Leading Practices in Solution Sales: An Overview of Accenture ...

Accenture Communications & High Tech Solutions
Leading Practices in Solution Sales:
An Overview of Accenture Research
and Insights

Accenture research and practice have identified
industry-leading practices that can help
companies achieve high performance with
the capability to sell solutions that meet their
clients’ most important value propositions.
Achieving high performance with solution sales
For sales organizations in most industries
today, “solution sales”—the capability
to sell customers total packages
of solutions rather than individual
products or services—has become a
strategic imperative to achieve high
performance. Communications, electronics
and high-tech companies in
particular—faced with the prospect
of diminished revenues because of
product commoditization and
increased customer expectations—
now see solution sales as a critical
initiative, enabling them to move up
the value stack to become more deeply
engrained in the buying culture of
their customers.
2 Accenture Communications & High Tech Solutions
Accenture research into the characteristics
of high-performance businesses
has demonstrated that the most successful
companies create and exploit a
set of distinctive, hard-to-replicate
capabilities that deliver the promised
customer experience. Solution selling
is one of those capabilities that can
lead to improved business performance.
In the communications industry,
for example, the ability to sell solutions
has been one of the biggest
levers of high performance over the
last seven years, accounting for seven
to nine percent of the difference in
total return to shareholders.

Keys to successful
solution sales
Companies typically seek to develop a
solution-selling capability to expand
their value proposition to customers.
Yet some companies falter because of
an incomplete understanding of the
scope of change required to sell
complete solutions.
Many sales organizations around the
world today are thinking of solution
sales in terms of bundles or collections
of assets. But those concepts do not
quite address the primary need. A
bundle may sound too much like “just
more products,” and may even be an
inadvertent turn-off to the harried
buyer struggling to do more with less.
The real differentiator is the business
understanding and industry expertise
that lie behind the bundle. You’re not
selling the bundle; you’re selling the
solution that the bundle enables.
To be successful, solution selling must
successfully deliver a unique combination
of products and services, designed
to solve a specific business problem
and to drive tangible business value,
meeting the exact needs of a specific
customer.
Successful solution selling involves
creating value in a “whole that is
greater than the sum of the parts.”
So solution selling is as much about
how you sell as what you sell.
Companies that achieve high performance
through solutions sales know
how to leverage a thorough understanding
of customers and their objectives
to tailor a value proposition that
creates quantifiable business benefits.
The Accenture Sales
Transformation Solution
For organizations seeking rapid
improvement in sales performance
through the selling of solutions, we
have pioneered the Accenture Sales
Transformation Solution, which can
deliver significant, quantifiable value
quickly and with minimal risk. Our
proven assets support the key
characteristics of effective sales
organizations along three dimensions:
• Alignment. To successfully sell solutions,
companies must align their
sales people and programs with the
customers, channels and solutions
most likely to produce the best margins
and revenues.
• Behaviors. Solution selling requires
supporting the new sales behaviors
that will most effectively implement
the sales strategy. Deep Accenture
experience with leading-edge learning
techniques such as performance
simulation can improve not only the
depth of knowledge the sales force
has about new solutions and products,
but how they perform to sell
them successfully. Encouraging the
right behaviors also involves new
approaches to designing performance
management processes, metrics,
compensation, rewards, hiring
and sourcing.
• Capabilities. The entire sales organization
must be supported with more
powerful capabilities. This means
designing and implementing the
right sales processes and tools, and
by implementing customer analytics
to focus the sales organization on
the best opportunities, messages,
buyers and sales tactics.
For example, to effectively sell solutions,
a sales organization must be
able to understand and calculate the
potential return on investment (ROI) of
particular buyers. For one of our
clients, we implemented an ROI calculator
as part of its new solution sales
methodology. This asset helped the
sales force to think more clearly and
rigorously about the business reasons
for each sale and how a solution
would affect the customer financially.
The tool ultimately helped the company’s
sales people close more sales.
The Accenture Sales Transformation
Solution also includes a fast, practical
diagnostic—scoped according to your
needs and budget—to help you
evaluate, prioritize and improve your
solution sales capabilities. The diagnostic
is built on industry benchmarks,
proven processes and capability
research data. Structured, guided
self-assessment tools and pre-packaged
briefing tools with assessment
templates make the diagnostic easy to
administer. The result of the diagnosis
is tangible results: a “report card” on
your company’s solution sales effectiveness
compared to benchmarks. The
report also recommends and prioritizes
improvement areas according to likely
financial benefit. Finally, the diagnosis
gives leadership a common language
by which to assess sales capabilities
and set a path toward high
performance.
Industry-leading practices
for successful solution
sales
Based on our experiences helping
clients successfully implement a
solutions sales capability—and also
based on our recognized leadership in
the CRM services market—Accenture
has researched a suite of industryleading
practices that can help your
company achieve high performance
through a sales organization with
deep capabilities in solution sales.
Leading Practices in Solution Sales 3

