Industry
Company Profile
- Europe-based incumbent
- Annual revenue of €2.5bn
Situation and Objectives
- Declining earnings in B2B sales
- Inefficiencies in sales processes
- Objectives: Improve sales efficiency
Approach
- Set ambitious sales goals and measures in alignment with overall strategy
- Understood customer expectations based on need-based customer segmentation
- Overhauled product portfolio with specific product and service bundles for each segment.
- Optimized customer approach strategy, orienting customer care (acquisition/reacquisition) strictly on the needs of costumer segments
- Systematically optimized sales potential by aligning sales activities with target customer lists based on result contribution
- Streamlined sales steering using five KPIs for each steering level
- Accelerated processes by streamlining all sales activities with regard to segment expectations
- Simplified the sales organization and reduced distance to the customer by building the organization according to customer segments
- Identified employee potential by assessing sales type (farmer/hunter) and newly filling positions (inclusion of works council)
- Developed employees with targeted training on value-selling
- Generated excitement and promoted change by relaunching corporate sales with a kickoff event and setting target bonuses to raise employee motivation
- Made successes visible by introducing regular and transparent success reporting
Results
- Streamlined and simplified sales processes
- Identified customer expectations, needs, and value drivers
- Developed specific product and service bundles for each customer segment
- Customer care/service levels strictly oriented to the needs of customer segments and value contribution
- New way of working
Impact
- Higher efficiency of sales and underlying processes
- >€4m increase in gross profit (first year after implementation)