Example commercial action plan · Industrial equipment and service contracts
Recover the equivalent of eleven sales roles, without hiring.
Data entry, searches and follow-ups consume 605 hours a week across 96 salespeople and account managers: the equivalent of seventeen full-time roles. The first workstream aims to recover eleven. Drawing on 284 interviews, the plan sets out five workstreams to decide where to hire, equip or reorganise.
315
315
315
People invited · 14 branches and 2 factories
284
284
284
Interviews in three days · ≈90% participation
227
227
227
Improvement suggestions
28
28
28
Opportunities identified · three options to explore
A composite example based on Spentia engagements. Headcounts and amounts have been adjusted.
AT A GLANCE
Five workstreams.
Five decisions to make.
Five workstreams.
Five decisions to make.
Five workstreams.
Five decisions to make.
The plan builds on salespeople’s commitment, product and service expertise, cooperation with operations and proven local practices.
1 · Free up selling time. Record the requirement once, from the on-site trial to invoicing; define what a file must contain before handover to sales administration; establish one reporting view; automate CRM workflows. ≈ €690k/year
2 · Remove the quoting bottleneck. Set value-based thresholds, a fast track below the threshold and a guaranteed turnaround for product codes. ≈ €270k/year
3 · Deliver on the promise, from quote to cash. Appoint one process owner, check invoices against contracts before issue and require operations approval before committing to a date. ≈ €220k/year
4 · Train salespeople using the expertise of the best performers. Interviews with top salespeople become the onboarding programme, then a training assistant. ≈ €130k/year, plus earlier sales by new recruits
5 · Treat a salesperson’s warning like a customer complaint. Respond to every internal alert within 72 hours; flag missed service the next day, before the customer calls. ≈ €90k/year, plus avoided credit notes
These estimates total around €1.4m/year. Effects on cash collection, contract cancellations and stalled revenue are not added. Conservative estimates of expected annual gains once fully implemented.
Five proposed decisions for the executive team.
Five proposed decisions for the executive team.
1. Before recruiting: treat selling time as the scarce resource and train new recruits using the expertise of your best existing salespeople.
2. Before buying a quoting tool: segment the queue by value and delegate approval thresholds.
3. Before reorganising: appoint one quote-to-cash process owner and treat a salesperson’s warning like a customer complaint, starting in week one.
4. Before buying AI: place the data and AI roadmap under sales leadership.
5. Choose the first commercial opportunity to prototype within 90 days.
01 · THE CONTEXT
Busy salespeople, slower sales.
Busy salespeople, slower sales.
Busy salespeople, slower sales.
This mid-sized company sells and maintains industrial equipment. Two factories manufacture it and fourteen branches provide service. Every sale starts with a trial at the customer’s site, before the quote. Despite a new CRM, hiring and a structured sales method, orders grow more slowly than opportunities: quotes wait and invoices come back. Leadership wants to know what would free up selling time before investing more.
284 interviews cover around 90% of the scope. This composite case draws on several Spentia engagements: mechanisms and quotes are faithful to the original cases; headcounts and amounts have been adapted.
02 · THE EXECUTIVE DECISION BRIEF · FIVE PAGES TO SUPPORT DECISIONS
The decisions to make, in five pages.
The decisions to make, in five pages.
The decisions to make, in five pages.
The executive brief presents strengths to preserve, the causes of bottlenecks, their cost and proposed decisions. The full report details findings and calculations.
1. Strengths to preserve
1. Strengths to preserve
Salespeople shield customers from internal delays. Their product and service expertise keeps accounts loyal. Tensions with operations concern poor visibility, not personal conflicts. Some branches already have effective answers: prioritising interventions by customer impact or holding a weekly committee that cut product-code creation time by three quarters.
2. What holds the business back, and what it costs
2. What holds the business back, and what it costs
Bottlenecks account for around €2.2m/year in direct costs, using conservative estimates with no hours counted twice. Three mechanisms account for most of this cost.
