Chapter 7 Analysis of TFRs: A Static View
7.1 Frame evidence and analysis
7.1.4 The Users-Managers’ Technology Frames
Technology capabilities and functions. A senior-level User-Manager expressed a desire for mobile technology with touch screens
“Because we move fast and them having to sit down at a computer and put it in [is inefficient] … something like a touch screen [would] be great.” [160:168]
In summary, User-Managers spoke minimally regarding the nature of technology. User Managers understood sales reps desired technology that was easy to use, e.g. “touch screens,” see Table 7.4.
7.1.4.2 Technology Strategy
Projected value of technology. An expected problem solved in the new SFA technology was giving senior-level User-Managers access to sales rep performance data. Thus, a projected value of the technology was the sharing of operational data
“If POINT would allow me to view manager-level things and if I could see ... how many [completed sales] we have currently that would be really helpful.” [19:20]
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A senior manager projected the SFA technology would benefit VoiceTech with one integrated data source
“If they could go to one place and everybody went to one place [for the same data]. … It hits me on my BlackBerry and it hits everybody on their BlackBerry so wherever you are, what city and stuff like that, you know exactly what’s going on.” [29:2,3]
Another projected value espoused by managers was that giving the sales reps PDAs enabled SFA integration
“Obviously the [PDA] technology … would merge into the POINT system.” [19:40]
In summary, User-Managers perceived the value of the technology as enabling integration across the organization. User-Managers pointed to the “sharing of operational data” and “one integrated data source” as examples, see Table 7.4.
7.1.4.3 Technology in Use
Use of Technology. Technology was used by the sales force in various ways based on individual needs. The technology enabled sales reps to reserve a prospect’s account by associating the sales rep with the prospect. This reservation helped VoiceTech’s User-Managers deal with conflicts between different sales reps. Thus, technology was used to manage territories
“POINT is really our territory management [tool] because [it] enables reps to go into particular accounts and input data and in essence reserve the account saying I’m working with this customer. Here’s when I’m meeting with them.” [18:14] User-Managers used the technology for tracking sales
“If I have a rep that’s not writing deals or I’ve got a team that’s struggling, the first thing I look for is how many new opportunities have they opened in the current month to date.” [33:22]
“We have a month end report that basically tells us how many deals … the branch has on a daily basis … ” [29:10]
“I get an automatically generated report every morning from our automated system which is called POINT … It shows me the total amount of activity for each manager’s market.” [18:1]
Senior-level User-Managers spent a lot of time each day preparing and reviewing sales performance reports. Because the legacy SFA had many problems and did not give managers the information they needed in a timely manner, managers used alternative technologies, like spreadsheets and email, for manual sales reporting
“My business manager goes to all the sales managers in the office and gets an update for their sales that day. She updates the tracker that shows the forecast they made that morning for the day, the results to that forecast, and their weekly results of their weekly forecast.” [18:5]
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VoiceTech encouraged competitive behaviors between its sales teams and between different sales markets. In most cases, sales performance data was openly available to all sales employees. Thus, the technology allowed User-Managers to evaluate sales performance and compare markets
“An Excel spreadsheet is sent out on e-mail everyday … to every other [senior sales manager] in the company, the senior [executive] team in the company, and a few other people so everybody knows where everybody is at in sales at the end of every day. I can look and see where every market is and their number of sales. I can even see where every [sales] team is.” [18:6]
“The [market] report is done in deals primarily … and from there I get a 10,000 sq. ft. view of what’s going on in all the markets. The other report that is generated for me that I look off of is called the executive report which basically gives that information for all the branches.” [29:5]
Forecasting was another important management task. On a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, managers were required to make projections about sales of their teams. Thus, VoiceTech User-Managers understood technology was used in each office location to support forecasting
“The [forecast] report generates a forecast for the following week. So, you get the following week forecast and when that week ends you get a percentage of what you did to forecast for the week and so forth.” [29:7]
“[Forecasting] is based on the information we gathered on Friday … from the past week. On Monday, we gather all the information on that because things happen from Friday to Monday. … Then we have our plan for the rest of that week. So we take the information from the past week and kind of apply it to what’s going to go on this week and kind of let it dictate [the forecast].” [7:20] “The information is passed on to me in an accurate manner as to whether we’re meeting with qualified decision makers and then that’s narrowed down into a forecast.” [18:84]
Besides managing their sales reps, managers were also required to help their office in its sales rep recruiting efforts. VoiceTech did not have a formal system for managing the recruiting process so User- Managers used alternative technologies for manual recruitment tracking
“Recruiting is a huge part of our job. I use Outlook for scheduling. I don’t necessarily have any system to generate reports, so I have come up with a couple of my own. … It would be kind of neat if we had something consistent … but I am coming up with my own Excel spreadsheet to track it.” [19:1]
Some User-Managers used the technology to generate reports that supported training
“I actually use [the dashboard reporting] tool to train them on performance and numbers and activity so they can see it in black and white themselves and it has been very helpful.” [19:32]
Consequences from use of Technology. User-Managers could not access sales rep data. Managers could view team leaders’ data and team leaders could view sales rep data. As a result, User-Managers believed
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one of the most unfavorable consequences of the legacy SFA was limited managerial access to information
“I can only view the [sales team leaders] and that is one of the biggest hurdles for POINT as a [manager].” [19:9]
“Every person above can only view the person below. So [managers] can’t view what I can view as a senior manager. I can’t view what a [sales team leader] can view. I can just view really just teams, not individual reps.” [19:14]
“I used to sign in as a sales team leader every day. POINT isn’t really useful to me at all.” [19:18]
