The team I would like to
refer to for this post is the Business Development Center (BDC) team of the
luxury automobile dealership, located in Maryland, USA, to which I provide
remote bilingual business development services.
The BDC team is composed
of eight Business Development Representatives, scattered around remote locations,
such as Uzbekistan, one or two Latin American countries, and Canada, their job being
to boost sales traffic into the actual dealership location, executing
commercial efforts so that the actual Sales Team, which operates physically in
the actual dealership premises in Maryland, is better able to sell more vehicles.
The BDC teams performs
its tasks through the use of a Customer Relationship Management platform (a
CRM), in which all interactions with sales leads are captured, in such a way
that every time a Sales Consultant sells a vehicle, the CRM is able to trace
back which specific BDC Representative generated and / or was involved in the
lead. The BDC’s goal is, hence, to generate test drive appointments and provide
administrative, commercial, and customer service support (both pre and post-sale)
to help deals materialize.
Having already
established what the BDC Team’s role and goals are, our Management and
Leadership class assignment represents a great opportunity for me to propose a
plan aimed at how to apply certain forms of control to oversee the
accomplishment of the referred tasks and goals.
So, when we think about
Output Control, it is in fact a must in this kind of industry. While for a
usual Car Sales Consultant the mandatory Output Control form would be the number
of vehicles sold per month, in the case of the BDC Team, the specific Output
Control indicator would be the number of test drive appointments set up per
month, and a sub-indicator stating how many of said appointments turned into
actual sales. This form of control is very objective and goal-oriented, lacking
any potential bias by any given supervisor, as the number are the ones
literally speaking about the BDC Team members’ performance.
Moving along, in terms
of Behavioural Control, said form of control is based on measures that deal
with the actions aimed at yielding the results sought after. In the case of the
BDC Team, perhaps it would be a great idea to encourage BDC Team members to
increase their Saturday availability hours, as such is the day when this line
of business generates most of its income, hence fostering the team to increase
their chances of success for both the company and themselves, as they are entitled
to performance bonuses based on number of test drive appointments generated and
sales associated to them.
And, as far as Clan
Control goes, it is important to consider that this is a rather informal sort
of approach, which leans on key social-related aspects, such as traditions,
expectations, values (as per Creating Organizational Control Systems –
Mastering Strategic Management – 1st Canadian Edition (opentextbc.ca)). With
that in mind, the BDC Team is usually considered in the internal festivities
that company management organized for certain celebration dates, such as Halloween,
Thanksgiving, Birthdays of the Month, etc., to foster team integration and
sense of belonging, which I believe do have a positive impact on performance as
well.
