In the field of industrial automation project-based sales, there is a phenomenon that is often overlooked: the corporate sales team has been following up a large order for a long time, and the reason for the final failure is often not competitors, but internal problems.
According to relevant surveys, in project-based sales in the automation industry, more than 60% of lost orders originate from internal sources, such as the inability to undertake sales promised technology, difficulties in delivering technical solutions, and project progress out of sync.
China’s industrial automation system market is huge, ranging from 250 billion to 350 billion yuan, but the growth bottleneck for many companies is internal.
Take a 15 million production line automation transformation project of an industrial automation company as an example. The communication with the customer’s technical department was smooth in the early stage, and the plan met the needs.
However, during the bidding stage, the delivery time promised by the sales could not be met technically, and the quotation and procurement could not be realized. During the implementation stage, production faced problems such as late design drawings and incomplete materials, and ultimately the project failed.
From business opportunity identification to project delivery, automated project-based sales involves five departments: sales, technology, projects, procurement, and production. Any break in any link will lead to lost orders or out-of-control delivery.
There is a “four-piece set of internal friction” in automated project-based sales.
Between sales and technology, sales made promises beyond technical capabilities to get orders, resulting in more than 70% information loss and internal friction; in terms of technology and delivery, technical solutions frequently had problems at the production site, and design changes were frequent, causing project managers to suffer from both sides; in terms of sales and projects, sales signed orders focused on performance, and project takeovers considered feasibility. The lack of a project review mechanism made the project team tired of dealing with low-profit, high-risk projects; information asymmetry between departments and management, and the lack of cross-department collaboration mechanisms, led to lack of basis for decision-making and review.
Faced with internal collaboration problems, companies have tried common practices such as “upgrading the system”, “changing processes” and “holding coordination meetings” with little success.
The system is just a tool. If the information entered by personnel is distorted and not updated in a timely manner, the system data will be worthless; although the process documents are perfect, the process under emergency projects is easy to be ignored, and it is difficult to hold accountable when problems arise; the coordination meeting lacks a unified methodological language and becomes a venue for emotional catharsis, and problems still exist.
The strategy to break the situation is to change from “fighting individually” to “fighting in an iron triangle.”
Establish an “iron triangle” combat model. At key nodes of the automation project, the three lines of sales, technology, and delivery have the same frequency of information, aligned goals, and synchronized actions.
The sales line accurately identifies customer pain points, the technical line intervenes before sales, and the delivery line participates in project approval and review.
At the same time, the PPVVC methodology is used to unify the operational language, clarify customer pain points, decision-making rights, and value propositions, and cooperate with the C139 order control system to reduce internal collaboration costs.
In addition, a key node mandatory alignment mechanism is established to ensure that the project is effectively evaluated and promoted at each key node.
A non-standard automation equipment company with an annual revenue of 300 million yuan in East China, after introducing relevant methodologies and systems, the first-time pass rate of the plan increased from 45% to 78%, the project delivery cycle was shortened by 22%, and internal coordination meetings were reduced by 60%.
This shows that through effective internal collaboration mechanisms, companies can significantly improve sales and delivery efficiency.
For common questions, such as whether the iron triangle model will slow down the sales process, in fact, although early-stage alignment increases time, it can save more in the later stage; small teams can also adopt the iron triangle model, the key is roles and alignment logic; to solve the technical team’s reluctance to participate in pre-sales, you need to start from
Start with the assessment mechanism; internal collaboration issues are both a management issue and a capability issue; convincing the boss to invest resources can be done by counting the costs caused by internal collaboration issues; evaluating the input-output ratio of the introduced methodology can be considered from three dimensions: lost orders, rework costs, delivery delay penalties, or goodwill losses.
In short, the competition for project-based sales in the automation industry is not only external, but the losses caused by the breakdown of internal collaboration are the hidden fatal costs of corporate growth.
The iron triangle combat model and PPVVC methodology can allow sales, technology, and delivery teams to stand on the same combat map. Enterprises can solve internal collaboration problems by counting losses, sorting out nodes, and evaluating conditions.
