A number of companies have combined both their manufacturing position, and sales positions, into one all encompassing position. The benefit allows companies to provide real time information to customers from a decision maker. It also helps reduce overtime. The position is called many different things, but it’s often referred to as the Product Manager or Product Line Account Manager.
While conventional wisdom says to keep your sales people from the production floor, there is ample evidence to support using one hybrid position that combines a manufacturing mindset, with the customer approach of a sales professional. Interested in seeing what the benefits are?
Four Benefits of Product Line Managers
When you work in sales, you have many priorities. You have to keep the customer happy, secure business, close deals, and protect the gross profit initiatives of the company your sell for. In manufacturing, you have to make sure you make the product on time. This means minimizing defects, lowering cycle times, minimizing overtime and meeting demand. Each position relies upon separate needs and requirements.
Sales drives manufacturing with orders. Sales will often provide a forecast of potential orders, and do what they can to meet that forecast. However, sales is often viewed as “giving in” or acquiescing too easily to customer requests for improved or expedited deliveries. Try and speed up the delivery, and the company incurs additional costs in manufacturing through overtime.
In some cases, these costs can be added to the price – that is if the sales person is able to pass it on to the customer. If they aren’t, it becomes another added cost to manufacturing. However, the fact is sales feeds manufacturing with information, and at times, they can modify or tweak that information to suit their needs. Unfortunately, this is not always in line with the company’s gross profit objectives. Here are the four benefits of product line account managers.
Benefit #1) Protects Company’s Gross Profit
Perhaps the most important aspect of the product line account manager, is that they have the goal of not only selling the product at a good gross profit, but also protecting that gross profit in manufacturing. They must close the business at a good gross profit margin, and not allow that gross profit to be impacted by expedited delivery costs in manufacturing.
So, product line managers become the ultimate protectors of your company’s gross profit. They manage sales and the production of those sales. They are the best possible resource to determine if expediting the orders are valid requests, and can best explain the added costs to the customer of that request.
Benefit #2) Faster, Better & Clearer Information
Because they are tasked with protecting gross profit, the product line account manager won’t simply acquiesce to customer demands without first explaining the implication of the request. Move up one order ahead of another? What’s the cost to the order, and the other orders in process for that customer? Customers typically make a request to sales, then the sales person goes to production, gets an answer and comes back to the customer with the information.
If the sales person has done a good job, then the information is exactly what manufacturing provided. However, in a number of cases, it becomes the proverbial “broken telephone” and the answer provided by the sales person is not completely clear. However, in this case, not only is the information clear, but it’s directly from the decision maker. Customers love to deal with someone who can make a difference, and this position effectively does that.
Learn about the essentials of business-to-business negotiation.
Benefit #3) Strengthens Relationship Between Manufacturing & Sales
While sales will often twist information to their benefit, production can also do the same. It’s not uncommon for production to try and buy themselves extra time because they are afraid of being late. So, this is yet another benefit of combining the position. The product line account manager has to be realistic about what can, and can not, be done. In return, they will discuss the options with the customer, and give them real time and accurate information. This improves the relationship and trust between manufacturing and sales. The combination of these two positions means neither can try and take advantage of the other, as there is one person in charge of both responsibilities.
Benefit #4) Reduces Labor Costs
While not a major savings, it is possible to have one position do two, and in this case, this is what is being done. However, the position is best suited to managing a few key large accounts. By managing the production cells for some key customers, the product line account manager is not only in charge of sales, and therefore protecting gross profit on the sale, but also ensuring that customers understand the implications of expedited delivery requests and the potential added cost. Unfortunately, this position is not conducive to your typical sales professional who may be in charge of hundreds of customer accounts.
One of the more important aspects of being a product line manager is the ability to set up the lean work cell. The above video explains how to design and layout a lean manufacturing work cell.
The Product Manager or Product Line Account Manager position works, and works extremely well for your largest customer accounts. When you have large volume requirements, need to keep customers happy while providing them with real time, fast and accurate information, then this is a position to investigate.
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