Solution
transformation
Sales alignment
Sales behavior
Sales capabilities
These leading practices constitute
the detailed components of an overall
program that can set your company
apart from the competition in creating
deep capabilities in solution sales.
These can be grouped according to the
“ABCs” of successful solution sales:
alignment, behaviors and capabilities:
Leading practices to enable
sales alignment
• Sales organization. Guidance from
Accenture can help establish an
effective sales organization structure,
one incorporating both internal
and external sales teams.
• Sales support structure. This leading
practice includes benchmarks
from key communications and hightech
companies with strong sales
support organizations. These practices
also address key issues for
pricing, quoting and configuration.
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Solution sales core capabilities Solution sales is a broad set
of sales alignment, behavior
Sales organization
Sales support structure
Cross-organization alignment
Learning and development
Knowledge management and collaboration
Incentive compensation management
Customer information strategy
Customer insight and sales analytics
Service sales
Solution sales to small and medium businesses
Solution sales to global accounts
• Cross-organization alignment. To
effectively sell and deliver solutions,
many functions of the organization
must coordinate their activities and
collaborate effectively. A number of
leading practices provide guidance
in this area.
Leading practices to promote
the right sales behaviors
• Learning and development.
Traditional classroom training, and
courses focused primarily on product
specifications, are not sufficient to
enable a sales force to achieve competency
in selling solutions.
Performance simulation training and
other new techniques help sales
people develop the behaviors that
lead to success.
• Knowledge management and
collaboration. Solution selling
depends on new knowledge management
processes, sales portals and
and capability components
that enable a company to
sell to its customers value
propositions. By following
leading practices in these
areas, companies can propel
themselves faster toward
high performance through
their solution sales
capabilities.
collaboration tools that enable sales
people to find the information needed
and to work together to serve
customers more effectively.
• Incentive compensation management.
To deliver solution sales, the
sales force must be appropriately
incented and compensated. This
leading practice addresses how to
create the infrastructure to translate
strategy into delivering effective
compensation into the organization.
Industry leading practices in this
area are based on Accenture experience
in sales compensation and
related rewards strategies.
Leading practices to create the
right sales capabilities
• Customer information strategy.
Understanding your customers is
critical to effectively sell solutions.
This leading practice outlines a
number of effective methods to help

you differentiate your organization
through more comprehensive knowledge
about your customers.
• Customer insight and sales
analytics. Effectively selling
solutions requires better customer
insight capabilities. This leading
practice addresses tools, technologies
and capabilities needed to identify
your most valuable customers,
households and customer segments
to increase the effectiveness of the
sales organization.
• Service sales. Most solution sales
include services as a key component.
This leading practice addresses service
and warranty aspects of solution
selling, as well as ways to incorporate
services into your solutions.
• Solution sales to small and
medium businesses. Small- and
medium-sized businesses differ significantly
in product requirements,
buyer values, channel preferences
and service and support needs.
These leading practices address
solution sales strategies for that
segment.
• Solution sales to global accounts.
A global environment presents
unique challenges to successful
solution selling. This leading practice
provides insight into how successful
global sales organizations drive
solution sales. Accenture provides
guidance in this area based on our
own strong capabilities with global
sales strategies.
For organizations seeking to create a
solution sales capability, Accenture
has pioneered innovative solutions
that provide significant, quantifiable
value quickly and with less risk. Our
proven assets help companies achieve
high performance by increasing the
capabilities of their sales organizations
in the alignment, behaviors and capabilities
required for successful solution
selling.
Contact us
As part of the Sales Transformation
Solution, Accenture has created
comprehensive solution packages
with proven assets and experienced
resources focused on each of these
leading practices in solution sales.
For more information on these
leading practices, and about how
Accenture can help you transform
your sales organization to achieve
high performance, please write us at
comms.and.high.tech@accenture.com
and mention “Solution Sales Leading
Practices.”
Leading Practices in Solution Sales 5

Copyright © 2006 Accenture
All rights reserved.
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High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management
consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company. Committed to
delivering innovation, Accenture
collaborates with its clients to help
them become high-performance
businesses and governments. With
deep industry and business process
expertise, broad global resources and
a proven track record, Accenture can
mobilize the right people, skills, and
technologies to help clients improve
their performance. With approximately
140,000 people in 48 countries, the
company generated net revenues of
US$16.65 billion for the fiscal year
ended Aug. 31, 2006. Its home page is
www.accenture.com.