„40% of sales resources realize 95% of sales“ – this statement simulates the results of a total of five of our clients. The consequence of this is that for many companies, profit is theoretically possible by reducing sales resources and thus reducing costs in sales. At the same time, there is also the option of doubling profits by increasing sales.

Experiences and findings from the test phase of our VVP
We have already tested our newly generated forecast with two of our clients – with the other clients we are currently in the test planning phase. In total, we included ten sales representatives in our first test. Normally, sales organizations obtain their visit contacts and rhythms from contact planning software, which tells them which customers should be contacted or visited in which calendar week. For this reason, this software counts as the heart of sales allocation. It is responsible for controlling the sales costs per customer, and for our clients the share of sales costs in the turnover is on average 15-20%.

We at Dastani Consulting manually intervene in the contact planning software of our clients. Our forecast gives insight into which customer should be visited, when and how intensively, and which customer is not worth visiting.

Often we humans are inclined to be critical of new circumstances – especially when we want to avoid mistakes in important decision-making processes. This also explains the initial critical thinking of our clients. For this reason, our clients only followed about half of our delivered Visit Value Prediction suggestions. In total, the sales representatives approached 50% of their sales contacts on their own initiative, and took the other 50% of the contacts from our prediction.

„Sales eight to ten times higher“
Through this approach, we were able to determine that the turnover of our clients in the contacts specified by us was eight to ten times as high as in contacts that the sales employees approached on their own initiative. Thus, we were able to illustrate that the sales addresses we specified led to considerably more sales. This tendency is evident in almost all of the ten sales representatives tested.

The next step will be the implementation and enhancement of our intelligent forecasting mechanism into the tour planning software of our clients. We would like to present this to you in our next article.

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag One step ahead – insights from the test phase of our VVP erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Potential for improvement in contact management erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Cost pressure from Corona
Due to the ongoing Corona crisis, many companies are being forced to make savings. A great deal of attention is being paid to personnel and sales costs. But what can companies do now to save on personnel costs in sales and increase sales?

Forecasting the effect of sales activities
Dastani Consulting’s newly generated Visit Value Prediction remedies the situation and provides the answer. „Through Corona, we noticed that the sales figures were very good, even though the sales department could not work as in the past. In the wake of this, we developed our new product – Visit Value Prediction „, says Dr. Parsis Dastani (CEO – Dastani Consulting). Visit Value Prediction predicts whether a customer should be contacted, what impact can be expected in sales and what revenue can be realized with the customer. Dastani Consulting GmbH has already tested Visit Value Prediction on five client companies, client-specific and separately. In total, more than 6000 sales employees, about 3-4 million customer addresses and several billions of transactions were included in the methodology.

Astonishing results from our clients
The results obtained were indeed astonishing: although all five clients were from different industries, all results were comparable. It did not matter whether the respective sales organization employed 100 or 5000 sales representatives – they all recorded the same sales performance. Furthermore, the Visit Value Prediction results revealed that for all five of our clients, only 40% of sales performance was responsible for 95% of revenue.

As an example, if a company documents a return on sales of 8% and sales costs in the amount of 18%, its status quo – its current sales – can be realized with only 50% of sales resources using the methodology developed by Dastani Consulting. In other words, using 100% of sales resources can actually double the company’s profit.

„Half of the contact addresses are uneconomical“.
Dr. Parsis Dastani takes stock and looks ahead: „The contacts for which we made a positive forecast performed significantly better than the addresses we rated as poor. We classify about 50% of the contact addresses as non-profitable. The Visit Value Prediction we generate creates both freedom and more efficient use of sales resources for companies – which will be more important than ever, especially in the current period and even after the crisis, to combat high cost pressures and sales slumps.“

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Cost pressure from Corona: Deployment of sales resources erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Visit Value Prediction: The use of AI in Sales erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Despite the dire situation that has now been with us for over a year, at its core, supply and demand still exist in many B2B sectors – it’s just that the channels that bring supply and demand together are currently blocked. Many dealer and manufacturer support points, as well as branches that B2B buyers would otherwise visit, are closed. Customer events, trade conferences and trade shows have been canceled or postponed for the long term. The field sales force was forced into „inside sales“ as personal contacts by the sales force had to be eliminated. The consequence: the most important mechanisms for new customers acquisition are at a standstill.

