faceted manufacturing and sales team comprising members of the finance, engineering, production, purchasing and maintenance departments. Because many sales contracts contain penalty clauses for poor quality and poor delivery, the sales team must...(Read whole article)