It is time for sales divisions to get serious about best practice training if they are to succeed in the cut-throat era of brand globalisation, warns Gary Carp Sales organisations have been resistant to change for too long, hiding behind the complexity of customer management and declaring themselves to be different from other parts of the business. Across the globe, local differences have been cited as reasons for not implementing much needed changes. Meanwhile, other organisations and departments have been forced to face hard commercial realities. Supply chain management has been transformed by the development of best practice approaches to ever more sophisticated customer demands. The need to be better, faster, cheaper demands continual effort. The game of hide and seek for sales departments is up; there are no certainties left. Asda and Tesco are redefining the boundaries of promotional acceptability, driven by the logic of Every Day Low Pricing. Safeway, meanwhile, is handing autonomy back to store managers. The concept of sales best practice is, of course, around and now some companies that really want to win are getting serious. They realise that best practice needs to become the cultural norm. They realise they have to establish common platforms of operational excellence that enable successful brand globalisation. That means the swift transfer and application of new products and ideas, and guarantees product availability, across vastly different geographies and markets. That means defining workable global approaches that are easily translatable into on-the-ground programmes for managers anywhere in the world. Under the rising competitive pressures of global operation, the faster business environment of the internet, and general oversupply, it is vital that "better, faster, cheaper" becomes the new sales credo if you are going to achieve best practice. At the global level, best practice currently encompasses a myriad of tasks: setting sales standards and benchmarking performance across a number of different markets; developing visions for the most effective channels and point of purchase; managing international customers sensitively and shrewdly; adapting organisation design to different cultures; and rationalising/harmonising trade terms. The beauty of the best practice beast is that it is a dynamic and constantly developing animal. That means keeping at the forefront with the internet ­ with attention to securing listings on internet service provider portals, for example ­ is as relevant as tracking distribution levels. Getting to grips on a global level with the factors that drive demand stimulation and management is a prerequisite for, but not a guarantor of success. Best practice performers will recognise that success is determined by what you achieve at the point of purchase. As one commentator recently noted: "In the battle for consumer/shopper loyalty, the point of purchase is the front line. If you don't win at the point of purchase, you don't win." Outsiders looking in cite the likes of Mars and Procter & Gamble as best practice sales organisations. It is impossible for all companies to achieve the size and scale of these giants, but everyone can aspire to become best practice performers. This requires organisations continually striving for breakthrough innovations that will get them closer to customers and consumers/shoppers and inventing new point of purchase approaches. But this is only the beginning. The ultimate goal of better practice has to be improved organisational capacity. Best practice sales organisations seek to focus their human resource budgets on attracting high performance/potential sales managers and then upskilling them through an ongoing commitment to training. And then you've got to live it. Liberate the sales team from bureaucratic nonsense. Just ask yourselves how many people today have to sign off or agree promotional activity in your business. The ultimate challenge of developing best practice for sales organisations, as for all businesses, lies in the ability to make the ideas live, enabling you to drive long term competitive differentiation between yourselves and your peers. If your sales organisation isn't thinking "better, faster, cheaper", you are not even in the best practice arena. And if you aren't committed to training, you're missing the point. n Gary Carp is a senior consultant with Glendinning Management Consultants {{MANAGEMENT FEATURE }}