As a specialty supplier, our client has grown progressively over time through implementation assignments from manufacturer partners. Through these major international projects, the company was able to collect targeted expertise and project
experience.

In recent years, almost all producers in the software market have pushed sales through their partner companies, in order to achieve stronger growth and improve market penetration. The survival of these partner companies is thus increasingly
dependent on their own sales activities.

Based on this, our client decided to establish its own sales organization with suitable Account Managers. The strategic objective was, and continues to be, to sustainably accelerate and shape the company’s growth with its own acquisition initiatives. Concurrently, all support functions needed for successful sales processes were to be secured through strategic and operative marketing.

In an effort to meet their stated goals, management hired highly competent and experienced IT specialists, whose sales and marketing experience was unfortunately no match for the increasingly complex market.

After some initial partial success from one major project in the first year, sales in the following year dropped drastically due to the lack of a sustainable and substantial new business pipeline.

Additionally, the company’s communications were not aligned with the needs of their respective target groups and due to a lack of positioning, their brand did not have market presence.

It became clear that the company needed to acquire the competences required to remain competitive externally. Here, their biggest considerations were the selection and availability of suitable employees, the risk and amount of investment, and the
return on investment lead time.