Arevalo, J. and M. Birrell (2013). Using the load control mechanism as a focusing tool for sales and marketing. TOCICO International Conference: 11th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Bad Nauheim, Germany, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                The Rapid and Reliable Replenishment (RRR) Strategy and Tactic tree (S&T) explains the elements to build the capability to be remarkably reliable and to capitalize on it. The most important element in the capitalize part is the mechanism known as Load Control, where operations can provide sales with safe due dates, so that the company is very likely to meet any due date that sales promises to clients. There are situations where the offer has been effective but sales drop for a while. The impression could be that it is necessary to change the offer when it is just a fluctuation of the market. On the other hand a mechanism is required to provide the company and the sales force a constant and consistent view of the throughput generated by specific market segments and clients, when the company has many segmented product lines that are not interchangeable. In this presentation, the proposition is to use the Load Control mechanism also to buffer against fluctuations in demand; being paranoid but not hysterical. Additionally the load control by product line is connected to the sales activities and focus to determine where the company needs to dedicate its attention to ensure the best possible results.

 

Birrell, M. (August 5th, 2011). 'Safety net' concept - Between paranoia and hysteria. TOCICO Webinar Series. TOCICO, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                Sometimes, the sales department is pushed by their own objectives or finance to get more sales no matter what when sales start dropping and it seems that throughput may not cover operating expenses for a significant period. What is paranoia in such case?

 

Burkhard, R. (2013). Focus on the sourcing process. TOCICO International Conference: 11th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Bad Nauheim, Germany, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                We have all learned markets are almost always the constraint. Markets do not buy enough, at high enough prices to satisfy our goal of (sufficient) profit now and more in the future. To solve the problem we have learned to generate offers clients are (supposedly) unable to refuse. And yet, my impression is we are still a considerable distance from a 100% success rate with such offers. To discuss the problem I will review these issues: • A business will usually have other advantages than the things TOC brings to the table. These must not be forgotten when developing an offer for clients.  • Sales seem to forget that clients have a buying process that starts very early – at the time the need is recognized and well before requests for quotes are mailed. How purchasing and selling processes should align? • A sales person that can transform himself into a trusted advisor has a big advantage  • The entire organization is responsible for selling. All of the organization has significant impact.

 

Chung, N. (2009). Lead time management in a machinery manufacturing company. TOCICO International Conference: 7th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Tokyo, JP, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation describes a case of an implementation of a lead time management system in a company manufacturing/assembling machining-center. The production lead time of each product is responsive to the demand of the sales department. The drum buffer rope (DBR) production control system was implemented by reprogramming the existing ERP and APS systems. The transportation lead time is controlled by the location of inventory warehouses. The new approach is now anticipated to please both the sales and production departments.

 

Cohen, O. (2003). Incorporating TOC into sales management: A real case study. TOCICO International Conference: 1st Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Cambridge, England, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                The presentation describes the implementation of TOC in the sales function of an organization. The company sells/distributes services directly to the market through its direct sales force; there is no shortage in supplying the products; the sales force recruits the direct sales people; and there is no shortage of good direct sales people in the market.  The change sequence questions (What to change? To what to change to? and How to cause the change?) were applied in analyzing the company.  The answers to these questions are: What to change?: The way we plan the use of our resources and the supervision of the execution. To what to change?:  We plan, schedule and supervise the use of our resources systematically, using the five focusing steps. How to cause the change? We learn how to customize the ideas to our environment and we educate our people and support them with appropriate tools and help.

 

Ferguson, L. A. (March 6th, 2013). Introduction to marketing & sales. TOCICO Webinar Series. TOCICO, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                The TOC marketing and sales (M&S) solution is focused on enabling an organization to capitalize on a decisive competitive edge. The marketing application addresses how to create an 'un-refusable offer' for potential clients, one which provides a WIN for all. If this process is followed effectively, the probability of turning a prospect into a customer is high (not 100%). The sales process is geared to selling a solution, rather than a product or service, and is managed as a series of steps that flow well (in terms of lead time) with good conversion rates between each. The TOC M&S solution has resulted in an 80% (or higher) hit rate for some organizations. This session will cover some of the key elements of the TOC M&S solution.

