Aligning Strategy and Sales
- Dates: 28 JAN–02 FEB 2024
- Format: In-Person Learning takes place on the HBS campus or a designated location.
- Location: HBS Campus
- Fee: $16,000
Firms must have a strategy that's relevant today and tomorrow, not yesterday.
Firms must have a strategy that's relevant today and tomorrow, not yesterday.
Summary
A company's sales organization is a core vehicle for implementing business strategy—yet there's often a big gap between the company's strategic objectives and the way its sales organization actually functions. In this program, you will examine the critical relationship between business strategy and sales activities and discover how to synchronize your strategic priorities, go-to-market initiatives, and sales team to boost revenue and long-term success.
This program is eligible for the Certificate of Management Excellence. Learn More
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Summary
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A company's sales organization is a core vehicle for implementing business strategy—yet there's often a big gap between the company's strategic objectives and the way its sales organization actually functions. In this program, you will examine the critical relationship between business strategy and sales activities and discover how to synchronize your strategic priorities, go-to-market initiatives, and sales team to boost revenue and long-term success.
This program is eligible for the Certificate of Management Excellence. Learn More
DetailsExpand AllCollapse All
Develop a strategic sales approach optimized for your businessDevelop a strategic sales approach optimized for your business
- Define your target customers and the best methods for reaching them
- Develop account management and segment management strategies based on customer profitability
- Build and nurture the best sales talent and go-to-market approach for each product or segment
- Translate your corporate strategy into sales strategies, tasks, and processes
Build a high-impact sales team and supporting activities to drive your strategy forwardBuild a high-impact sales team and supporting activities to drive your strategy forward
- Ensure that sales recruitment, development, compensation, and performance management systems support corporate strategy
- Coordinate sales activities across different sales groups and throughout the enterprise
- Establish a flexible approach that enables you to readjust strategies as needed in a changing marketplace
Expand your personal and professional networkExpand your personal and professional network
- Extend your network by living and working with accomplished executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries across the globe
- Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business challenges and career decisions
Develop a strategic sales approach optimized for your business
- Define your target customers and the best methods for reaching them
- Develop account management and segment management strategies based on customer profitability
- Build and nurture the best sales talent and go-to-market approach for each product or segment
- Translate your corporate strategy into sales strategies, tasks, and processes
Build a high-impact sales team and supporting activities to drive your strategy forward
- Ensure that sales recruitment, development, compensation, and performance management systems support corporate strategy
- Coordinate sales activities across different sales groups and throughout the enterprise
- Establish a flexible approach that enables you to readjust strategies as needed in a changing marketplace
Expand your personal and professional network
- Extend your network by living and working with accomplished executives from various backgrounds, industries, and countries across the globe
- Build relationships with a diverse group of peers who can provide wide-ranging insights into your business challenges and career decisions
Who Should Attend
- Executive decision-makers who are responsible for defining, communicating, hiring, managing, budgeting for, and measuring a company's go-to-market strategy and sales efforts, such as:
- Executives in sales, strategy, business development, distribution, marketing, HR, finance, service, or general management
- Executives in business-to-business product or service companies—or business units of large enterprises—that depend on a direct sales force for all or part of their revenue
- Executives from venture capital or private equity firms who assist portfolio companies with go-to-market and business development efforts, as well as leaders of those portfolio companies
Attendance by multiple company representatives will foster teamwork and amplify the program's impact. Because the process of mapping sales efforts to strategy requires cooperation among executives from diverse functions, a team of participants might include executives responsible for finance, marketing, business development, customer service (pre- or post-sale), human resources, and product- or service-line management.
Program for Leadership Development participants earn 5 PLDA Points on completion of this program.
