This year again, sales management will be the top priority for many companies, so they can relaunch a sector shaken by the health crisis and restart a growth cycle. In this context, jobs involving the optimisation of commercial effectiveness will naturally be among the most sought-after profiles for companies.
How have these sales management professions evolved in recent years? What do companies expect from these operational efficiency specialists? What are their aims? In this article, find out about the roles of SFE managers and business analysts.
According to the Dirigeants Commerciaux de France network, sales representatives represented more than 2.5% of the active population in France, i.e. more than 800,000 employees in 2019. To meet the demands of an increasingly competitive market, the sales positions have a strategic role. Thanks to their professionalisation and the changes in their skills model, sales teams are more than ever key resources in creating the conditions for the growth and development of companies.
From insurance to banking, mass retail and industry etc, and from SMEs to big groups, including ETIs and start-ups, sales profiles are in high demand. New functions have also emerged, in particular professions specialising in the development and deployment of sales strategies and the operational management of sales teams. This includes optimising the various incentive compensation schemes designed to encourage teams to deliver the results expected by their company.
Among these sales management functions, sales force effectiveness managers or SFE managers, are therefore responsible for commercial effectiveness or the effectiveness of sales teams. More than a support function, this role is increasingly held by sales force experts. Their aim is to design and then deploy solutions so as to enrich the processes intended to unite the sales teams acting in the field.
They can then progress as they execute their action plans. Some of an SFE manager’s main responsibilities include helping implement and manage incentive compensation for sales forces. In this key area for motivating sales teams, SFE managers work closely with business analysts, also known as research managers, who provide them with their expertise of the markets in which the company operates.
Focus on two main jobs in sales management: that of SFE manager and business analyst.Depending on the company and the sector of activity, SFE managers may therefore have specific responsibilities and different job titles. These include co-ordinating the various stakeholders involved in the deployment of a CRM solution, managing customer files, preparing targeting, designing and running bonus schemes, consulting and aligning the various business units (BUs). The tasks of an SFE manager, like those that have existed for many years in companies in the pharmaceutical sector, are varied. Interactions with the various business lines happen daily, in particular with the business analysts and business unit managers who are their main contacts.
In terms of the incentive compensation schemes of promotion teams, often referred to as the sales incentive plan (SIP), SFE managers are responsible for ensuring compliance with transversal governance between the various business units. They are responsible for implementing the guiding principles of the incentive compensation policy common to the entire company. This common policy serves as a reference framework and must be applied uniformly for all employees in the various departments. In the pharmaceutical industry, especially in large groups, the teams of the various business units can be made up of over 1,000 employees. Each of the BUs is responsible for its own specialism, from pharmaceutical products for the general public to vaccines, cardiovascular drugs, general medicine treatments and hospital specialisms etc. Their performance incentive systems therefore need to be adapted to the operational challenges of each of the markets in which these different teams operate, but based on a common framework which guarantees fair treatment and facilitates internal mobility within the company.
Those who benefit from the incentive compensation schemes managed by SFE managers are mainly involved in the promotion of medicines to healthcare professionals, such as pharmaceutical sales representatives, pharmaceutical sales representatives, regional directors and key account managers. These professions are by definition, as in all other sectors of activity, primarily eligible for incentive compensation or commercial bonuses in other sectors of activity.
SFE managers may be required to manage teams, in particular project managers responsible for calculating bonuses, sometimes in close collaboration with a service provider specialising in incentive compensation. Project managers are also in contact with numerous internal contacts. These cross-departmental relationships are established with finance, human resources, business analysts, and certain key functions such as sales managers or the directors of the various business units. SFE managers, who are responsible for designing bonus schemes, and the team of project managers in charge of calculation, are therefore in contact with these different stakeholders to create the bonus schemes that best suit the priorities of the various BUs while respecting the company’s guiding principles.
““Regardless of the strategy of each of the business teams, we must remain fair and our rules must be followed by everyone. A business unit cannot make decisions that are unfair to employees in other business units. We are responsible for these guiding principles, which are our common operating rules, and we therefore ensure that they are respected,” says an SFE manager in the pharmaceutical industry..
The various BUs within a group must therefore observe common rules in order to respect the principle of fairness between all employees. For example, a BU cannot have a higher bonus level for the same function or for similar professions than another sector of activity of the company. Consequently, all employees with identical functions should have an incentive compensation system based on the same structural principles, rather than the same bonus system.
However, in some situations, additional challenges can be put in place to address specific business contexts. This is particularly the case when launching new products. In this specific situation, it may be decided to implement a specific adjustable share, which will be triggered according to specific criteria, described and approved beforehand.
In addition, there are other specific situations that may lead to the establishment of an additional bonus level. Among the most common is the arrival of a new competitor on the market. Finally, although these situations, which are clearly specified and laid down, allow an additional share of incentive compensation to be provided, they are inevitably subject to a maximum bonus level.
Real governance is most often established with each of the business units. Thus, SFE managers work to uphold common principles and are experts with the other participants in decision-making committees.
Before the start of each cycle, SFE managers usually chair a bonus committee which assesses the previous cycle and also take note of the challenges of the next cycle, and therefore of the strategic direction envisaged by the various business units.
Once these directions and priorities have been defined, SFE managers can specify and design the incentive compensation scheme that is best suited to the operational challenges, in direct collaboration with the heads of the promotion teams, the marketing departments and, in certain respects, the human resources departments.
“In addition to network committees and BU committees, bonus committees in France are generally held twice a year. The business unit managers and those present agree on the main directions and rules. We draw up annual reports, evaluate our guiding principles and question their possible needs for changes. We take stock, share and try to reach an agreement on the next steps so that we can move forward in close co-operation with all the parties involved throughout the year,” says an SFE manager in the pharmaceutical industry.
