“This was a big win for me as CEO: having an external, un-biased, and respected set of advisors shine a light on some of your challenges with clear back up and facts serves as the catalyst you may need to make changes to improve your business.”
“In the last months of 2021, we asked Rutger and Michel from BusinessBuilding to be our ‘second pair of eyes’ and perform a Commercial Audit. They gave us great insight and understanding of the ‘health’ of our commercial organisation. A crack in the door which opened the way for many improvements based on their recommendations to fuel our 2022 growth and beyond.”
Start situation
Founded in 2005, To-Increase provides business software solutions to over 2200 mid-market and enterprise customers in 45 countries. Their asset-centric solutions include engineering, manufacturing, servicing, and renting or leasing assets. They also deliver customer-centric solutions that help companies align technology with strategic goals, operate more efficiently, and provide the best possible experience to their customers.
To-Increase is the only three-time Microsoft Dynamics Global Outstanding ISV of the Year award winner and offers an impressive portfolio of industry, business, and technical productivity solutions for Microsoft Dynamics 365.
In January of 2021 To-Increase was taken over by a private equity company and targeted for massive growth. They were facing high turnover in their sales teams, lot of questions around their go-to-market strategy (direct vs partner model) and they were in the middle of moving from perpetual sales to a SAAS offering. Next to this, they have a remote sales force across the globe and despite nice year-over-year growth numbers, they were behind on their ambitious plan.
Reasons enough to have an external ‘second pair of eyes’ support with an outside–in-view of the commercial organisation.
Approach
With the Dutch expression “You don’t have to be sick to become better” in mind, BusinessBuilding started their objective with factual searches to know exactly what the root causes were, what could be improved, what the priorities are, and which focus areas to execute on for commercial growth.
They spent quite some time on interviews and conversations with all salespeople across the globe, with a few key stakeholders as well as the full management team. An analysis of the sales and marketing process followed with an in-depth data analysis of the customers, partners, and financial information.
During the process, the key stakeholders were updated, and discussions about our findings were held in case adjustments were needed.
Results
At the end of their process, BusinessBuilding presented the findings and recommendations to the management team so we could directly start implementing improvements to increase commercial success.
BusinessBuilding has given us an integral overview of our commercial process and performance, an objective, unbiased, external view based on factual insights.
BusinessBuilding scored our performers in commerce and the pre-requisites for commercial success based on the multiple views of their Commercial Growth Model. We’ve been given advice on what exactly could be improved and know how to implement these improvements.
In the meantime, we have appointed a new Chief Sales Officer and improved the cooperation between marketing and sales. Additional salespeople came on board and there is a clear partner strategy with focus on the top customer, prospects, and partners.
You probably know what is going on in your organization but consulting an external party having an extra look at your organization and processes, will allow you to improve your commercial results and deliver your ambitions.