"Sales Eats First"

I've been following this blog for a while now. This post brought something of an epiphany describing a scenario where "two senior execs at Honeywells Building Solutions group execute a turnaround that increased sales 70%." From the cited article:

It all changed the day the president of the organization stood up and told everyone that sales eats first." Madden says that one statement has allowed his salespeople to drop the baggage and stop feeling like victims of all those things that they could not control. At that point, every single sales rep knew where he stood.

Operations serves at the pleasure of sales, and sales advocates on behalf of their clients and customers. As long sales incentives are aligned with corporate goals, that's the way it ought to be. Working with Chinese manufacturers can be highly rewarding until problems arise but this lack of client focus is quite common amongst the industrial manufacturers we work with. While this is frustrating, I also recognize it is one of the reasons businesses like ours thrive. When it comes to our own organization however, while we have a long ways to go in building a truly client focused organization, I do feel we have been making progress.