Case Studies

Sales and marketing fitness for growth

Strategy, Structure, Process, Results

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eCommerce Platform Provider

Background: starting as a web design Company in 2007. By 2015 it had developed a highly featured SaaS eCommerce platform. It provided; web design, platform development and back-end integrations (e.g., payment gateways, ERP systems etc.) with ongoing support and development services. The Company acquired a spectrum of customers – including some big well known household fashion and sports brands.

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    Each customer was on different contract terms. Over a few years, the Company withdrew web design and support services for its customers. In parallel, it had tried to build Systems Integrator (SI) partner and design agency relationships to fill those gaps – with limited success. Despite a competitive product, new sales growth was static – with no new logo or business wins for over three years. The Directors realised they needed outside help to fulfil the sales potential of the product. Sales Strategies (S2L) were engaged to carry out a Strategic Review of the marketing and sales functions. Following the submission of the review, S2L was engaged to implement the key recommendations.

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High-Level Scope of Strategic Sales Review:

  • People: team, key contacts, hiring plan
  • Business Plan: pipeline (existing and new business mix), status, gap, immediate focus?
  • Proposition/s: why buy anything, why buy your product/service, why buy now?
  • Organisation: marketing, existing and new business focus, territories
  • Processes: optimal sales process (iterate and refine), forecasting, pricing, contracting, compensation
  • External Relationships: key customers, partners, channels etc

  • Key challenges and our recommendations

    • Stagnant account growth: Evaluate the profitability of all customers and either raise fees or exit.
    • Wide-ranging variable and inflexible contract terms: Re-engineer, standardise and renew key customers on a new, long-term (3 to 5 year) SaaS contract – with built-in growth based on customer’s website trading volumes. 
    • An unclear proposition in a competitive market: develop a new competitive ‘go to market’ proposition in a crowded market dominated by a few big players; Demandware, Magento, Hybris, and IBM.
    • Weak SI relationship network: Build strategic partner SI relationships – critical to future success.
    • Tired and weak marketing: Re-launch website and other collateral.
    • Weak lead generation: Re-structure the lead generation process and build a new pipeline.

  • Achievements

    • Key customers renewed on new SaaS contracts delivering 30%+ year-on-year growth for the next 3 to 5 years
    • Signed largest contract in company history ~ £600k
    •  Revamped and tested the ‘go to market' proposition and developed sales and marketing collateral to support
    • Services offering and resource planning completely revamped – moved to 6-month contracts versus ad hoc
    • Partners identified and developed an initial pipeline building underway
    • Active participation in several major deals – got to the last three, beating two major competitors
    • Break-even on SS investment: 9 months. Conservative RoI over 5 years: ~ £2,000,000+ = x 8

Smartphone User Support

Background: the two founders set up the Company after thirty combined years in the technical end of blue-chip telecom companies. They wanted to build innovative solutions to the problem of providing self-help user support for increasingly complex devices – smartphones in particular. Since then, they have become industry leaders - with their web services and apps being used by mobile operators, retailers, handset manufacturers, and insurers.

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    Despite great solutions to support more devices through more channels and on the Internet of Things (IoT) - new business sales were sporadic and very much founder-led. Key accounts were underdeveloped. After several failed attempts at hiring a sales resource, the founders realised they needed outside help and engaged Sales Strategies to carry out a Strategic Sales Review.

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High-Level Scope of Strategic Sales Review:

  • People: team, key contacts, sales resource hiring plan and recruitment process
  • Business Plan: pipeline (existing and new business mix), status, gap, immediate focus? - Proposition/s: why buy anything, why buy your product/service, why buy now?
  • Competition: key differentiators, pricing - Growth plan: target market, value proposition, key account development
  • Organisation: marketing, existing and new business focus, territories
  • Processes: optimal sales process (iterate and refine), forecasting, pricing, contracting, compensation
  • External Relationships: key customers, partners, channels etc.

  • Key challenges and our recommendations

    • Stagnant revenue growth: Re-engineer commercial proposition to SaaS - link fee increases to customer growth.
    • Ad hoc approach to driving revenue from existing customers: Build account plans and pipelines for each key customer.
    • Unclear value proposition: Develop a new clear and competitive ‘go to market’ proposition.
    • Weak new business pipeline: Scrub and qualify existing pipeline, identify and engage with new name targets.
    • Tired and weak marketing: Re-launch website and other collateral.
    • Failure to build sales function: Document optimum sales process, build job spec and execute optimal hiring process.

  • Achievements

    • Set up a new sales process and recruited sales resource
    • Revamped and tested ‘go to market' proposition and re-developed website and sales and marketing collateral
    • Developed qualified pipeline of > £1m
    • Initial engagement and set up for major new business win > £1m contract (a key factor in subsequent founder exit)
    • Enabled strong exit for founders
    • Strong reference – ‘most productive person we have worked with’
    • Break-even on S2L investment: 6 months. RoI on exit: x20+

eCommerce

Background: Founded in 2007. A £35m turnover, hyper-growth SaaS company providing an eCommerce platform (Demandware), Systems Integration, Order Management and data analytics solutions for online retail businesses – the Company was in the Tech Track Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies for three years. Included in Government Future 50 in the second year. This massive growth outpaced the capabilities of the sales and marketing functions and resulted in poor performance, disorganisation and a demoralised team that had lost the trust and support of the wider business and external investors.

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    Sales Strategies was engaged to participate in a major ‘drains up’ review. Based on the recommendations from the review, S2L was engaged; to implement the recommendations; provide interim leadership for the Field marketing and sales teams across EMEA, and take responsibility for sales operations globally. In addition, the Company had developed a cutting-edge big data analytics product - but new

    business sales for this product were very poor.


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  • Key challenges and our recommendations

    • Demoralised and disorganised sales team: recruit and rebuild sales team in UK and France.
    • No key customer account management: Implement account management.
    • No standard sales methodology: design & roll out training of global sales methodology (EMEA & N America).
    • Poor tracking, forecasting & CRM: implement Salesforce.com (SFDC), and design KPIs and metrics for Board.
    • Take new analytics product to market: build ‘go to market’ for lead generation and sales. Recruit and train sales and marketing teams.
    • Bring Canadian acquisition to EMEA market: Built and execute ‘go to market’ playbook, build lead generation approach and pipeline from scratch. Recruit and train sales team (no existing skills).
    • Rebuild trust with the rest of the business: proactive engagement and communication with clear goals.
    • The poor link between field marketing (lead generation) and sales: build an end-to-end approach including field marketing, inside sales and sales.

  • Achievements

    • Instituted account management. Won significant renewals > £3.4m
    • Built field marketing and sales teams; hired field marketing x 2, Sales x 8, Pre-sales x2
    • Developed end-to-end waterfall metrics for lead generation linked to sales
    • Salesforce.com – led the global implementation and global sales methodology, KPIs etc.
    • France – recruited new GM and Sales team (5 total), new offices. Hit first-year product target. Doubled customer numbers year on year.
    • Took unique new SaaS ‘big data’ decision analytics solution to market. £850k booked business in Year 1. Year 2 projected 100% growth 
    • Took Order Management System (OMS) acquisition to market. The first deal closed in 9 months (£880k – against £450k plan), a strong pipeline for the following quarters
    • Break-even on SS investment: < 3 months. RoI over two years on new business alone: x5+

Find out more about our sales and marketing growth plans:  info@s2l.co.uk

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