“If I ask the [sales team leader] for their user name and password and sign in as them I can then view it, but is that appropriate to ask them for their user name and password?” [19:72]
Many sales reps did not like the technology’s user interface. Others entered data only to see it disappear the next time it was accessed. Newer sales reps did not enter data at all. Thus, User-Managers believed another consequence of the legacy SFA was that data was unreliable
“It’s never accurate. … Not necessarily all of the information you need [is in POINT] … ” [19:28]
“Sometimes they don’t do [POINT updates] it for a week.” [7:173]
“Sometimes the system is messed up and they can’t get in it. They use that excuse or it didn’t work for two days. So, the information gets shoddy. Plus you can have duplicate appointments in there.” [7:6]
“A lot of conflict results as to the ownership of the account even when deals are closed.” [19:120]
Another consequence from using the legacy SFA was that instead of relying on a single, authoritative source for sales information, User-Managers created duplicate information in multiple systems
“I have each person sending me the same exact Excel spreadsheet with just their information and then I do a lot of cutting and pasting into the master tracker and send that out to the branch.” [19:27]
“Everybody has their own system and that’s just a way for each manager to track the individual deals sold for the month.” [19:2]
“We have several different places where we report that so it seems to be somewhat redundant all of the time where you are reporting numbers at the front board, numbers to [the senior manager] verbally and then the reports that she generates come from that.” [19:24]
User-Managers believed the VoiceTech sales model did not give sales reps the opportunity to update POINT consistently because the sales reps were in the field so long each day. The result was that sales information was not real time
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“If they had easy access to input POINT throughout the day, it would be good.” [19:7]
“There’s always time at sometime during the day or lunch break that you have some time, but you don’t have the technology or the instrument to be able to do that.” [19:16]
“They don’t do it immediately. So maybe by the end of the week they will update all of the information for the activity throughout the week … There are only so many computers and everybody shares them.” [19:31]
Because there was no forecasting system, User-Managers generated monthly forecasts as guesses based on the number of available employees and those employees’ past history. For this reason forecasting was ad-hoc
“We generate the monthly forecast at the beginning of the month, and that’s almost a pure guess based on headcount.” [33:24]
“I can take a slice of whatever I want, how they did last week on their appointments forecast, their deal forecast, their head count, at risk, how many people we’re potentially losing in the recent time frame, and then it goes on to make their forecast for the following week.” [18:9]
“I run a meeting everyday with my managers in which at the beginning of every week they forecast for the week and everyday of that week they forecast what they’re doing that day, all of which is making up their monthly forecast.” [18:28]
Senior managers believed information should be consolidated. Because of the ad-hoc nature of reporting at VoiceTech, User-Managers believed there were too many reports
“It seems like we have just a lot of reports. It would be nice if we could consolidate a little bit. Right now for what I need, things are working but consolidation would probably help.” [29:16]
User-Managers were required to track their sales teams in real time. However, VoiceTech did not have systems that provided information to managers in real-time. As a result, managers had manual systems for tracking sales. Included were telephone calls from sales reps and updating erasable white boards throughout the office. Also, managers used SFA information outputs and manually re-entered information into other systems, spreadsheets, and manual reports. The consequence of these inputs and outputs were media breaks
“The [senior manager sees] … all of the results and stuff on his board, too.” [7:16]
“I give [updates] to him and put them up on the board [and] change it on his board” [7:31]
“I have to change it. I got two more deals today. … I even have a big board and I have a little summary board that I use also.” [7:32]
“It would require more control for us to do that with POINT. … So it is more manual, a call, what did you get today? And it’s accurate data.” [18:7]
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“Actual handwritten daily activity reports, turning in business cards, things like that.” [18:21]
“I personally train my [sales team leaders] to have everybody put it into POINT, print out their individual appointment trackers and then the [sales team leader] scrub it for accuracy and then puts it into some sort of tracking themselves to see the numbers. So there is a lot of steps to do that.” [19:3]
“The administrator … collects information and puts it together into a spreadsheet for everybody. … Each [sales team leader] has to e-mail their numbers for the day and then she puts it into the spreadsheet.” [19:30]
User-Managers believed the legacy SFA to be less reliable than manually collected data. To collect more accurate data, they believed SFA unreliability required tighter sales rep management
“[POINT] is definitely not as reliable as manual data but it’s a lot easier to manipulate. So the challenge you have is to try to manage your people to give you true data, and I know it’s not totally accurate. I haven’t figured a better way to make it accurate other than to manage it better.” [18:20]
“We generally have to scrub information … and the [sales team leader] lets individual reps know there is a discrepancy in what was verbally reported and what we have in POINT.” [19:38]
In summary, User-Managers understood their SFA use as managing teams, reporting and tracking sales, and supporting forecasting requirements, e.g. “manage territories,” “tracking sales,” and “support forecasting.” In characterizing the consequences of using the technology, User-Managers expressed concerns about the lack of accurate and real-time information, e.g. “data was unreliable” and “information was not real-time,” see Table 7.4.
Table 7.4 Summary Evidence of The User-Managers’ Initial TFRs
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N a tu re o f T ec h n o lo g y Images of Technology • --Technology capabilities and functions
• Touch screens T ec h n o lo g y S tr a te g y
Rationale for technology acquisition and implementation
• --
Projected value of technology
• Sharing of operational data
• One integrated data source
• PDA enables SFA integration
T ec h n o lo g y i n U se Use of technology • Manage territories • Track sales
• Manual sales reporting
• Compare markets
• Support forecasting
• Manual recruitment tracking
• Support training
Consequences from use of technology
• Limited access to operational data • Data is unreliable
• Duplicate information in multiple systems
• Information not real time
• Ad-hoc forecasting
• Too many reports
• Media Breaks
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T ec h n o lo g y Im p le m en t a ti o nOrganizational implementation process
• --
Individual adoption incentives
• --