Client case notes

Global Software Company (Engineering Consulting Division)

In the beginning ...

The engineering consulting division of a global software company faced a major challenge. Having built a solid business based on market- leading product, they faced increasingly aggressive competition as the market matured. Their client base was consolidating and demanding more with respect to both price and quality. In the face of shrinking margins, the challenge they faced was how to sustain quarterly performance. The answer, they knew, was to shift from a product focus to a service focus, but how? The client did not know what to offer clients except the software that they already sold them. We agreed with the client to work on a risk- and- reward basis to enable them to win ‘make or break’ services based deals over a 2 year period from 2002- 2004. The targeted value of business we have committed to produce is $55 million over that 2 year period.

Project involved

Starting first with the board, we worked with them to show them how they needed to align around this service offering being a fundamental part of their strategy, rather than 'something we'll try' which is how they related to it at the outset. We showed them the need to create a real sense of urgency within the company so that it wasn't viewed as 'just another initiative'; how everyone’s roles and goals needed to support this drive; to appoint internal coaches so that our skills were transferred in-house; back-from-the-future planning to identify the changes they need to make with respect to their current management style, their knowledge management systems and how their global account management teams operated. (Each worked independently in‘silo’ fashion). We then led a series of work sessions to clarify the limitations of product- based selling in this new market environment and trained them in the fundamentals of consultative selling. The work sessions were initially focused on specific high-priority accounts with the emphasis on ‘results first, skills second’. Once the results started to come in, we then ran work sessions that focused on how they needed to work differently in order to produce long- term, sustainable results. Becoming a trusted advisor meant learning how to create the conditions for decision makers to buy rather than find ways of selling to them.

We are on- track with respect to our $55 million target. The client is on the verge of winning the first 2 of these deals (first quarter 2003) totaling $8 million, 6 months into the project.

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