≈ €1.31m/year · Diaries are full, but only a third of the week goes to customers. Salespeople and account managers re-enter data, search and chase: 6.3 hours per person per week after the conservative adjustment. Across 96 people, this is 605 hours a week, equivalent to seventeen 35-hour full-time roles and €1.11m. The remainder comes from duplicate entry in sales administration and sales managers rechecking figures. The theme appears in 187 of the 284 interviews. “A daily struggle with cumbersome procedures that waste an enormous amount of time.” (a salesperson)
- 96salespeople and account managers
- 6.3 hlost per person each week to data entry, searches and follow-ups
- 605 hper week: seventeen full-time equivalents
- 11full-time equivalents recovered through the first workstream, without hiring
≈ €470k/year · Every quote follows the same approval process, regardless of value. The assessment reveals dependence on one person for complex estimates and another for approval. With no separate approval routes, an €800 quote waits behind an €80,000 quote (101 interviews). “We send the offer long after the customer asks for it. That puts us at a disadvantage against competitors.” (a salesperson)
≈ €445k/year · Billing errors tie up salespeople and delay sales. Eight out of ten disputes start with an internal data-entry error. Credit notes take weeks, while salespeople reassure customers instead of selling (108 interviews). “The customer never sees the internal delays.” (an account manager)
Three findings · ≈ €2.2m/year
Three findings · ≈ €2.2m/year
Selling time — ≈ €1.31m/year
Quotes on hold — ≈ €470k/year
Billing bottlenecks — ≈ €445k/year
96 people × 6.3 hours = 605 hours/week ≈ 17 full-time roles absorbed. Workstream 1: 375 hours/week potentially recovered ≈ 11 roles.
Direct cost after removing double counting: ≈ €2.2m/year. Gross total before adjustment: ≈ €3.0m.
Calculations use conservative estimates, reducing reported time by 30%. Appendices B and C connect accounts to the calculation assumptions.
Calculation basis. A fully loaded hourly cost of €40, 46 working weeks, a conservative adjustment factor of 0.7 and results from 284 interviews extrapolated to 315 employees. Blocked revenue, cancellations, tied-up cash and lost deals remain outside the total.
3. The potential
3. The potential
From an estimated €2.2m/year in direct costs, the programme targets ≈ €1.27m/year recoverable (57%) at the rate reached at 12 months, plus ≈ €130k/year in new-hire payroll productivity, outside direct costs. The amount values recovered time at fully loaded cost. Additional meetings, orders and payments are excluded from these gains.
Workstream 1 aims to return 375 hours a week to salespeople and account managers, equivalent to eleven full-time roles. These hours go back to teams that already know the customers, without waiting to recruit and onboard new salespeople.
4. The five priority workstreams
4. The five priority workstreams
Impact and feasibility · five workstreams
Impact and feasibility · five workstreams
Qualitative positioning of the workstreams and their findings.
High impact · medium feasibility
Remove the quoting bottleneck: findings 2 and 4. Deliver on the promise: findings 3, 6, 7 and 12.
High impact · high feasibility
Free up selling time: findings 1, 5, 9 and 11.
Moderate impact · low feasibility
Variable pay: finding 10, a governance decision.
Moderate impact · high feasibility
Train using top performers’ expertise: finding 13. Act on internal alerts: finding 8.
Free up selling time. Record the requirement once, from the on-site trial to invoicing; standardise sales administration files; establish one reliable reporting view; automate CRM workflows. ≈ €690k, plus additional customer meetings
Remove the quoting bottleneck. Value-based thresholds, a fast track below the threshold, product codes within a guaranteed turnaround and assisted quoting. ≈ €270k, plus business won through faster responses
Deliver on the promise, from quote to cash. One process owner, invoice checks against contracts before issue, weekly review of uninvoiced quotes and operations approval before any date commitment. ≈ €220k, plus protected cash flow and contracts
Train salespeople using the practices of their best peers. Top performers explain how to prepare a trial, defend a price and secure approval. These practices feed the onboarding kit, then the training assistant. The goal: cut time to the first deal from six to three months. ≈ €130k in payroll made productive sooner (eight hires a year, three months saved each), plus deals signed earlier
Treat a salesperson’s alert like a customer complaint. Today, a customer complaint gets a response within hours, while an internal alert waits. The plan assigns an owner and a response within 72 hours to every alert. A missed service is reported the next day, before the customer calls. ≈ €90k in recovered selling time, plus avoided credit notes and protected contracts
Rounded gains from the five workstreams total ≈ €1.4m: ≈ €1.27m from direct costs (57%) and ≈ €130k from new recruits becoming productive sooner, outside the direct-cost total. Section 4.6 of the full report uses the same figure.