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Who Should Attend
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- Executive decision-makers who are responsible for defining, communicating, hiring, managing, budgeting for, and measuring a company's go-to-market strategy and sales efforts, such as:
- Executives in sales, strategy, business development, distribution, marketing, HR, finance, service, or general management
- Executives in business-to-business product or service companies—or business units of large enterprises—that depend on a direct sales force for all or part of their revenue
- Executives from venture capital or private equity firms who assist portfolio companies with go-to-market and business development efforts, as well as leaders of those portfolio companies
Attendance by multiple company representatives will foster teamwork and amplify the program's impact. Because the process of mapping sales efforts to strategy requires cooperation among executives from diverse functions, a team of participants might include executives responsible for finance, marketing, business development, customer service (pre- or post-sale), human resources, and product- or service-line management.
Program for Leadership Development participants earn 5 PLDA Points on completion of this program.
Dive Deeper into the Experience
See how exchange with faculty and peers yields new insights into critical business trends.
Thrive in a learning environment that welcomes diverse ideas and perspectives.
Global perspectives > Leadership growth > Organizational impact.
Learning and Living at HBS
When you participate in an Executive Education program on the HBS campus, you enter an immersive experience where every aspect of the learning model has been carefully designed to facilitate your growth. Your learning will take place on your own, in your living group, and in the larger classroom, driven by the renowned HBS case method.
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Learning and Living at HBS
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When you participate in an Executive Education program on the HBS campus, you enter an immersive experience where every aspect of the learning model has been carefully designed to facilitate your growth. Your learning will take place on your own, in your living group, and in the larger classroom, driven by the renowned HBS case method.
Admissions Criteria and Process
Answering Your Questions
Application Submission
Application Review
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
Answering Your Questions
Application Submission
Application Review
Fee, Payment, and Cancellations
What You Will Learn
In a dynamic combination of classroom presentations, case studies, small group discussions, and structured workshops, you'll examine the connections among business strategy, sales processes, and the rest of the company. With insight into how successful companies focus, empower, and enhance their sales organizations, you’ll be prepared to overcome obstacles to growth and attain new levels of revenue.
Participants should expect to spend at least 9-12 hours on self-paced case preparation prior to attending the program. Case materials will be made available approximately two weeks prior to program start.
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What You Will Learn
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In a dynamic combination of classroom presentations, case studies, small group discussions, and structured workshops, you'll examine the connections among business strategy, sales processes, and the rest of the company. With insight into how successful companies focus, empower, and enhance their sales organizations, you’ll be prepared to overcome obstacles to growth and attain new levels of revenue.
Participants should expect to spend at least 9-12 hours on self-paced case preparation prior to attending the program. Case materials will be made available approximately two weeks prior to program start.
Key TopicsExpand AllCollapse All
Moving from a strategic vision to an integrated selling planMoving from a strategic vision to an integrated selling plan
- Setting a strategic foundation for sustaining sales success
- Defining how your products and services deliver value to customers
- Identifying customers presenting the most opportunity and the most risk, and how this impacts programs, people, incentives, and behaviors
- Differentiating your offerings from those of competitors and substitutes
- Developing and enforcing rational companywide pricing and discount policies
- Determining the revenue mix and allocating resources appropriately
- Identifying the desired customer, along with goals for acquisition, retention, and up-selling
- Establishing the right mix of sales channels, from direct sales teams to resellers to e-commerce and beyond
- Articulating, communicating, and refining the strategic vision and selling plan
Building your sales organization to match your strategy Building your sales organization to match your strategy
- Defining sales tasks and optimal selling behavior
- Establishing the right recruitment criteria and adjusting hiring practices to meet sales requirements
- Driving desired performance through training, compensation, measurement, and evaluation
- Empowering and leveraging talented sales managers
- Building the competency of your sales team on an ongoing basis
