Simulation as a Sales Tool

Simulation has long been thought of as a tool best suited for engineering or design purposes. Lately, we've seen it used as a very effective sales tool as well.  It is a natural fit, if you think about it. Simulation can give a very accurate, vivid, and convincing picture of how a proposed system will work under various conditions. What better way to prove the capabilities of your solution to a potential client?

Even if you are not involved in outside sales, you may still run across the need to sell your proposed solution internally. Consider turning to simulation when you need to sell management on a proposed project or gain buy-in from the employees who will be affected by an upcoming system change.

Here are just a few recent examples:

• A producer of manufacturing automation equipment asked us to produce a model that would let them demonstrate to a client that their system could meet the client's requirements for throughput and cycle time.
• We helped the developer of a novel contact center application demonstrate to several customers exactly how their product would create performance improvements for the customer's center. Because the models were customized with the individual customer's data, the models produced baseline results exactly matching the center in question, giving the customer complete confidence in the results. Meanwhile, the developer was recognized for providing truly accurate and useful analysis to the customer.
• A small manufacturing start-up was looking for seed funding during a tight capital market. Potential investors liked the start-up's idea, but had concerns about whether its manufacturing plan would allow the company to ramp up production quickly enough to meet the numbers stated in the business plan. We helped them produce a simulation model that demonstrated precisely which assumptions were critical in meeting the production targets and which were not, enabling the investors to make a more educated decision.
• A large healthcare organization wanted to reallocate the usage of some of its rooms for a specialized purpose. Our simulation model was used first to prove that the suggested change would indeed result in improved overall patient flow for the facility. A second, but no less important, use for the model was to demonstratate to stakeholders why the change was necessary.