The “Lead 2 Cash” Journey

In the previous article, I indicated that the "Lead2Cash journey" varied depending on the type of business. Let us assume for a moment that “Business_R_Us” provides both off-the shelf products, can design new products and services to meet customer’s requirements and also provides service support. Having undertaken a review of it’s “As Is” processes, a simple diagram (See below) is derived, showing how the business has decided to “Chunk” its “Lead 2 Cash” journey. This diagram then starts to allow us to ask all sorts of interesting questions about the process and how it might be improved.


This diagram shows how different parts of the journey are linked (NB: For simplicity, not all links are shown, just the key ones). Marketing Planning may drive the need for new products and services for existing or new markets, triggering the need for investment in developing those new products and services. Marketing Planning also drives Lead Generation, which might initiate putting together a Bid or responding to customer’s requests based on an Invitation To Tender (ITT) or a Request For Proposal (RFP). Lead Generation feeds into Order processing, which may require Procurement of parts or materials, which once received are put into stock, under the Stock Management processes. Each Sub-Process feeds one or more Sub-Processes as the journet continues. What is clear is that there is no one route from a Lead to getting paid. What the diagram doesn’t show, at this level of detail, is the outputs from the separate Sub-Processes or what work is undertaken within each Sub-Process, however, it does allow greater understanding of the overall journey, just as a roadmap doesn’t show you all the road signs.

Assuming Leads turn into orders (Lead Management will be the topic of another article), there is a process for receiving an order, checking it against specifications, Contract terms etc and aknowledging the order and confirming delivery dates etc. Order Processing may also check stock availability and where necessary trigger procurement of stock or 3rd party services (e.g. using an external delivery company).

Developing a new product or service can be a complex activity and will be discussed in greater detail in a series of articles covering this area. Assuming the business is delivering an existing product or service, this will be planned and provisioned based on availability of stock, resources (typically materials, equipment, people) and contractual requirements. Delivery/Despatch may be performed internally or by external resources. In many businesses, this is the point at which the invoice may be sent to the customer (However it may also be initiated at the point where the order is taken, in which case the journey shown above will be different).. Many small companies fail to track whether their customer’s make payments on time. This can have a critical impact on cash-flow, so it is essential that some form of Credit Control is put in place, together with a mechanism for processing payments.

So now we have a clear high-level view of the “Lead 2 Cash” journey. Does it work well? To know this we have to measure 4 critical indicators, namely Time, Cost, Quality and Quantity. The use of these will be covered in the next article which describes some of the key things to consider in mapping processes.

Martin Mellor
martin.mellor@tvba.co.uk
www.tvba.co.uk