UNLOCKING GROWTH POTENTIAL
Implementing new structures and approaches to sales and marketing in a high-growth market
STARTING POINT
Client: A data analytics and end-to-end services provider for the development and commercialisation of precision medicine diagnostics.
With the launch of a new data platform service, the business is evolving from a fee-for-service consultancy model toward SaaS / licence-based relationships with pharmaceutical companies, labs and diagnostics providers in the precession therapies marketplace.
In 2021 the commercial teams had experienced structural changes, high turnover, and performance was inconsistent, despite the strong market fit and high growth potential.
THE CHALLENGES
The established commercial relationships and strong reputation, combined with evident product fit, position this organisation in front of an exponentially growing market opportunity in the precision medicine and diagnostics space.
Customer insight and understanding, however, was varied, with account plans typically focussed on short-term tactical sales, and evident gaps in product knowledge. The exec recognised they were missing opportunities for strategic relationship building and thought leadership.
The team structures were creating bottlenecks and a ‘single point of failure’, and neither the sales process nor the marketing plans were aligned to the customer. There was a great deal of avoidable complexity, with inaccurate, unreliable forecasting and gaps in accountability.
TAKING ACTION
Hulme Redwood was engaged in 2021 to conduct a diagnostic review of the current sales approach, identify opportunities and recommend steps to unlock the potential for rapid growth. We worked with the senior leadership team to design, develop and implement the sales and marketing plan, unlocking the growth opportunity for 2022 and beyond.
We developed a new client centred, team oriented operating model for the business, to increase accountability, encourage collaboration, and facilitate a wider range of deeper relationships across all regions, customer types and service lines. This replaced the existing structures, and supports the future growth of the business.
Segmentation and stratification of accounts was introduced, so that the most strategic and valuable clients and projects receive a whole-team focus. Consolidated account plans were developed, providing clear commercial development paths for the relationships. The sales and marketing teams were restructured, to align with the new operating model and key strategic clients.
This has created a scalable and robust structure, with clear reporting lines and routes for career progression. Everybody is clear on their individual roles and responsibilities, and can see the clear lines that connect to the wider growth strategy. We redesigned the incentive scheme to remove perverse incentives driving short-term thinking, and to better motivate, reward and retain top talent.
IMPACT
This global organisation has now established an effective KAM team, with an internal training function to support the development of product knowledge and customer insights. This team has built a strong pipeline for 2022, sales performance is significantly ahead of previous years, and they are closing higher value, longer term contracts with key clients.
In the subsequent 12 months, 40% of the identified key strategic target accounts have been converted into long-term, enterprise clients with multi-year, multi-million dollar contracts in place. Revenues grew by 50% year-on-year.