 

Fondevila, E. and J. Fiallos (2013). Institutionalization. formality in processes by introducing SOPs as a powerful mechanism to guide the process of building, capitalizing and sustaining the decisive competitive edge during a Viable Vision implementation. TOCICO International Conference: 11th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Bad Nauheim, Germany, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                Through this presentation we will describe how, utilizing the strategy and tactics (S&T tree) as guidance, we built a TOC SOP (standard operating procedure) IMPLEMENTATION MANUAL as a robust mechanism that helps every individual of the company to get quickly engaged with the process of building, capitalizing and sustaining the decisive competitive edge. We will go through every aspect detailed in the Manual built with the purpose of focusing management attention by assuring a continuous flow through the implementation process: - Objectives: The sales system’s purpose using the S&T’s logic. - related documents: documents built/used to support the implementation. - detailed processes: every step of the process and related documents needed. - policies involved: to introduce TOC principles on the bureaucracy of the company. - Key performance indicators (KPI’s): scorecard of internal and external KPI’s that measures performance of the system. As we recognize management attention as the main constraint of companies, we developed this tool to simplify and standardize the implementation process making it easier to reach harmony by generating stability and growth at the same time.  Once this manual is established as the principal guide for the implementation, it becomes a source for continuous improvement and closes the gaps between the focus on short-term versus long-term horizons.

 

Ghoshal, S. and J. Pun (2010). How marketing changed operations in a restaurant. TOCICO International Conference: 8th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Las Vegas, NE, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation illustrates how the organization was transformed from a traditionally run restaurant to one of the most efficient restaurants with big improvements in quality and customer service. This restaurant chain is possibly the only one in the whole of Mexico to give a mafia offer to its customers both on time and quality.

 

Gilani, R. (2003). Increasing cash for manufacturing  organizations through theory of constraints. TOCICO International Conference: 1st Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Cambridge, England, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation describes situations where cash is the constraint and actions that will eliminate that constraint.  Some cash draining practices of cash starved organizations are purchasing more than immediate requirements to take advantage of quantity discount; combining supplies to get freight advantage; producing more than immediate requirements for better capacity utilization; not selling obsolete material below purchase price / book value.  Exploiting a cash constraint means rotating the cash faster: reduce cash to cash cycle time; reduce cash collection time (Receivables); reduce manufacturing lead time (not processing time), and thereby WIP, and FG inventory; reduce supplier lead time, and thereby RM inventory.  Do not waste idle cash in the form of surplus / obsolete material and equipment. Exploiting the cash constraint means shrinking collection time, raw materials lead time, shrinking manufacturing lead time.  Exploiting the cash constraint also means selling surplus / obsolete materials.

 

Goldratt, E. M. (2005). Success through simplicity. TOCICO International Conference: 3rd Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Barcelona, Spain, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation covers, in depth, the following subjects: 1. The bottleneck is clearly, persuading companies to properly embark on a holistic implementation.  We believe that the Goldratt Group succeeded in developing a good enough answer.  Therefore, I will delve, in particular, into: a) The process of using Viable Vision as the main element in properly igniting the interest of a company. b) The details of the process to achieve top management consensus. c) The essential details and logic of what make the necessary and sufficient offer such a compelling win-win (and how easily some deviations turn it into nothing). 2. Our efforts in the last two years have brought to our attention that the distribution application is by far more central to most organizations than previously perceived.  Unfortunately, the logic and mechanism of this application is the least known and is barely understood. Therefore I will delve into the detailed logic and practice of the TOC distribution solution.  For that I will use extensively the INSIGHTS. This will also enable me to explain the power of this new set of tools in almost every aspect of the process. 3. The structure and mode of operation of the Goldratt Group and our terms and conditions for win-win-win collaboration.

