It is time for us packaged goods salesforces to fundamentally rethink their approach to sales. The best salesforces have traditionally focused on increasing efficiency: cutting costs, fine-tuning geographic and product coverage, and streamlining reporting relationships. Sound, even aggressive, cost management remains important in this slow-growth industry. But while this strategy may have succeeded in holding the line against inflation, in a marketplace where many different players must compete aggressively for the available consumer dollar, it is beginning to show clear signs of diminishing returns, and is distracting senior managers from making the more fundamental changes required. Without completely rethinking their approach at the retail level, there is little room for further cost improvements through greater efficiency.

By far the greatest profit improvement opportunities lie instead in a focus on improving salesforce effectiveness by building capabilities in category, account, and trade promotion management. A number of companies have recognized this and have begun to look to these areas for improvements in performance, with encouraging results. By capitalizing on these capabilities, they hope to increase volume and boost their overall profit performance.

While this new approach is perhaps harder to implement than...