Term Paper on "Management and New Technology"

Term Paper 4 pages (1198 words) Sources: 1+ Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Management and New Technology

General Electrics' Lighting Division has consistently invested in technologies to streamline their channel management operations. The Lighting Division generates over 80% of its revenues from indirect channels, relying on distributors, resellers, partners, and service organizations to accomplish sales into key commercial accounts. In order to support channel partners and increase the sales of GE Lighting products with them globally, the division has created a series of channel management applications aimed at increasing channel partners' productivity. The span of support that must be delivered to channel partners including lead generation and escalation, pricing for standardized and exception products, training on new products and installation tips and techniques for existing products, and a comprehensive set of after-sales service and support applications. As the majority of distributors, resellers, partners, and service organizations are non-exclusive to GE Lighting, they can also resell competitive products. GE Lighting therefore is challenged with not only making them productive with their current sales levels, but also increasing their sales productivity and loyalty in the process. The strategic goal of bringing together the applications mentioned is aimed squarely at creating higher levels of sales productivity and as a result, loyalty, for GE Lighting products.

Current Technology Approaches in GE Lighting

At present GE Lighting Division relies on a series of Intranet sites created in Microsoft SharePoint for sharing leads, training materials, and service bullets. These are content management repositories and as a result of SharePoint's architecture allowing only for the publishing and sharing of information, GE Lighting's channel management team must send out many e-mails a day with links to documents that might of interest to resellers. There is no personalization, and given the SharePoint platform, no opportunity to add in new applications. In essence GE Lighting today has an electronic filing cabinet that allows for the storing and retrieval of documents only.

The senior management of GE Lighting has specifically set the following goals relating to their channel management strategies. First, at a minimum 25 leads a month need to be forwarded to each channel partner globally, with lead escalation logic applied to each. Lead escalation logic says that if the sales lead is not followed up on in 72 hours it will be sent to the next adjacent reseller in the general geographic area. Second, the channel management system needs to be able to respond to customized pricing inquiries and price exception requests automatically. Today this process takes 24 hours for a pricing inquiry through the Sales Operations Desk and 72 hours for a price exception to be created. While these processes have given GE Lighting the ability to win business, they are losing much more than they are winning due to competitors being faster to respond. Third, creating interactive learning materials and tools including online courses and OnDemand webinars specifically on complex installations of existing products and in-depth learning on new products is critical. Fourth, the need for being able to automatically generate Return Material Authorizations (RMAs) and have them tracked within the Services Systems is also a critical requirement. Fifth, the need for generating quotes that include both products and services is critical. All five of these objectives are difficult yet attainable when only SharePoint is used, yet the stress placed on processes is very significant. The many processes surrounding these five objectives would most likely slow down and possibly fail in certain instances. As a first step to these objectives however the many processes in each of these areas needs to be evaluated, re-designed for greater efficiency, and then selectively automated beyond a content management system like SharePoint that… READ MORE

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