 

Goldratt, E. M. (2006). The strategy and tactics tree Day 2 (upgrade workshop) cont. TOCICO International Conference: 4th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Miami, Fl, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                The presentation continues with the strategy and tactics tree (S&T) and discusses how to build leads for sales. When quantities increase by an order of magnitude it is not enough to increase capacity, new processes of support, control and measurement are needed.    Went a company brings in 2-3 clients a year lead opportunism is good enough. But a process is needed when sales must grow fast.  There is a sufficient and constant flow of qualified leads going into the buffer of the sales funnel.  Having a decisive competitive edge offers a way to keep the buffer full. The characteristics of a person that can build a good lead generator are not the same as a good sales person.    Sales are a multi-project environment, bad multitasking is prevalent.  Measurements can force a person to do the wrong thing.  Remove measurements from people that do the wrong thing.

 

Goldratt, R. (2003). Solutions for sales: Logistics and requirements. TOCICO International Conference: 1st Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Cambridge, England, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation describes a three-day workshop.  Three to five team presentations are worked on in the workshop with at least one participant for each presentation group being knowledgeable about the client.  Each participant works on an offer to a specific prospect with whom a meeting is scheduled. The content of the workshop includes 1. What is a sale (characteristics of a major sale; practical approach to major sales; and the sales cycle)? 2.  Analysis of the current status (Identifying a prospect; Analyzing the prospect’s problems; Communicating the prospect’s problems; and Building the bridge from the problem to the solution). 3. Presenting the offer. 4. Obtaining commitment. Each point is outlined in detail.  The sales cloud is presented: A Close the sale B Avoid objections D Not present the product and its qualities at the initial stage B Raise the prospect’s interest. D’ Present the product and its qualities at the initial stage.  The solution is therefore before presenting the product an agreement must be reached about the problem and its magnitude.  Each step in the process is described: Introduction, Analysis of the current situation, Present the offer; and Obtain commitment. Forms are provided for estimating the impact of the problem on the organization, building a generic cloud, etc. The procedures for each step are listed.

 

Goldratt, R. (2006). Advances in the TOC sales and marketing (SFS) body of knowledge. TOCICO International Conference: 4th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Miami, Fl, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation describes the solution for sales (SFS) expert and the SFS process, the vendor managed inventory (VMI) offer for a steel company, the distribution offer to distributors and retailers, and the inventory turns offer to contract manufacturers. Three case studies are presented: 1. A VMI offer of a steel company to an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) client; 2. A distribution offer proposed to distributors in a massive network; 3. A Chinese company servicing brand owners from around the world (inventory turns offer).  SFSco provides Viable Vision (VV) clients solutions; the SFS expert is defined.   The real challenge is to sell the SFS offer to the sales force.  The SFS process consists of assignment, preparation, ramp-up, and implementation (ready-set-go).  The different types of offers are discussed. For example, the VMI offer is discussed including appropriate environments, manufacturers grant business for proven excellent availability coupled with lower inventory and less hassle at good prices; and the offer is based on actual consumption data (not orders); we manage the client’s inventory, guaranteeing 100% availability with less than half the inventory.

 

Hodgdon, B. (2004). How to ensure success with compelling offer. TOCICO International Conference: 2nd Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Miami, FL, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                Increasing the sales productivity of TOC consultants to help the attendees understand what they must do to cause sales.  They can use the principles to create sales in their own businesses and to also help their clients create sales.  Key learning points include: 1. How to create sales opportunities. 2. The two causes of sales success. 3. How to measure and manage both causes. 4. What you must know about your clients to insure their success (and yours).

 

Hodgdon, B. (2009). Strategy and tactics for selling a TOC robust solution. 1st Annual North American Regional TOCICO Conference, Tacoma, WA, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation is not about the strategy and tactics tree or a Viable Vision. This presentation covers the profile of the right businesses; business results premise; buying influences; universal buying cycle; launching the offer-strategy; winning the sale-where to begin; winning the sale-building the trust; and a winning proposal.  Some points are strategies and some are tactics.  The business profile where this model of selling fits: the business sells to other business; the 80/20 rule applies to their revenue; a sales force is required (direct or indirect); more than one person must be sold; and the sale is rarely closed in the first call.  Each point is discussed in some detail providing both strategies and tactics. The universal buying cycle is described.  In summary, a robust solution doesn’t sell itself, assumptions for salespeople must be explicit; choose easy accounts first to test the process; call on all buying influences, trust is built by what is learned; and selling is not telling-selling is learning.

