Cross Selling or Cross Purposes?

Author: Ford Harding

Cross Selling is not Working

TopTek recently acquired a consulting and systems-integration firm, expecting to profit from the software sales that can naturally flow from consulting engagements. However, the integrated organization is not working as effectively as the two companies did when they were separate. TopTek’s consultants and salespeople are trying to work together but, judging by complaints from top customers, are doing a poor job. 

From the case, I was able to see the difficulties generated by cross-selling activity from a customer perspective and contrasts the customer experience when the two parts of the business collaborate and when they compete. It is important for a company to develop coherent offerings for the customer, segment them appropriately according to what they look for, and ensure that there is a shared organizational understanding of the growth strategy of the combined business, such as TopTek in this case.

(http://hbr.org/product/cross-selling-or-cross-purposes-hbr-case-study)

Key Issues

• They are not working towards a common goal. As a cross-functional company, they need to work together in order to maximize their sales. If they communicate better and work as one same company, they would succeed. 
• The consultants are unhappy because commissions on products they sell go to the salesperson that made the original sale.
• The sales force is also unhappy because they believe that consultants don’t help much in winning new business.
• They need to clarify how new business is to be obtained and how existing business is to be retained and expanded. Once this point is reach, they can make each employee accountable for what they do and give back to the company.

The CEO needs to state the company’s new, twofold value proposition, the consultants need to broaden their knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of the products and technologies, and the salespeople need to adopt a solutions approach.

CEO Point of View

What can possibly be going wrong? We are a very successful company with outstanding sales personnel,   we just acquired and merged with one of the top consulting and systems-integration firms, but we still can't generate the profit that we want and we are loosing our customers!

From what I've heard, sales and consulting personnel are not getting along and simply can not work together. They are constantly fighting over the commissions and they are not performing as they did when we were separate firms. How can I solve this?

I should probably hire a qualified manager who can help me serve as a liaison between the two of them and help them collaborate with each other. We need to set a common goal, and having someone in charge of doing that will help me solve this issue and take some pressure off my shoulders. Or perhaps, it simply was a bad idea to merge the two companies. This might have been a bad idea and we may be facing critical times in our company now. I need to have a meeting with the executive board to discuss this thoroughly.