Sector: Technology and Telecoms – operational turnaround.
A national division of a global telecommunications major with a focus on Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) as well as Small Office, Home Office (SoHo) customers. Sales revenues were several hundred million Euros and the business had a large multi-channel sales and marketing operation.
Challenge
The business was under significant pressure to halt a decline in its revenues within an extremely short time frame of three months. Its tough targets were to grow revenues and profitability, in line with the sponsor’s highly ambitious goals for the SME market, while opening up new channels, such as online.
Solution
As a starting point, operational turnaround specialist Robert Fedder was deployed as an interim manager and acting Vice President of the Division, restructuring the divisional leadership team and focusing them on specific operational goals. A sales task force was established to prioritise short term “fixes” in demand generation and sales capture. In parallel, a second task force was created to develop an iconic proposition – in record time – to win a major share of the market. Separately, a new online operation was launched from scratch, new distribution channels were opened with a series of national channel agreements, while new incentive schemes for executives and staff were put in place.
Outcome
The sales task force was highly successful in reversing the previous decline in sales and indeed came in ahead of target. This provided a breathing space for the new “iconic” proposition to be developed and launched. Key achievements were reversing a month-on-month sales decline of 7% to growth of 23%; the new “iconic” proposition winning the industry’s “Innovation of the Year” award, while becoming the most highly successful and profitable product in the company’s history; a new online b2b channel was developed and launched in a fifth of the time originally envisaged, improving cost of sales significantly; and the division’s overall costs were reduced by careful management of expenditure.