 

Klarman, A. and R. Klapholz (2007). The cash machine. TOCICO International Conference: 5th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Las Vegas, NV, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation describes the role of sales management as managing your own sales (time management, negotiation skills, product/process learning, customer calls, closing skills, account profiling, etc.) or managing your people (sales force/sales operation) and the tasks of the sales force manager. The current belief that a good salesman equals a good sales manager is dispelled.  The problem is that the sales manager focuses on the sales, not the sales operation and the sales process is an island in the company. The traditional approach to sales management is described as mission impossible. The systematic approach of TOC applied to the sales process consists of applying the five focusing steps to selling process of selection, qualification, needs assessment, letter of understanding, presentation demo, solution proposal and technical check, production demo, quotation submission, negotiation, and closing. The sales funnel concept is outlined and an example provided illustrating the traditional approach and the TOC approach.  Approaches to improving the steps are provided considering that step is the constraint. The focus of this presentation is on shortening the sales cycle or making the constraint more efficient with TOC. The problems of multitasking are illustrated.  Reasons for the end-of-quarter syndrome are provided. The prospect-to-order chain (and steps) and the prospect-to-cash chain (and steps) are described and illustrated using the five focusing steps.

 

Krishna, A. and K. Kothekar (2007). Decisive competitive edge in auto after market. TOCICO International Conference: 5th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Las Vegas, NV, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation describes the implementation of theory of constraints across the Fleetguard supply chain in India. Fleetguard makes filters, filtration systems and coolants.  Fleetguard is backward integrated to media (paper), sheet metal, tools and dies, rubber components, coolant blending and adhesives.  The supply chain consists of 5 plants, institutional customers, original equipment (OE) customers, OE first fit customers, OE spares, after market of a 14 distribution warehouse network, 90 distributors and 5,000 retailers.  Fleetguard had a high market share in all markets therefore a Viable Vision was not possible (according to Goldratt).  Fleetguard had limited growth potential in the OEM channel but unlimited growth in aftermarket particularly if the range of products and geographic market (reach) were not restricted.  The aftermarket of small fleet owners was serviced by the 90 distributors.  The current and future reality trees of the aftermarket are provided.  The primary measure of the distributor is return on investment (in inventory from a company).  Step 2.1 Inventory turns competitive edge is presented.  Level 4 of tactics of build (produce to availability), capitalize (proposal design inventory turns offer, value selling, and sales funnel management) and sustain (capacity elevation) are discussed.  The components of plant operations, the results and negatives to build to availability; the components of distribution, the impact, the obstacles, the paradigm shifts and sales role to capitalize in sales, the unrefusable offer to distributors, and the results are discussed.  New product development was critical to capitalizing on the aftermarket.

 

Lang, L. (2008). Achieving success with a mafia offer - lessons learned. TOCICO International Conference: 6th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Las Vegas, NE, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation provides the definition and benefits of a mafia offer; the background providing our experience with clients; the six most common problems and solutions; other lessons learned and the results of mafia offers.  A mafia offer is an offer that meets a client’s significant need to the extent that no significant competitor can. (Dr. Eli Goldratt)  A mafia offer is an offer so good, that your customers can’t refuse it and your competition can’t or won’t offer the same.   The mafia offer should increase sales and profits significantly and guide the strategy and tactics for the entire organization.  The mafia offer boot camp is described.  The six common problems include how your offer is presented; getting in to make your mafia offer presentation; the number of prospects; risk, paranoia, too good to be true; your target market; and quality / lead-time / DDP / customer service.  Lisa provides a case study illustrating the problems and solutions.

