10X CASE-STUDIES
Success-stories deep enterprise transformation through 10X Spear framework
Case-Study #1- Strategic alliance ecosystem
About the company
- Sector– Retailer Swipe-based Lending
- Size– 100+ Cr. Book size
- Geography– West and North India
Objectives
- The exponential increase in book-size through the strategic alliances to acquire new customers
- Expand business through partnerships without any increase in expense base
- Ensure ownership of the customer to lie with the company and not with the partners, for long-term customer value
Challenge
The client wanted to scale-up business through strategic alliances, whereby it will be able to sell to the customers of alliance partners. However, it was facing the following barriers:
- Many large alliance partners were not ready to get into a partnership with a small-size retail finance player
- Alliance partners were operating from a position of strength and pushing for partnership conditions that were not viable.
- Alliance partners were not ready to do exclusive partnerships.
Solution
We helped revise the business model, of going to wider mid-segment alliance partners, instead of targeting a few large partners. There are a large number of mid-size aggregators of merchants, who were hungry for these partnerships. They look for additional revenue streams and are flexible. We devised a ‘strategic alliance partners’ ecosystem which enabled the company to enroll a larger number of mid & small-sized aggregators. The strategic alliance ecosystem established a scalable capability that enables the client to multiply the enrollments, acquire alliance partner customers, and servicing the partners.
Approach
Strategic alliance ecosystem holistically includes people, process, and technology to provide a holistic platform:
- Merchants (partner’s customer) loan application acceptance and credit assessment data
- Commercial including payouts and commissions to the alliance partner.
- Operational alignment in terms of SOPs, training kits, documentation, communication protocols, escalation matrix, approval matrix, work-flows, credit-decision models, steering committees, partnership performance management
Case-Study #2- Integrated customer portal
About the company
- Sector– Multi-disciplinary trading-cum-manufacturing
- Annual turnover– $70 million
- Geography– Operating in Latin America and North Americas, Europe, and the Middle east
Objectives
- Improve client satisfaction for long term retention
- Reduce international trade travel cost
- Increase repeat sales and new products sales
Challenge
The company was going through a tough phase whereby being an intermediary, they were facing severe competitive pressures-
- Given the reduced trading margins, it became unviable for the company to sustain the current expense structure with expensive international travel for sales.
- With international trade becoming more transparent, the competition had multiplied over the last few years. The company was losing customers.
- The company was not able to service a wide range of customers across multiple geographies, sectors, and sizes. This had led to non-standard processes of pre-sales, post-sales, and customer service
Solutions
We helped develop an online integrated portal for all the existing customers across all geographies, which covered almost all aspects of customer interactions. it was equivalent of Amazon.com for their existing clients to give them the best possible experience and engagement. It includes:
- Order capture
- Pre-dispatch/In-production tracker
- Billing and Dispatch
- International trade documentation
- Product catalog
- International shipping tracker
- Customer service issue management
- Online product installation & maintenance training
Approach
As the company’s back-end processes also needed to be improved and aligned with the front-end customer portal, we adopted a phased but aggressive approach
- Phase 1– Implement the basic customer portal with the main focus on the order capture, pre-dispatch tracker, billing, and product catalog. For some areas, there was no integration with the back-end ERP, and there was a manual interface with the portal.
- Phase 2– Integration with ERP and other back-end systems was done, along with the implementation of email alerts.
- Phase 3– Add product catalog and international shipping tracker
- Phase 4– Tightening the back-end processes, adding client servicing
- Phase 5– Adding online product installation and maintenance training for industrial equipment and components.
Case-Study #3- Multiplying leads funnel
About the company
- Sector– Diversified training & education company
- Annual turnover– $15+ million
- Geography– National (India)
Objectives
- To multiply the leads funnel
- To significantly reduce cost per qualified lead
- To increase the ratio of inbound to outbound leads
Challenge
The company was going through the challenge of being able to scale-up its lead-generation machine. The current challenges were:
- The company had scalable delivery solutions and an extensive trainer and infrastructure network across the country, but it was not able to balance local delivery capacity with adequate leads.
- It was relying mainly on the online campaigns and direct sales force, which was getting saturated. A further addition was bringing a negative incremental growth in the leads funnel.
- Due to increasing competition, there was a huge pressure to reduce customer acquisition costs.
Solutions
Solution-set #1: We helped create a 360 degree leads universe, with which we were able to a high diversity and expand the leads sources (over and above online campaigns & direct sales)
- Referrer networks
- Content marketing
- Industry Cluster focused on-site events
- Extensive social media engagements
- 100%v variable direct sales agents
- Telemarketing
- Premium memberships of industry associations
- Expanding online listing
Solution-set #2: We helped establish a unified lead integration platform, whereby all leads were collected into a single database, to ensure 100% visibility and tracking of each lead which gets into the system. It was a combination of a CRM platform along with various interfaces (a combination of automated and manual)
Approach
It was a nearly 12-month project, which needed a transformation of people, processes, and technology. We adopted a stakeholder & participation-driven approach:
- A separate champion was assigned to each leads source, with his own project plan and budget
- CRM system with automated interfaces (where possible) was implemented as the must-have step before the work on the new sources started.