The programme targets an annualised gain of €405k/year at six weeks, €1.04m/year at six months and €1.4m/year at 12 months, for estimated cumulative implementation costs of €660k. These are the expected annual gains at the rate reached at each milestone. Payback depends on expenditure and the pace of implementation.
5. The five decisions
5. The five decisions
1 · Free up selling time before hiring. Appoint one owner for the data-entry process, from trial to invoice, and launch training in month 2. The workstreams target eleven full-time roles recovered and half the time to a first deal.
2 · Unblock approvals before buying a quoting tool. Separate quotes by value, delegate approvals and record the requirement once. Faster drafting would not remove the wait at the same approval point.
3 · Appoint one owner from quote to payment. From the first week: twenty minutes a day on blocked files, a contract-to-invoice check, dates approved by operations and a response to internal alerts within 72 hours. Every file has an owner and a deadline.
4 · Put sales leadership in charge of data and AI projects. Prepare governance and launch stage 1 in month 3, once workflows are corrected.
5 · Choose the first commercial opportunity to prototype within 90 days, from the three opportunities detailed in section 5 of the full report.
6. Conditions for success
6. Conditions for success
An executive team member sponsors the programme with sales teams.
Two weeks of measurement at the start establish the baseline: selling time, quoting lead times, billing errors and gaps between forecasts and results. Existing data makes the hours absorbed by teams visible, without adding data entry.
A monthly review tracks gains and unblocks pending actions.
A separate confidential channel lets people raise workload and fairness concerns.
The executive team has the costs, priorities and sequence needed to launch the first workstreams.
03 · THE FINDINGS
Thirteen findings linked to their causes.
Thirteen findings linked to their causes.
Thirteen findings linked to their causes.
The gross cost of bottlenecks totals around €3m. Removing hours counted under several findings gives a direct cost of €2.2m/year. Appendix B details the calculation.
No.
1
Type
Confirmation
Finding
Diaries are full, but only a third of the week goes to customers
Evidence strength
●●●●●
Priority
●●●●●
Direct cost
≈ €1.31m/year
No.
2
Type
New insight
Finding
Quoting and approval depend on two people, with no process matched to quote value
Evidence strength
●●●●○
Priority
●●●●●
Direct cost
≈ €470k/year
No.
3
Type
New insight
Finding
Dates promised without operations approval cause delays and rework
Evidence strength
●●●●○
Priority
●●●●○
Direct cost
(included in #1 and #6)
No.
4
Type
New insight
Finding
Product-code creation blocks quoting, ordering and billing in sequence
Evidence strength
●●●●○
Priority
●●●●●
Direct cost
(systemic)
No.
5
Type
Confirmation
Finding
Information entered for a sale is re-entered by sales administration, then billing
Evidence strength
●●●●●
Priority
●●●○○
Direct cost
(included in #1)
No.
6
Type
Confirmation
Finding
Billing problems return as disputes and credit notes, and salespeople have to resolve them
Evidence strength
●●●●●
Priority
●●●●○
Direct cost
≈ €445k/year
No.
7
Type
New insight
Finding
The sale is made but the money has not arrived: approved quotes never invoiced, invoiced services never delivered
Evidence strength
●●●○○
Priority
●●●●○
Direct cost
(systemic)
No.
8
Type
New insight
Finding
A customer complaint gets a quick response, while the same internal alert goes unanswered
Evidence strength
●●●●○
Priority
●●●●○
Direct cost
(amplifying factor)
No.
9
Type
Refinement
Finding
Duplicate entry and incomplete information limit the CRM, despite its replacement
Evidence strength
●●●●●
Priority
●●●●○
Direct cost
(included in #1)
No.