 

Lang, L. (2012). Mafia offers: Dealing with a market constraint. TOCICO International Conference: 10th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Chicago, Il, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                In this presentation, Dr. Lisa gives a quick overview of her mafia offer chapter (#22) in the Theory of Constraints Handbook and emphasizes the points most people miss.  The remaining time is devoted to a hands-on application with exercises from her mafia offer boot camp and Q&A.  Read the chapter, bring your questions and come prepared to challenge your thinking!

 

Lang, L. (February 14th, 2011). Mafia offers - Ask the expert. TOCICO Webinar Series. TOCICO, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                Chapter 22 of the Theory of Constraints Handbook is Mafia Offers:  Dealing with a Market Constraint.  During this Q&A webinar with Dr Lisa you can ask questions about the chapter or about mafia offers in general.  This is a rare opportunity to ask the expert about YOUR mafia offer or implementation challenges!

 

Lang, L. (Nov. 16th, 2011). Mafia offers Q & A session. TOCICO Webinar Series. TOCICO, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                Create a market offer so good, your customers can’t refuse it and your competition can’t or won’t offer the same – that’s a ‘mafia offer’!  A 'mafia offer' sounds like something out of a movie, not something that could actually allow you to increase and control your sales.  It turns out that mafia offers are possible for the majority of companies.  The reason that most companies don’t know that they have one or know what it is, is because they just don’t know how to develop them.  If you read Dr. Goldratt’s book It’s Not Luck or one of the other Theory of Constraints (TOC) books, you read about how we use cause-and-effect logic (also called Theory of Constraints Thinking Processes) about your customers, your industry, and about your company to create the offer.  You also know that it’s not easy to do.  Join this Q&A webinar to ask Dr. Lisa questions on how to develop mafia offers. This is a Q&A session only...no presentation will be provided, so come prepared with your questions!  Please read Chapter 22 of the TOC Handbook to help prepare for this webinar.

 

Lang, L. and J. Roff-Marsh (2009). A mafia offer meets 10 times the volume of sales appointments. 1st Annual North American Regional TOCICO Conference, Tacoma, WA, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                Justin and Dr. Lisa get asked (almost) daily if Justin’s approach to sales (sales process engineering) complements Dr. Lisa’s approach to marketing (mafia offers). Of course, the answer’s yes: philosophically we’re both coming from the same (TOC) place, so how could our approaches possibly be in conflict? But the practical implementation – and integration – of these two approaches is the really interesting subject to explore. And that’s the purpose of this session.

 

