DBAX 9101C Week 4 Client Diagnosis Check Example

Testing the Sponsor's Diagnosis Before Accepting It: A Diagnosis Check Setting "the Reps Cannot Sell Digital" Against Three Rival Explanations Using the Printer's Own Sales, Proposal and Commission Records

Student Name

Walden University

DBAX 9101C: Business Consulting Research Project Stage 1

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Testing the Sponsor's Diagnosis Before Accepting It: A Diagnosis Check Setting "the Reps Cannot Sell Digital" Against Three Rival Explanations Using the Printer's Own Sales, Proposal and Commission Records

The Diagnosis Under Test

Clients rarely arrive undecided. My client's sales vice president, at a Milwaukee commercial printer, is sure that digital service revenue lags because the salespeople cannot sell digital. If that diagnosis is right, it makes predictions the firm's records can test: salespeople should pitch digital services rarely and, when they do, lose more often than they win; and the shortfall should be spread across the sales force rather than concentrated in a few accounts. This paper checks those predictions alongside three rival explanations, before the study accepts any cause.

The Rivals

The first rival is compensation. Salespeople earn commission on the gross margin of printed jobs; digital services carry a lower commission rate because they include outside costs such as postage. A salesperson choosing where to spend time would favor print. The second rival is access: the people who buy campaigns are marketing managers, while salespeople mostly know print buyers in purchasing. The third is the offering itself: services may be priced and bundled so that customers struggle to compare or approve them. Ulaga and Loveland (2014) found that firms moving into services faced all three kinds of problem, not only sales capability.

What the Records Show

Table 1

Predictions Checked Against Last Year's Records

Records from the client's customer relationship management system and commission reports, shared under the engagement agreement.

Reading the Results

The capability diagnosis is weakened but not dismissed. When salespeople do propose digital services, they win about as often as they win print work. That pattern argues against a general inability to sell. The concentration of digital revenue in two salespeople could reflect skill, but both of them, it turns out, came to the firm from agencies and already knew marketing managers. That points as much to access as to capability.

Compensation and access are both supported. Salespeople propose digital services far less often than print, which fits a commission plan that rewards print. And the buyers of digital services sit in a different department from most salespeople's contacts. Tuli et al. (2007) found that solutions require relationships with several people in the customer firm, which fits this result.

What the Check Does Not Settle

Records cannot show why salespeople propose digital so rarely. Low proposal counts fit the compensation explanation, but they also fit an access problem or a lack of confidence. Interviews with salespeople will be needed to separate them. Nutt (1999) found that decisions failed more often when managers settled on one diagnosis early; leaving several open is deliberate.

Limits of the Records

The records have their own weaknesses. The customer relationship system depends on salespeople logging contacts, and two of the seven admit they log only their main contact at each account, which could understate how many reach marketing staff. Proposal counts include only formal quotes, so a salesperson who mentions digital services in conversation but never sends a quote appears to have done nothing. And one year of records may reflect unusual conditions; the digital team lost its designer for four months last spring. I will request the previous year's records to see whether the same pattern holds, and I will treat the table as a reason to investigate, not as a finding, until the interviews explain what the numbers cannot.

Telling the Sponsor

I shared the table with the vice president before writing it up. The initial reaction was skeptical, but the vice president agreed that the win-rate figure was surprising and that the two strongest digital sellers had come from agencies. We agreed the study would examine compensation, access and the offering alongside capability, and that the vice president would see each finding before the president does.

References

Nutt, P. C. (1999). Surprising but true: Half the decisions in organizations fail. Academy of Management Executive, 13(4), 75-90. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1999.2570556

Tuli, K. R., Kohli, A. K., & Bharadwaj, S. G. (2007). Rethinking customer solutions: From product bundles to relational processes. Journal of Marketing, 71(3), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.71.3.001

Ulaga, W., & Loveland, J. M. (2014). Transitioning from product to service-led growth in manufacturing firms: Emergent challenges in selecting and managing the industrial sales force. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(1), 113-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2013.08.006