Chorley, Lancashire based Scorpion Automotive continues this year’s winning streak of business awards as SME News announce that the company has won the hotly contested award for Best Integrated Sales & Marketing Strategy in this year’s Enterprise Awards.
Marketing isn’t simply an important part of business success, it is the business. All aspects of a business depend on marketing from determining product need through research and analysing sales patterns, modifying or creating new products to match needs, determining how best to reach potential customers to creating marketing campaigns and the most effective way of reaching customers Then developing and maintaining customer relationships. Those businesses most effective at this and integrating with their sales processes are inevitably best placed to succeed. The aim being to go to market the right products to the right customers at the right time, in the right place for the right price.
Jessie Wilson, Awards Executive of SME News, said: “The Integrated Sales & Marketing section of our awards is a hotly contended category comprising of specialist consultancies, agencies and a diverse range of businesses from across the country. This is a prestigious award that embraces the full breadth of the sales and marketing discipline and recognises a company for their creation and delivery of customer-centric strategies leading to outstanding business growth, brand exposure, customer satisfaction and other measurable business results. In a demanding sector with strong competition from many UK resellers of imported vehicle telematics and security systems, Scorpion has still excelled in all of the judging criteria and stood out as a clear winner within this specification.”
Established in 1973, today Scorpion Automotive is a trusted provider to 22 vehicle manufacturers, aftermarket dealers and all types of businesses operating fleets of vehicles including cars, vans, HGVs, plant and motorcycles. Operating across such a varied market means that Carl and his team have to often tailor both their product and service offering to individual client needs. Following Scorpion’s awards success, SME News invited Carl to further discuss just what makes an award winning team and how they work to ensure that Scorpion creates a lasting impression on everyone it supports.
Carl commented: “Firstly I’m delighted to accept this award especially given that nominations from our customers have played a part in the selection process. Scorpion’s sales and marketing success is largely attributable to its customer centric approach that’s made possible by our complete in-house capabilities. This makes us unique in our industry and enables our customers and our own departments to seamlessly collaborate with each other.
“The vast diversity of businesses we work with and vehicles they operate mean their telematics reporting requirements and security needs can vary tremendously. As we’re offering our own products as opposed to reselling someone else’s we’re able to accommodate these needs. An initial meeting with a customer may involve myself, an account manager and an engineer. We deeply engage with our customers to understand their exacting needs as well as using their feedback to drive continuous improvement and product development. “
“Once a solution is agreed, both prototype and volume manufacture is carried out in our in-house state of the art electronics manufacturing facility. In the case of our portfolio of tracking products, web and mobile app development is performed in-house too so custom requirements are often easily accommodated”
“In addition to our telematics offering, we also provide Thatcham accredited, insurance approved 24/7 theft monitoring via our in-house team.”
“In summary, we operate rather like a Formula One Racing Team, with our customer in the driving seat and our multi-disciplined yet cohesive team working tirelessly around them.”
Carl said: “I believe it’s crucial that strategy makers visit the frontline to meet customers and to listen to their own salespeople. These people hear customer’s views first-hand, often have good awareness of competitor activity and identify emerging market trends.”
“Meet regularly with each of your departments to understand their daily challenges and how these may impact upon your revenue, profit and brand objectives. For me personally, opting to move into an open office ensures I’m visible to, and in ear-shot of our internal sales, customer service, tracking and technical teams. This gives me on-tap insight into the daily performance of our products, service delivery and everyday challenges of our customers, their needs, views and opinions. “
“In a fast moving and competitive environment, strategies should be dynamic. Feedback from staff across your business should inform the strategy as much as the strategy directs the efforts of those staff. In this way, you ‘keep it real’- since through engaging staff in the strategy’s development they’ve bought into it, understood it and agreed its viability. You therefore increase the likelihood of success.”