Lang, L. and B. Stillahn (2013). 5 major marketing mistakes. TOCICO International Conference: 11th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Bad Nauheim, Germany, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                5 Major Marketing Mistakes:  Marketing is connecting with your target market and showing them you have the stuff that solves their problem or delivers better outcomes/ results, explaining it to them where they can be found and helping them to buy it.  Here are 5 major marketing mistakes: 1. Not selecting a target market or niche. • Your target market is the people you want to sell to along with the products/ services you sell.  People with specific needs and the specific stuff they need equal a target market. • UDEs will only make sense to your market IF they are really THEIR UDEs. • The TOC Buy-In process is missing layer 0.  It’s very difficult to gain buy-in from an unknown, un-described, entity. • If your target market is not specific enough, they won’t relate.  The more specific and targeted your market, the more you can talk directly to them and in their language. • Where do you make the most Throughput for the least amount of your capacity? • What are your under exploited assets? • Opportunity is  … a need to be fulfilled … a want to be addressed … a fear to be relieved … a problem that needs to be solved.  For opportunity to flourish there needs to be an identifiable group that will buy it and a profitable way to contact and engage the target market. • When most hunters go out to hunt, they think like hunters.  When a master goes out to hunt, he thinks like a deer. • Knowing what your market really wants and who they really are is very important.  Communicating where they’re at without making them wrong is important, while pushing their emotional hot buttons.  Rationality is used as a tool to support the emotional. • Write your marketing to ONE very specific person (your Avatar – a member of your target market). • Market WHERE they hang out and in the way (type of media) they hang out. 2. Not measuring at all or not measuring the right things. • In operations we can physically see constraints.  In marketing we don’t have this ability – we need data. • What’s working for you – twitter, LinkedIn, website, webinars, direct mail, Facebook, Interest, article writing, PPC, retargeting, blog posts, TV, banner ads, podcasts, cold calls, video marketing, leaving comments, mobile marketing, email marketing, or what? • How many leads do you generate?  By what method(s)?  What is your conversion rate at each step of your sales inversion process? • What’s your sales conversion process?  Retention process?  • What’s your upsell and/or post sale process? • What do you spend on marketing and what ROI does each generate?  (BTW your ROIs will be much better if you have a specific target market.) • When calculating your ROI, consider both time and money. • If you don’t know these numbers, how will you know where to focus your efforts and what to improve? • Testing is how we improve our marketing.  What to test, in what order depends on what your measures are indicating. ?  Test your message - wording, pictures, colors, placement, fonts  ? Test the medium - direct mail, ads, videos, webinars, closing techniques ? Test your sales process ? Test where/ how your make your offers, as well as, the specifics of your offer • The ability to turn floods of information into real knowledge has become one of today’s most valuable resources.   3. Not understanding what you’re selling. • It’s not about you or your product/service. • It’s about them and the outcome or better results they’re seeking. • The customer doesn’t want products, services or techniques – they want an outcome! • People want value.  The way we offer them value is in the form of results which is in the form of our products or services. • Selling a tangible, measurable results that the customer can expect to experience in the real world dramatically increases the price you can charge.  • We want high value products/ services that are tailored to our customers needs so that they say to themselves – I never knew someone could understand this at this level.  • If you don’t understand your target market (#1) nor what you’re selling, then you have no chance of knowing what competitive advantage to create or what mafia offer to make. 4. Doing nothing to generate leads.  Thinking that hope and a website are a strategy. • The more you can spend to get a lead, the less you have to worry about competition. • There are lots of ways to generate leads.  Which is best depends on your situation.  That’s why testing is so important. • You can start by seeing what competitors are doing.  If they are using a particular lead generation method for more than 4 months, they are probably getting an ROI from it. • Draw your funnel and track the data. • There are 3 ways to GROW a business.  1) increase the number of customers; 2) increase the T per transaction; and 3) increase the frequency of purchase or repurchase. 5. Push marketing instead of pull marketing. • Leverage applies in marketing just as it applies in operations.  It costs you the same to send out a flier that gets a 1% response rate or a 10% response rate.  By working on the right things in your marketing you greatly increase your leverage. • Getting prospects to seek YOU out and/or realize 'I need help' is pull marketing. • Spewing everything you know out to your market is about you, not your customer.  • Your marketing should itself be valuable.  Give away some of your best stuff. • Get people to act NOW. • Give your prospects ? results in advance. • Call out the elephant in the room. • Repurpose content.  • Inherent simplicity applies in marketing too.  People want simple ideas, not complex ones.  Influential writing is not about writing better, it’s about simplifying things in a better way. • Without a detailed avatar of who you are marketing/ writing to/ for, and what makes them tick, you are engaging in blind target shooting.

 

Matsuno, T. (2009). Hitachi Tool case study. TOCICO International Conference: 7th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Tokyo, JP, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation is organized as follows: corporate profile, products, the production 50 project, why TOC, TOC’s effect, example-drill project, summary and TOC next step: the 7 days production.  Hitachi manufactures and sells tips, cutting tools, wear-resistant products, tools for urban development and various machine tools made of special steels, carbide alloys, etc. End mills account for about 60-70% of sales, drills and lathe turning tools are also produced.  Hitachi has 2.5% of world market; however profits are very high. The supply chain in Japan was described.  Even if you reduce the tool costs, then you see only a little effect on the customer. Though we charge a higher price production 50 allowed us to reduce processing time for the customer by 50%.  The journey of applying TOC to the drill bit market is explained; the product is a low-priced, low-margin product; the plant lost money for a couple years after entering the market.  We looked at the solution for sales (SFS) and found that drill breakage while in the drill hole was the biggest pain point for the customer.  We focused on those customers that have this pain point.  We rehearsed the role play.  We held a sales promotion meeting for our staff.  We gave the staff the mafia offer.  Sales increased rapidly.  Sales tripled in 2007.  In this recession our production line is still busy.  The business became profitable in 2007; now exporting to Europe.  The unrefusable offer (URO) was the basis for selling to the customer.  TOC also taught us how to reduce lead time and more importantly how to think.  Our next goal is to produce the product in 7 days; before production lead time was 60 days.