10
Type
Refinement
Finding
Variable pay rewards this month’s signed deal, not the service that retains the customer
Evidence strength
●●●○○
Priority
●●●○○
Direct cost
(systemic)
No.
11
Type
Confirmation
Finding
Qualification criteria and incomplete records steer prospecting towards unsuitable accounts
Evidence strength
●●●●○
Priority
●●●○○
Direct cost
(included in #1)
No.
12
Type
Confirmation
Finding
Monthly forecasts miss bottlenecks between quoting, delivery and billing
Evidence strength
●●●○○
Priority
●●○○○
Direct cost
(included in #3)
No.
13
Type
Confirmation
Finding
Sales onboarding delays new hires’ first deal by six months
Evidence strength
●●●●○
Priority
●●●●○
Direct cost
(amplifying factor)
Each category explains what the assessment adds. A confirmation quantifies a known difficulty. A discovery reveals a mechanism absent from current priorities: here, unapproved dates and unanswered internal alerts. A refinement redirects the response: replacing the CRM again would not fix duplicate entry and incomplete information.
Evidence strength: convergence of interview responses, measured by the number of interviews and diversity of functions reporting them. Priority: impact, feasibility and effects on other findings.
Finding 6 in detail: a billing error also blocks the next sale.
Finding 6 in detail: a billing error also blocks the next sale.
Finding 6 · How the error spreads
Today, errors are caught downstream, never upstream.
Checking the invoice against the contract before issue stops the error at the first link.
- Incomplete file or approximate reference
- Incorrect invoice
- Dispute
- Credit note awaiting approval
- New contracts on hold for the account
- The salesperson reassures instead of selling
- Trust eroded
- Cancellation at renewal
What teams say. This mechanism appears in 108 of 284 interviews: 11 of 11 in billing and collections, 31 of 35 account managers and 17 of 21 branch managers. An incomplete contract or wrong product code produces an incorrect invoice. The customer disputes it, the credit note awaits approval and new signings are blocked. Eight out of ten disputes have an internal cause. One pricing error inherited from the new CRM blocked an offer ready to sign for nearly two months.
“When information is missing, we do not always notice before invoicing. And when an invoice goes out with the wrong quantities, we have to issue a credit note.” (a billing administrator) “We need a precise check so we do not miss services the customer has scheduled and is paying for.” (a key account manager) “It brings the sales cycle to a halt. A few days lost can quickly push it into the following month.” (a salesperson)
What the figures show. Direct cost: around €445k/year. This includes €125k for disputes and credit notes, €195k in sales time and €125k in corrections by operations and sales administration. Credit-note value, tied-up cash, unbilled services and cancellations add to this. The report identifies the data needed to quantify them.
Why it happens. No check compares the contract with the invoice before issue. Finance or the customer detects the error later. The salesperson secures the correction and negotiates the credit note. Customer satisfaction can remain good, while the lost time goes unrecorded in the CRM.
How it spreads. Incomplete file → incorrect invoice → dispute → pending credit note → blocked new signings. The salesperson handles the dispute, trust deteriorates and renewal is at risk. Because internal alerts go unanswered until customers complain, workstream 5 assigns an owner and a response within 72 hours.
Indicators to track. First-issue invoice error rate; credit-note volume and value by cause; share of accounts in dispute; time from invoice to payment; and actions triggered by complaints rather than internal alerts over 90 days.
In what order should actions start?
In what order should actions start?
Each workstream prepares the next.
Free up time before hiring: workstream 1 returns hours to salespeople already in place. Fix quoting before automating it: faster drafting must not pile up files awaiting approval. Appoint an owner before reorganising: every blocked file needs a dated response.
The plan separates short, medium and long-term actions. From the first stage, it measures hours absorbed by teams. This baseline tracks gains even when customer indicators remain good.
Financial summary
Financial summary
Expected annual gain at this milestone, conservative estimate
End of week 6
≈ €405k
End of month 6
≈ €1.04m
End of month 12
≈ €1.4m
Share of direct costs (€2.2m)
End of week 6
~18%
End of month 6
~45%
End of month 12
~57%
Cumulative implementation cost
End of week 6
≈ €40k
End of month 6
≈ €280k
End of month 12
≈ €660k
Evidence level
End of week 6
Supported by evidence
End of month 6
Evidence-supported to inferred
End of month 12
Inferred to hypothetical
The share of direct costs excludes the €130k from workstream 4, which concerns new recruits’ payroll rather than lost hours within the assessment scope.
