improving channel penetration
Challenge
Tower Strategy Group's client, a multinational Consumer Products player, had a long-standing presence within the global duty free channel. And though it had achieved a respectable position within that rapidly growing market, it believed opportunities existed to further accelerate growth. However, the client had key questions relative to what changes in focus, investment and structure were required to tap into that potential.
Solution
Tower Strategy Group partnered with the C-suite and a cross-functional team of global commercial executives to:
- Develop a consolidated picture of the focus, investment levels and structure of the client's existing duty free play
- Define specific sources of strength and weakness and the steps necessary to occupy more shelf space and improve product velocity within the channel
- Determine whether the client's existing resource levels and mix could be effective in allowing for execution relative to those improvement opportunities
- Codify the vision, objectives, strategy and phased implementation plan necessary for action
Impact
We helped the client identify opportunities to boost year-over-year growth within the channel by several hundred million dollars above existing forecasts, a growth level that would put it ahead of its peers and allow it to gain market share at a rapid clip. And we built and "pitched" the business case at the senior-most levels within the organization, attracting renewed interest and substantial additional investment from the C-suite. The global duty free channel remains a priority focus and major source of growth for our client.
Turning Around A Failing business unit
Challenge
Tower Strategy Group's client, a FORTUNE 500 multinational in the industrial and business solutions market possessed a division that substantially underperformed relative to internal expectations and its market potential. Having once been the market share leader within its segments, heightened competition from lower cost and increasingly sophisticated Asian players, major investments from legacy competitors to redefine their own business models and changing customer expectations and decision-drivers had fundamentally changed the rules of the game within the client's core markets. As a result, though the client's business continued to grow at a single-digit clip, its growth rates lagged that of key competitors and the market as a whole. The client believed that without substantial corrective action, division performance would continue to deteriorate rapidly.
Concerned about their eroding share and increased margin pressure, the client turned to Tower Strategy to identify the key steps necessary to help this division to regain market-leading growth rates while identifying key means to differentiate and occupy a premium position within the market itself.
Solution
Tower Strategy Group worked with the client's divisional leadership to:
- Define how customer requirements and decision processes were shifting within the market
- Measure how well the client was positioned relative to these emerging segments and the resulting impact on its position within the market
- Map how the value chain within the client's industry was adapting and changing in order to more effectively meet the needs of a fast-changing market
- Define the specific aspects of the client's business model and product, channel, sales and marketing strategies that were inhibiting its ability to compete
- Evaluate whether the clients brand retained enough equity to serve as a basis / platform for a pivot away from its historical model
- Establish a vision, set of objectives and strategy for not just adapting to the changing market but for reestablishing a leading position within it
Impact
We defined how the client could more fully harvest its core business in the short- and medium-term, using that as a platform to fund a more substantial business model redesign in the long-term. With the end result being a substantially expanded footprint across the value chain, one that was necessary to avoid becoming a fully commoditized hardware / equipment-only player. And one that would allow access to more stable and higher margin revenue streams and to a more sustainable long-term position within the market.
Driving Sales and Marketing Effectiveness
Challenge
Tower Strategy Group's client, a $1B+ healthcare organization, possessed a legacy sales and customer marketing structure that was segmented into multiple individual sales teams, each calling on an overlapping set of customers. The end result was a cumbersome organization that was inefficient due to duplication of efforts, inconsistent in the way it engaged customers and sub-optimized in terms of its ability to engage and excite those customers.
Solution
Tower Strategy Group worked with the client's CMO and VP of Sales to:
- Define what roles a fully optimized sales organization should play
- Identify structural alternatives that could bring the needed coordination, consistency and focus to the sales team and supporting marketing resources
- Evaluate the resource requirements necessary to operationalize that sales team (type and number of resources)
- Capture and prioritize best practices that could support that structure
- Define an implementation path for evolving from a siloed to an integrated, solution sales model
Impact
Tower Strategy's recommendations were approved by the client's senior leadership team and that suggested model and supporting practices now serve as the platform off of which its sales teams operate. Because of our efforts, the client has been able to reduce customer confusion, expand market coverage and drive a greater volume of pull-through and conversions within the market.