In the dynamic landscape of B2B commerce, achieving sustainable success goes beyond conventional practices of selling one product to a limited customer base, which often constitutes a significant portion of the revenue. It demands the pursuit of Commercial Excellence.
When our client encountered a 30% decline in direct margins over a span of two years due to the internalization of services by their primary customer, the need for a strategic shift became an imperative. Recognizing the significance of portfolio diversification and the exploration of new avenues for growth, we responded proactively with our Whitespace program, focusing on 3 main levers:
- Revenue Resilience: Cultivating a diverse product portfolio and engaging with a varied customer base provides a shield against unforeseen shifts in customer behaviors, ensuring a more robust and resilient revenue stream.
- Growth Expansion: Digging into the needs of distinct market segments and venturing into uncharted territories holds the potential to propel revenue growth – up to 20% within the initial year – unlocking new avenues for expansion.
- Strategic Focus: By meticulously mapping the white spaces, a panoramic view emerges, revealing the optimal sectors and product combinations that exhibit superior performance. This strategic insight not only highlight cross-selling and upselling opportunities but also identifies areas for expertise development, fostering a stronger competitive position in the market.
Five steps for Accelerating growth:
- Systematic Potential Estimation: Our methodology begins with a meticulous analysis of the granular potential within the customer and prospect base across diverse product and service lines. Combining quantitative and qualitative insights, we aim to determine the current Share of Wallet for each client-product/service combination.
- Strategic Opportunity and Ambition Setting Mapping: Linking past performances with overall customer/prospect potential in each product/service line unveils previously untapped White Spaces. This revelation becomes the foundation for setting ambitious goals related to cross-selling, upselling, and identifying new hunting opportunities.
- Segmentation: Recognizing the intrinsic limitations of the sales force’s bandwidth, prioritization becomes vital. Our methodology prioritizes customers and prospects based not only on the overall opportunity to increase the Share of Wallet but also critically assesses the Ability to Win each opportunity. This strategic segmentation ensures a focus on the most viable and profitable opportunities, revealing the “Must Win Battles.”
- Tender Management: For businesses heavily reliant on tenders, an optimized tendering process is indispensable. Incorporating stage-gates, this process facilitates efficient resource allocation, not just for sales but also for technical departments. Regular win-loss analyses provide valuable insights into refining strategies for future tenders.
- Account Planning: Finally, the focus shifts to meticulous planning of sales activities. This involves crafting detailed account plans with clear, action-oriented items, and a calendarization of opportunities and activities. Particularly, in scenarios where recurring business undergoes RFQ processes with known expiration dates, retro-planning becomes critical, ensuring the optimization of tasks to maximize the probability of success.
Conclusion:
Eendigo’s transformative 12-week program emerged as a catalyst, reshaping the Commercial Excellence maturity of our client.
Beyond the tangible successes, marked by a extraordinary +20% increase in revenues within the program’s target country in the first year and a subsequent +10% in the broader region following the implementation of recommendations in other countries, this journey is a proof of the profound impact of strategic mapping, collaborative planning, and focused execution on redefining the trajectory of a B2B industry leader.
Celebrating a surge of 20% in revenue, it becomes evident that Commercial Excellence transcends being a mere strategy—it embodies a commitment to elevating market focus and nurturing client diversification.
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