Design Process
Design Process
Territory Solutions International can help you design a completely new organization, or realign your existing resources, to promote effective and efficient achievement of company goals and objectives. Effective territory design has a critical impact on increased performance for two reasons:
Our experience has identified that in the majority of companies, more than one-third of all field assignments have either too much or too little work assigned. This means that field representatives with too much work cannot complete all of their assigned tasks, leaving the door open for significant gains by your competitors! Field representatives with too little work are likely to fall short of goals, objectives and expectations, and will soon lead to increased turnover and disruption to customer satisfaction. In either case, reduced productivity and lost revenues are the result of an ineffective territory design process!
Our experience also tells us that a typical field representative spends between 20% and 25% of their time traveling. A more efficient territory design process will result in less time traveling, which translates into more time to spend with assigned accounts! Even small reductions in travel time, when reinvested in activities that support customer growth, can deliver significant gains in revenue and profits!
The territory design process applied by Territory Solutions International includes five principal stages:
Audit - This initial stage of the territory design process is designed for gathering critical client and project information. This stage includes a review of the current territory design and deployment process, field structure and hierarchy, and management objectives and strategies. Additionally, an audit of all available data will be completed during this stage, including the review of data files and information regarding:
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Customers
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Prospects
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Products
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Markets
Analysis - The second stage of the territory design process includes evaluation and analysis of the market, customers and the organizational factors driving productivity and growth. With analysis of account characteristics, customer profiles can be developed that will simplify account segmentation and targeting. With evaluation of the critical business tasks executed by the organization, an effort based model can be developed to target deployment needs within each account segment. Finally, these analytical tools can be applied to various deployment scenarios to identify the impact on both revenues and profits for determining the optimal field force size.
Design - The third stage of the territory design process uses comprehensive territory design technology to create the proposed, optimal alignment quickly. Territory Solutions International applies AlignStar® software from TTG, Incorporated, a leader in territory design software since 1988. The optimization feature in AlignStar® is applied to design territories that are balanced in attribute and that minimize travel time. Proposed territory "center" locations can be easily identified, and when matched to existing personnel, can facilitate the analysis of human resource needs. Decisions regarding placement, relocation and assignment of current field personnel can be balanced with recruiting efforts.
Review - Once the proposed alignment has been created, two levels of review should be completed to fulfill this step in the territory design process. The initial alignment review is completed with senior management to ensure the proposed assignments are consistent with company goals and expectations. Then, the approved alignment is taken to field management, where interactive field "review" sessions using AlignStar® software finalize the alignment. Field management involvement brings local knowledge that is critical to the development of an optimal solution. During these interactive sessions, changes are made to adjust and fine-tune the alignment and bring closure to the territory structure designed. This stage in the territory design process normally produces strong field management ownership and understanding of the final deployment solution.
Communication - The final stage of the territory design process includes timely communication of the new field assignments to all affected personnel and organizational levels. Territory and management "guides" are produced that contain both geographical maps and informative reports detailing information for each new organizational entity. The production and distribution of these flexible, client defined deliverables can be accomplished in either printed or electronic formats.
For additional information regarding our territory design process, please Contact TSI!