 

Pass, S. and B. Ronen (2004). TOC for market-constrained organizations. TOCICO International Conference: 2nd Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Miami, FL, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation shows a new structured methodology for increasing throughput in a market-constrained organization. The key learning points are:  1. A structured methodology for increasing throughput in a market-constrained organizations. 2. New notions such as permanent bottlenecks, strategic gating and tactical gating. Benefits to attendees include: 1.  How to apply TOC  to market-constrained organizations. 2. Learn how to increase throughput via better managing sales and marketing staff.

 

Rhind, B. (2006). Achieving breakthrough sales at Prince Manufacturing Corporation. TOCICO International Conference: 4th Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Miami, Fl, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                The organization of this presentation is to provide a description of Prince Manufacturing and its problems, the theory of constraints solution, the implementation approach, the results and the lessons learned.  Prince Manufacturer was formed in 1950 and now has five plants making welded and tie-rod cylinders, mono block and sectional valves, pumps and low speed, high torque motors (ISO 9001 certified). They sell direct to large original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and use 18 distributors for small OEMs and catalog sales.  The company experienced minimal growth and flat profitability over the past 3 years.   They investigated TOC as they were frustrated with the status quo; they intuitively knew there was a better way as they had some knowledge of The Goal, and wanted to consider that a Viable Vision (VV) might exist.  The TOC solution included: guaranteed on-time availability and rapid response. The secondary offer to distributors was vender managed inventory (VMI) and availability of high volume products.   The solution for sales steps of the SFS process consisted of creating the offer, synchronization between operations and sales, training, delivering the offer, managing the pipeline and leveraging the offer are described in detail for each market segment.  Results include offers accepted grew from less than 20% to over 80%.  The pipeline expanded 10 fold in six months.  The solution for sales now represents 70% of current sales.  Lessons learned include: sales can never start too early, not all sales people are equal, identify and implement measures early, etc.

 

Roff-Marsh, J. (2004). Building a high throughput sales process (white paper also). TOCICO International Conference: 2nd Annual Worldwide Gathering of TOC Professionals, Miami, FL, Goldratt Marketing Group.

                This presentation describes a radical approach to managing a sales force with five scheduled appointments, five days a week; appointments prioritized according to probability yield, the use of an opportunity buffer maintained without sales personnel involvement and the elimination of budgets, targets, bonuses and commissions.  The new approach is contrasted against the traditional sales management approach and described in detail giving broad results.

 

Roff-Marsh, J. (March 31st, 2011). How to use social media to generate sales opportunities for professional services. TOCICO Webinar Series. TOCICO, Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization.

                When Justin Roff-Marsh emigrated to the US to launch a subsidary of his consulting firm, he under-estimated how difficult it would be to generate sales opportunities in this mature and hyper-competitive market. He quickly discovered that traditional marketing approaches -- even those that work well for his firm's clients -- simply failed to work (these include, public relations, house events, trade shows and targetted direct mail campaigns). Fortunately, as a result of a year of frantic experimentation, Justin arrived at a lead-generation formula that is both low-cost and remarkably effective. In this webinar he will chart his journey of discovery and detail the formula.  Although this formula incorporates social media (Justin has transitioned from a skeptic to an reserved evangelist) it does not require the kind of all-in commitment that other evangelists are advocating. Justin will describe an approach that involves just the bare essentials (no Facebooking, Tweeting or blogging for the sake of blogging!)  As well as describing a do-it-yourself approach -- and laying bare his own costs and statistics -- Justin will be sure to allocate enough time for a question-and-answer session.