Award-winning manufacturer Festool is known globally for making life easier for professional tradespeople. They have been successful for over 90 years and are characterised by a high degree of customer orientation. But due to changes in the global market, they decided to rethink and find a new way to Sales Excellence.
Commercial challenges
– The internationalisation of trade connected to their dealers.
– Changes in dealer and customer behaviour due to digitalisation.
– Positioning Festool unique values to the end customer.
“Our executives are a key factor in our Sales Excellence programme! Without their active participation, support and follow-up of the programme and its respective focus topics, the chances of success are rather low.”
HEAD OF GLOBAL SALES, FESTOOL GMBH
The solution
Against this background, Festool launched a global brand initiative several years ago, which was combined with a Sales Excellence initiative. Festool set up the Sales Excellence Programme to meet the increasing demands of retailers and end customers. The programme details a step-by-step, long-term plan for the continuous improvement of sales activities. The primary goal is to establish a premium distribution for Festool as a premium brand. This was achieved through the implementation of globally standardized processes and structures within the framework of Sales Excellence.
The Sales Excellence programme was divided into two dimensions: “Channel Management” and “Sales Force Management”. The former serves the optimization and international standardization of processes in handling trades and concentrates on: Price and condition systems; Logistics requirements of dealers; Dealer contracts. The “Sales Force Management” dimension includes measures to optimize the effectiveness of sales.
External sales support
You opted for external support. What were the reasons for this and where do you see the added value of such support?
“In 2016, we decided to work with Mercuri International as our worldwide cooperation partner for training our employees in the Festool national subsidiaries. To this end, we have jointly designed Festool-specific training courses and now successfully conducted more than 250 training courses in around 20 countries. Mercuri’s extensive experience and global presence make it the ideal partner for us. Regular training, discussion and hands-on practice on selected key topics under the guidance of experienced Mercuri trainers is an important part of the Sales Excellence program.”
The Sales Excellence conversation
We interviewed Dr. Herwig Mehrwald, Head of Global Sales Festool GMBH to hear how the Sales Excellence programme was developed and the outcomes.