Three commercial opportunities to test.
Three commercial opportunities to test.
The 28 opportunities raised by teams fall into three groups. Here are the target markets and launch requirements.
Opportunity 1 · Packaged offers with service commitments. Two facts underpin the idea: around forty product codes generate 80% of revenue, and teams report customers effectively asking for “a firm price and lead time, without a new quote every time”. The market: small and mid-sized industrial businesses without large purchasing teams, for whom predictability is worth a discount. Prerequisites: a pricing reference maintained by a named owner (workstream 2) and product codes provided within a guaranteed turnaround (finding 4). First step: three packages, two willing branches, 90 days and no pricing commitment beyond the pilot. The pilot will test margins and customer interest before launch.
Opportunity 2 · Online customer tracking. A portal where customers track requests, service visits, invoices and credit notes: information they already request from account managers by phone.
Opportunity 3 · The availability contract. Bill for equipment availability in return for a multi-year commitment. Customers control their budgets and operations can plan workloads.
04 · AUTOMATION
What AI can take on,
activity by activity.
What AI can take on,
activity by activity.
What AI can take on,
activity by activity.
Prepare the organisation before deploying AI.
Prepare the organisation before deploying AI.
These AI projects concern the company’s activities; Aria conducts assessment interviews. Assisted quoting and CRM flows need current prices, requirements recorded once and complete files passed from sales to sales administration. AI can then search, compile and prefill reliable information.
Gains from stages 1–3 are already included in the programme totals. Stage 4 depends on the data and is excluded from the totals shown.
The four stages
The four stages
Stage
1 · Assisted quoting
Scope
Generate quotes from requirements recorded once and the pricing reference; assemble tender responses using approved clauses and references; check consistency of prices and product codes before sending
Timing
Months 3–6
Investment
€50–80k
Annual gain (conservative / realistic)
€120k / €180k
Stage
2 · CRM workflow automation
Scope
Prepare customer visits using customer history, service visits and invoices; suggest follow-ups and meeting notes; capture information once through dictation or extraction from exchanges; transfer orders automatically to the ERP
Timing
Months 6–10
Investment
€70–110k
Annual gain (conservative / realistic)
€160k / €240k
Stage
3 · The sales training assistant
Scope
Top salespeople’s practices form a knowledge base: preparing a trial, defending a price, handling an objection and securing approval. New hires ask questions in natural language and receive cited sources. The sales manager validates each scenario before publication.
Timing
Months 6–9
Investment
€40–70k
Annual gain (conservative / realistic)
€80k / €120k
Stage
4 · Workload and collections forecasting
Scope
Reconcile sales forecasts with production capacity; detect invoices at risk of dispute before issue; prioritise collections by risk
Timing
Months 10–15
Investment
€90–140k
Annual gain (conservative / realistic)
Dependent on data: hypothesis to validate
The salesperson remains responsible for the customer promise. AI prepares information, calculates costs and raises alerts. The salesperson approves the date, price and terms committed to the customer.
05 · WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
What action plan does your business need?
What action plan does your business need?
What action plan does your business need?
LET’S TALK
Which priority do you want to tackle?
In thirty minutes with a partner, clarify your needs and the scope involved. We explain what Spentia can offer.
Leave your contact details to arrange this conversation or request an example deliverable.
Prefer email? Write to us here
or get in touch on social media.
LET’S TALK
Which priority do you want to tackle?
In thirty minutes with a partner, clarify your needs and the scope involved. We explain what Spentia can offer.
Leave your contact details to arrange this conversation or request an example deliverable.
Prefer email? Write to us here
or get in touch on social media.
LET’S TALK
Which priority do you want to tackle?
In thirty minutes with a partner, clarify your needs and the scope involved. We explain what Spentia can offer.
Leave your contact details to arrange this conversation or request an example deliverable.
Prefer email? Write to us here
or get in touch on social media.