Avoid standstill – acquire new customers
Only the web remains for matching supply and demand. On the supply side, all companies that are still able to deliver and produce can take advantage of this fact. Exactly those companies benefit from the fact that on the demand side there are no spending freezes as well as companies with unchanged or even growing purchasing budgets. Accordingly, the selection and decision-making processes around these purchases are shifting much more to the digital world since the Corona pandemic. The goal of successful sales in times of Corona must therefore be to find suitable companies on the web that indicate a high purchasing affinity despite the pandemic.

Target Group Predict – general approach
For this purpose, Dastani Consulting has developed the predictive analytics tool Target Group Predict, which performs address matching between your existing customers and market addresses on the web. Over a billion buzzwords from over several million websites, 3 million industry listings and 2 million addresses are included in the process. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps at this point to automatically distinguish between relevant industry-specific and irrelevant website words, as well as industry and company size. In this way, a total of around 4 million companies (DACH) are evaluated in terms of their affinity to the company, sales potential and suitability for specific product areas.

Despite Corona for efficient acquisition in B2B
However, the „normal“ Target Group Predict – as it was already carried out before the Corona crisis – turns out to be difficult. It is not the customer structure per se, but the movement of the customer that is decisive in identifying his need in the current time. But what words on websites are currently causing companies to be deep in the crisis? Our intelligent predictive analytics software provides the answer for your company by searching the web for the exact new customers that fit your business and – despite the Corona pandemic – have high demand and revenue potential. With our tool for efficient new customer acquisition in B2B, you gain a comprehensive overview of the current market and have the opportunity to look ahead into the future in order to increase the success rate of your sales.

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Consistent acquisition of new customers erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Many sales people often work according to the same principle: They often look after their „good“ customers too intensively, while other customers with high potential are ignored and fall by the wayside undetected. They often classify their customers on the basis of their own sales and subjective criteria. However, according to this classification, the company misses out on valuable growth potential in its inventory.

AI-based classification provides a remedy
By linking internal and external data (e.g., industry, employees, and website content) and specially developed AI methods, your customers can be evaluated according to their revenue potential. AI-based customer segmentation takes the clustering of your customer base into A, B or C customers. Then, it captures the C-segment customers that have the potential to become A or B customers. Based on this customer segmentation, high-potential customers are recommended to your sales staff for more intensive processing. This enables your sales staff to focus on reactivating and expanding customers who promise high objective sales potential.

Consequence: Sales growth
We at Dastani Consulting often find growth potentials within the customer base of more than 100%, which are distributed over only three to four percent of the address base. In order to capture the existing potential, your sales staff must successively target precisely these addresses. Accordingly, appropriate marketing campaigns can also be planned and executed.

Case study: Growth potential in the existing customer base
The following figure illustrates the customer distribution according to their actual turnover classes of one of our customers from the tool trade. Out of a total of 55,000 customer companies responsible for 112 million EUR of actual sales, approximately 900 customers with 48 million EUR and approximately 1,800 customers with 51 million EUR of growth potential can be uncovered from the inactive customer base. This case study underscores the relevance of viewing the actual sales potential in the existing customer base so that sales staff can successfully and efficiently address sales growth.

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag 100 percent more growth in the portfolio erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Sales per customer, sales per visit
To generate a basis for visit allocation, revenue per sales visit can be modeled using the Customer Value – and Visit Value – Prediction we developed. First, the general Customer Value is calculated for each customer in a two-step process. This allows the sales expectation for each customer to be viewed over a previously defined period of time. This Customer Value value is then linked to the Visit Value, the expected revenue per visit.

Visit forecast and potential forecast
Our potential forecast is a helpful supplement to the Visit Value Prediction. The combination of both forecast values enables you to allocate visit capacities efficiently, in a resource-saving and objective way. The following matrix shows a case study of one of our customers and maps a total of 24,000 sales visits. Here it can be seen that if the objective sales potential is high, resources should be invested in reactivating inactive customers and in acquisition and conquest. In contrast, when revenue potential is low, visit resources should be reallocated. In this case study, 5,000 customer visits are affected and should be handled via telesales rather than in person. This represents a total of about 20% of the total visit resources and illustrates the relevance of resource reallocation. If both the objective potential and the visit forecast ratio (VVP) are high, consideration should be given to increasing the visit frequency. By means of the various forecast values, this gives you the opportunity to better assess your customers and tailor their care to them in a goal-oriented manner.