- Mobilizing functional areas to work together smoothly to optimize sales performance
- Understanding how your company culture helps or hinders selling
Creating the optimal infrastructure and processesCreating the optimal infrastructure and processes
- Transforming corporate strategies into effective account management
- Minimizing channel conflict as your offerings and the market evolve
- Setting realistic goals and forecasting effectively
- Maximizing the value of sales information systems for account management and compensation
- Using feedback from customers and sales representatives to adjust processes
Moving from a strategic vision to an integrated selling plan
- Setting a strategic foundation for sustaining sales success
- Defining how your products and services deliver value to customers
- Identifying customers presenting the most opportunity and the most risk, and how this impacts programs, people, incentives, and behaviors
- Differentiating your offerings from those of competitors and substitutes
- Developing and enforcing rational companywide pricing and discount policies
- Determining the revenue mix and allocating resources appropriately
- Identifying the desired customer, along with goals for acquisition, retention, and up-selling
- Establishing the right mix of sales channels, from direct sales teams to resellers to e-commerce and beyond
- Articulating, communicating, and refining the strategic vision and selling plan
Building your sales organization to match your strategy
- Defining sales tasks and optimal selling behavior
- Establishing the right recruitment criteria and adjusting hiring practices to meet sales requirements
- Driving desired performance through training, compensation, measurement, and evaluation
- Empowering and leveraging talented sales managers
- Building the competency of your sales team on an ongoing basis
- Mobilizing functional areas to work together smoothly to optimize sales performance
- Understanding how your company culture helps or hinders selling
Creating the optimal infrastructure and processes
- Transforming corporate strategies into effective account management
- Minimizing channel conflict as your offerings and the market evolve
- Setting realistic goals and forecasting effectively
- Maximizing the value of sales information systems for account management and compensation
- Using feedback from customers and sales representatives to adjust processes
The HBS Advantage
Our Executive Education programs are developed and taught by HBS faculty who are widely recognized as skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. Through their board memberships, consulting, and field-based research, they address the complex challenges facing business leaders across the globe
MBA Class of 1973 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
Albert J. Weatherhead, Jr. Professor of Business Administration
Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
Baker Foundation Professor, Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
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The HBS Advantage
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Our Executive Education programs are developed and taught by HBS faculty who are widely recognized as skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. Through their board memberships, consulting, and field-based research, they address the complex challenges facing business leaders across the globe
Faculty Chair
MBA Class of 1973 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Entrepreneurial ManagementFacultyAlbert J. Weatherhead, Jr. Professor of Business Administration
HBS Unit:MarketingSenior Lecturer of Business Administration
HBS Unit:Entrepreneurial ManagementBaker Foundation Professor, Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
HBS Unit:Accounting and Management
Your Peers Expand Your Learning
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Your Peers Expand Your Learning
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Global PerspectiveExperience the world in your classroom.Global PerspectiveExperience the world in your classroom.4%Africa6%Asia Pacific22%Europe5%Latin America7%Middle East56%North America4%Africa6%Asia Pacific22%Europe5%Latin America7%Middle East56%North AmericaTop Industries RepresentedInsights from a range of industries ignite your thinking.Insights from a range of industries ignite your thinking.19%High Technology9%Chem / Pharma / Bio9%Health Care8%Financial8%Manufacturing7%Consumer Products7%Professional Services6%Utilities / Telecom4%Communications4%Raw Materials / EnergyTop Industries RepresentedInsights from a range of industries ignite your thinking.19%High Technology9%Chem / Pharma / Bio9%Health Care8%Financial8%Manufacturing7%Consumer Products7%Professional Services6%Utilities / Telecom4%Communications4%Raw Materials / EnergyExperienceExperienceYears workedYears workedExperienceYears workedLess than 10 yearsLess than 10 years10-14 years10-14 years15-19 years15-19 years20-24 years20-24 years25-29 years25-29 years30-34 years30-34 years35-39 years35-39 years40 years or more40 years or moreLess than 10 yearsLess than 10 years10-14 years10-14 years15-19 years15-19 years20-24 years20-24 years25-29 years25-29 years30-34 years30-34 years35-39 years35-39 years40 years or more40 years or more
Firms must have a strategy that's relevant today and tomorrow, not yesterday.
Firms must have a strategy that's relevant today and tomorrow, not yesterday.