To present a coherent scheme to the various strategic planning committees, SFE managers have numerous intermediate discussions with the various stakeholders, from sales managers to human resources, finance and business analysts. In general, in the pharmaceutical industry, three cycles per year are organised for each of the business units. During each of the approval committees, SFE managers seek to encourage collaboration and listening, while pointing out the common rules forming the framework for the discussion. SFE managers are a real driving force behind proposals, and their position is geared towards constructive and collaborative interaction. They have an advisory role and bring their expertise to the various decision-makers. As such, business units are not the only ones to decide on the incentive compensation systems that it will put in place. These are the result of collaborative work and collective decision-making.
“To manage the evolution of incentive compensation schemes, we have to ensure numerous interactions take place with the different departments in our company, in particular HR, finance, the different BUs representing sales and marketing, but also the employee representative bodies, which also have a role to play in decisions relating to pay and targets. All these contact persons are key to our activity, and each of them will be assigned a different role. All of these coordination and management activities are carried out with the support of our consultancy firm, which assists us in this complex and critical area for the company,” says an SFE manager from the MSD Group.
“In our discussions with human resources, it is sometimes necessary to include employee representative bodies in the discussion and negotiation on the fairness of the schemes and the consistency of the remuneration amounts,” explains the SFE manager of the MSD group. Furthermore, he stresses the need to modify bonus schemes according to a particular dynamic or a specific change in the environment. Thus, the rules established can be adjusted in the interests of fairness between all beneficiaries. This is an important issue when it comes to implementing an incentive compensation strategy.
"My job is to track our product sales and commercial results, and set up dashboards to track and understand our results for each company and sales representative,” says a business analyst who has been in the automotive industry for eight years.
Business analysts are required to work on database management, produce statistics and establish in particular IT monitoring tools or business intelligence applications. Some of their work is done in collaboration with IT departments, particularly during the management of database software or the production of precise figures.
In addition, business analysts have to work with other departments, such as human resources, finance, logistics and marketing, as part of their contribution to the design of incentive compensation schemes for the sales teams whose activity they monitor.
Business analysts work closely with human resources, specifically for the calculation of incentive compensation for which they are responsible in some companies. Their role is to create targets and results for each salesperson. To do this, they use HR databases to carry out the calculations. If these databases are not up to date, the resulting calculations will not be accurate and will not reflect the actual performance of the sales staff. This workforce monitoring is done with HR teams to identify in real time the salespeople who are actually eligible for a bonus, those who are actually employed, new arrivals who enter the calculation system, and those who would have left the workforce during the year, for example. The actual workforce situation in the company must be consistent with the HR and sales data on which business analysts base their work to calculate targets and bonuses.
“The problem we face every day, and this is the most difficult part of our job, is making sure our databases are up to date, because lots of people have to provide us with information. Making sure the data in HR databases is up to date is a very time-consuming and strenuous job. We do it as well as we can, but there is always room for improvement,” says a business analyst in the automotive sector.
Business analysts are therefore like actual project managers who incorporate the different needs of a company. This job requires means you have to master all the skills of a project manager, but also conduct studies on numerical data, as you work closely with the financial departments seeking to adapt to the various economic markets.
“I work a lot with databases and I regularly analyse the figures. You clearly have to have a taste for figures and enjoy processing data. You can’t be afraid of that. This job requires a great deal of concentration and rigour, but also analytical skills. You have to be able to monitor different subjects independently and be curious to find solutions. Finally, you have to be able to interact with other people and enjoy interpersonal contact,” explains a business analyst working in the automotive sector.
Business analysists have to be able to analyse a company’s various quantitative and qualitative items of data, listen so as to understand the points of view of the various departments, and communicate with the various stakeholders, department heads and employees etc. Business analysts can only do their work by interacting extensively with other departments. They therefore face two different, but complementary, challenges: firstly gathering information, and secondly performing technical analyses of data.
“I work with the IT department to set up monitoring tools, specific software applications and business intelligence. I need a detailed understanding of how the databases and computer servers work. For me, it’s not my job, but I have to understand how it works so that we can set up these IT tools for our sales teams. As I am the interface between the sales management, including the salespeople on the ground, and the IT departments, I have to understand both,” says a business analyst in the automotive sector.
As companies are acquired or merged, business analysts also have to adapt their work to ensure they always gather the right information on the ground. “It’s not easy, because there are many companies in the group, each company has its own history, its own slightly different way of working, and so procedures have to be put in place to co-ordinate operations. Every year, new companies join the group, so we always have to spend time explaining how we work”.
Depending on the structure of their company, business analysts have to adapt their work and take into account the different subsidiaries and new appointments, which may take place every year for a rapidly expanding group. Each entity will have its own culture and its own vision of the business, so it can sometimes be difficult to homogenise all the sales processes, and by extension the incentive compensation process, across an entire group and subsidiaries with different corporate cultures. “It takes a lot of training and time to set up processes that are more or less the same in each subsidiary, but it’s a job that needs to be done to achieve greater efficiency. Each company has its own culture, its own vision of the business, so it can be difficult to make all the processes uniform immediately, but we always manage!”
The roles of SFE managers or business analysts are very varied in terms of the scope of their responsibilities, but they all work towards one and the same goal: optimising the business performance of companies. Depending on the sector and the level of responsibility, these experts operate differently in the relationship with managers, but also with the employees they want to best support.
At the crossroads of expertise, consulting and a service-oriented culture, these are professions in which young executives wishing to further their understanding of operational issues before taking on directly operational positions can blossom. More experienced sales staff whose on-the-ground experience is valuable for these sales management professions can as well.