Finding the needle in the haystack
In numerous customer projects, we have found that companies often prioritize their customers according to historical sales. Accordingly, the focus of their sales staff is on the „good“ and active customers. However, this approach is not target-oriented, as the revenue potential of your customers cannot be fully exploited in this way and some customers are visited too frequently. This is where we apply our Customer Value – and Visit Value – Prediction in a target-oriented way for you, so that you increase the sales efficiency of your sales team and exploit the enormous potentials. Our tools ensure that you visit the right customers and effectively implement sales and marketing measures. You get an overview of the objective sales potential of your active and inactive customers as well as new customers. Using an additional top-down list, you can see which customer should be visited first by your sales team in the coming week. With the help of these key figures, you can finally find out where you need to focus your sales optimization efforts.

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Sales optimization in B2B erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Optimizing sales allocation
AI-based segmentation is able to take into account the potential of customers. To do this, the entire customer base is clustered into A, B, and C customers. Then, the customers from the C segment that have the potential to become an A or B customer can be identified. According to this segmentation, these customers are suggested to the sales team for intensified processing. Conversely, the sales team also comes to the conclusion of which customers should no longer be closely managed. Using this AI-based methodology, sales resources can be optimally allocated and distributed according to their best opportunities.

Estimation of objective sales potential
Dastani Consulting’s intelligent potential forecasting develops a functional relationship between external data – such as number of employees, external sales, industry, trade show catalogs or customer website data – and a customer’s revenue. As a result, this AI-based methodology is able to estimate the objective revenue potential of each customer.

Growth of more than 100%
As a consequence, the sales department is pushed to those customer companies that are highly important for the company’s revenue growth. Often we at Dastani Consulting find relevant growth potentials within the customer base amounting to more than 100%, which is distributed over only three to four percent of the address base. Exactly these addresses can then be specifically addressed by the sales department in order to successively conquer the existing potential. Appropriate campaigns can also be planned and implemented accordingly.

The approach outlined here can also be carried out for individual product groups, as it is not only based on total sales. In this way, the system can also continue to identify important cross-selling potential within the existing customer base, which in turn can be exploited.

Our numerous case studies illustrate the success of these measures. If you have any further questions, please visit our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Potential-oriented segmentation erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

Sales is the key
In many markets, products or services from competing suppliers are comparable. Accordingly, in these market structures, sales is the decisive adjusting screw for growth and the achievement of profit targets.

A look at the balance sheets – sales resources „eat up“ return on sales
If we take a look at the return on sales of our clients from the b2b environment, it was between 5 and 8% in 2019. At the same time, distribution costs averaged 15% of sales. It is apparent that sales in particular will increasingly become the focus of optimization in the upcoming discussions.

AI predicts the success of sales contacts
Since the beginning of the Corona crisis, we at Dastani Consulting have taken a particularly close look at this situation. For half a dozen companies, we have conducted intensive analyses of orders, sales contact histories, visit frequencies and tour planning. More than two million sales contacts were evaluated.

We trained our AI systems with all available customer data, such as visits, contact reports, and orders, as well as external data to forecast the sales impact of different customer contacts on a client-specific basis. The result and especially the forecasting accuracy surprised even us as experienced AI experts that can be used for online marketing services and sales: our models are able to forecast the revenue impact of a sales visit. Both immediate and indirect success were measured, e.g., up to one month after the visit.

Intelligent visit management is the key to growth and efficiency
At all the companies we analyzed, we came to the same conclusion: the sales department deals with a number of contacts that do not contribute to the company’s success. Although our clients came from different sectors, we always got a very comparable result: with half of the visits it is possible to generate 95% of the sales.

The sales organizations of our clients are certainly among the most renowned in their segments. They are KPI-driven, professionally set up and enjoy an excellent reputation in the field of sales management.