- At any point in time, we worked not more than 2 new leads sources. It was a 4 X 2 (four quarters, with 2 leads sources per quarter) approach.
- Sales teams and back-end support teams were extensively trained for the diversified leads model.
- Each lead source followed the planning, implementation, and stabilization process. Next leads source was not worked on till the current in works were stablized
Case-Study #4- Multiplying leads conversion rate
About the company
- Sector– Multi-discipline Tech reseller
- Annual turnover– $150+ million
- Geography– National (India)
Objectives
- To boost leads conversion rate
- To significantly reduce cost per order acquisition
- To boost leads closure speed
Back-ground & challenge
Being in the business for more than 20 years, the company had an established base of clients and had diversified leads sources. However, as they were getting into the next phase of growth, they were looking for building the next level sales effectiveness capabilities. They were planning to expand their geographic footprint, going both deep & wide. Before they would go for a major expansion investment, they wanted to ensure that they have a much more proficient sales-engine. The key challenges were:
- Salesforce had not been upgraded in terms of skills, organization structure, and infrastructure for almost a decade. Most sales were getting done on the strength of the brand and less on sales skills
- For the sales skills aspects of selling, there was too much dependence on the individual sales person’s capability. With mixed talent levels, the sales performance varied significantly across salesforce.
- With increasing competition, the order acquisition cost was becoming unsustainable, leading to losing business on competitive bids.
Solutions
A multi-faceted set of solutions were implemented, which led to a significant transformation and capability development. Some of the solutions adopted were:
- 360-degree sales training and development infrastructure
- Skill assessment and training needs analysis
- Sales buddy system (best and brightest in the sales team coaching others with KRA and incentive-driven program)
- Learning management system with drip training
- Sales Tools
- Marketing and Sales Videos
- Customer needs analysis
- Virtual tour and demo platform
- Sharp & intense funnel tracking
- Online funnel tracking CRM
- Escalation and alerts on aging leads
- Sales war-room
- Supervisor co-owning on conversion
- On-field supervisor co-working
- Online supervisor panel for intervention on the moment of truth
Approach
It was a nearly 15-month project, which needed a deep transformation of people, processes, and technology. To ensure that change will happen, we adopted the following approach:
- A series of workshops were conducted whereby sales managers co-created and co-owned the solutions.
- The champions for implementing those solutions were identified (mainly through volunteering) in these workshops, who had broad support from the salesforce.
- The expense budget and sponsorships were committed from the executive management upfront.
- The reward and recognition system with greater variable pay was established (as a side benefit of the initiative), as sales got greater confidence of success, and saw a higher wealth creation by being more entrepreneurial.
- Around 25% of the sales forces were replaced with external hires, where it was recognized that they will not adapt to the must-have change.
- As part of the implementation, the internal champions were extensively coached to become the drivers for change.
Case-Study #5- Multiplying Sales Productivity
About the company
- Sector– Construction related products
- Annual turnover– $45+ million
- Geography– South Asia
Objectives
- To boost sales productivity
- To build lean & mean salesforce
- To develop scalable sales infrastructure, with more predictable sales performance
Back-ground & challenge
The company has established a solid brand. However, as they were getting into the next phase of growth & investments, they had set-up an aspirational target of doubling their topline, within the same salesforce headcount. With this boundary condition, they wanted to work backward and make it happen. The key challenges were:
- Salesforce had not been upgraded in terms of skills, organization structure, and infrastructure for almost a decade.
- In spite of improving the hiring quality of sales talent, sales productivity was not improving.
- Salesforce was not aggressive and competitive. It was selling mainly on the strength of the brand. There was a risk that in the event of any major competitive force, the whole sales performance will collapse
Solutions
A multi-faceted set of solutions were implemented, which led to a significant transformation and capability development. Some of the solutions adopted were:
- Hard-Sales– Adding additional hours of sales in every salesperson’s days without increasing his workload
- Enterprise mobility
- Smarter travel planning
- Tele-sales support
- Salesforce Monitoring
- Daily work management
- Removing non-sales time-wasters
- Work organizers
- Online CRM with realtime escalation & alerts
- Smart-sales
- Sales tools
- Supervisor co-working and interventions
- Online Sales information assistant
- Sales-training
- Sales planning & performance
- More accurate sales planning
- Data-driven and real-time sales performance management
- Sales war-room
Approach
It was a nearly 18-month project, which needed a deep transformation of people, processes, and technology. To ensure that change will happen, we adopted the following approach:
- A series of workshops were conducted whereby sales managers co-created and co-owned the solutions.
- A holistic sales platform was set-up using an integrated set of sales apps including CRM, Salesforce monitoring, planning, sales reporting & analysis, sales communication, and sales training.
- The expense budget and sponsorships were committed from the executive management upfront.
- The reward and recognition system with greater variable pay was established (as a side benefit of the initiative), as sales got greater confidence of success, and saw a higher wealth creation by being more entrepreneurial.
- Around 30% of the sales forces were replaced with external hires, where it was recognized that they will not adapt to the must-have change.
- As this was a strategic initiative, leaders from the management team to front-line managers were coached and taken through train the trainer program.