The Context

The client was, and is, a major global telecommunications company who had recently received a new strategic plan from a major global strategic planning consulting firm.

The Problem

Internal efforts to implement a new organizational structure and strategy failed. Adoption by dozens of domestic field offices had no traction and did not produce the increased focus on acquisition and retention of customers. The fundamental strategy called for the client to shift from a geographical orientation to a customer-centered focus, resulting in acceleration of new account acquisition (‘new logos’) and retention and growth within established accounts. Improving customer service relied on changing mindsets of the sales organization and the field service team with enhanced alignment of the sales and service elements in each branch.

Simply having a new strategy did not yield increased sales productivity and revenue or service level gains desired by the client and anticipated by the strategy consulting firm.

The Solution

The consulting team used representative locations to identify existing technology, sales and service processes and organizaation, and management techniques. The team developed consensus on best practice business processes among the representative locations, created and  implemented new management techniques and reward andrecognition tools, and developed training materials to support standardized processes and terminology and the new business model.

The Results

Across two years following the initiation of the strategic plan implementation, the client reported the following results:

• Initial meetings with prospective new accounts, 36% increase;
• Total sales meetings held, 45% increase;
• New client proposal presentations, 30+% increase;
• Annualized labor productivity (measured in initial four offices only), $2.1 million;
• Combined average activity (sales and service), 45% increase;
• National sales channel productivity, 45% increase;
• National sales channel per-representative sales, 32% increase valued at $1,500,000 in added sales per month.