However, when we took a closer look at the sales management strategies of these companies, we found that the key optimization steps are seen in the selection of personnel, remuneration systems, employee training, pricing, and sales motivation through bonus and incentive systems. These factors are certainly indispensable for leading a sales organization to success, but they do not represent significant competitive advantages. The essential key to success, revenue-based contact and tour planning, has been missing.

Strategy: Using AI-based sales allocation to deploy resources in a potential-oriented manner
Dastani Consulting developed Visit Value Prediction specifically for this task. The special feature of the prediction system is that it is possible to see in advance which contact will actually prove useful and generate a successful order.

The goal is not to reduce the sales team by half. Rather, the focus is on a new strategic orientation: intelligent sales allocation. It prevents merely meeting the contact frequency of the sales force. Uneconomical sales visits are identified and sales contacts there are reduced. The freed-up sales resources are invested in high-potential existing customers, in reactivating inactive customers with high sales potential, and in acquiring new customers.

With the help of this strategy, it is possible to increase a company’s sales dramatically quickly and in a targeted manner with an existing sales team, while maintaining constant resources, and to reduce the proportion of sales costs and thus significantly increase the return on sales.

If you have any further questions, please take a look at our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) or call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Sales optimization with the help of AI erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.

A common misconception is that machine learning, business forecasting, business intelligence and anything related to predictive analytics is synonymous. For this reason, the following article focuses on taking a closer look at the definitions and applying them to the context of predictive analytics.

Business Forecasting is the term used to describe the process of extracting information and gaining insights. Machine Learning, on the other hand, is the application of Artificial Intelligence and is more of an approach than a process. Business Intelligence, on the other hand, describes the different types of analyses and results.

Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence, or BI, is a technology-based process for analyzing data and presenting actionable information that can help organizations make informed business decisions. Insights from business intelligence tools as suggested by Jimmy John Shark can be used to make strategic business decisions that improve productivity, increase revenue and accelerate growth. For example, valuable competitive advantages over the competition can be gained in this way. More importantly, it also reveals business problems that need to be addressed in the future.

Predictive analytics in business intelligence has become a necessary advancement in decision-making capabilities and insights. Most business intelligence focuses on descriptive analysis and visualization of data. Predictive analytics starts at this point, questioning what might happen in the future, and beyond that, even what you might do as a business. Predictive analytics is able to present information to help executives, managers, and others involved in the organization make business decisions.

Business Forecasting
Business Forecasting or rather business forecasting refers to the process of using analytics, data, insights to make predictions and answer business needs. While business intelligence is about tools and presentation, business forecasting is about analysis and process.

Predictive analytics in business forecasting has evolved into an advanced process that includes a variety of different data types, predictive causal models, more advanced algorithms and technologies. Various tools, data mining methods, forecasting methods, and analytical models are used to analyze historical and current data, assess business risks and opportunities, and make predictions. Predictive analytics involves not only internal sales history, but rather external variables, different influencing factors, and other data to improve predictions.

Machine Learning
Machine Learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence and a collection of different techniques and methods that allow systems to learn automatically. These systems can be „trained“ to learn patterns from inputs that subsequently recalibrate from experience without being explicitly programmed. Unlike other approaches, these techniques strive to learn on their own as new data is presented and can make predictions and evaluations on their own.

Predictive analytics in machine learning is a category of approaches that achieves better predictions, improved intelligence, automation of processes, and the path to artificial intelligence.

Located at the intersection of advanced business forecasting, sophisticated business intelligence and machine learning techniques, predictive analytics leverages advanced business and planning processes to provide more information with improved efficiency. It’s not just about advanced analytics outputs and business intelligence, but also about helping companies gain insights into why and what things will happen in the future.

With many years of experience spanning more than two decades, Dastani Consulting is considered a predictive analytics pioneer. The team of Dastani Consulting GmbH looks back on many years of experience and thus enables the implementation of individually tailored solutions for each customer. The intelligent predictive analytics forecasts are able to anticipate the entire behavioral pattern of customers within a defined time horizon in order to derive optimal business recommendations – especially for marketing and sales.

If you have any further questions, please take a look at our social media channels (Xing, Linkedin, Instagram) or call us at +49 (0)641 984 46 – 0.

Der Beitrag Business Forecasting, Machine Learning & Business Intelligence erschien zuerst auf Dastani Consulting.