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Medium-sized Business Wanting to Expand

Executing a major Sales and Marketing Excellence transformation in a relatively compressed timeframe
Arben Consulting worked with a medium-sized organisation whose business revolved around one significant customer and a few minor contracts. Market analysis had shown there was potential for their offerings to be attractive to several other organisations, both private and government. They decided to flesh out the opportunity with a business case. This highlighted that it would take a combination of people, process and systems to achieve their goals.

Based on the business case, the organisation embarked on a significant organisational change project. The project progressed with considerable investment in people and systems in preparation to launch into the new product offerings. Near the end of the project feedback from staff indicated they were not ready to deliver to customers outside of their current contract. Initial analysis showed staff felt hampered and ill prepared by a lack of process clarity and the way the new Cloud based client management system had been implemented. In addition, the vendor for the new Cloud based system was indicating significant enhancement costs to allow the system to expand across the proposed new market segments.

The Executive team brought in Arben to find out why the new system was not delivering the expected benefits, why the cost to expand was so high given the Cloud nature of the solution and to find a way forward and enable them to expand.

To help the business expand, Arben went through a discovery phase to articulate business drivers and challenges. We looked at their current processes and the support capability of current systems, including mapping data to identify inefficiencies and duplication. These were analysed for their alignment with critical business objectives. By conducting a Post Implementation Review of the project to install the new client management system, it was found that the new system was negatively affecting the business in two ways:

  • There was a low uptake rate amongst users as the project Change Management had been ineffective – in short, it was unpopular
  • The system only catered for the existing customer contract and, despite stated intentions when entering the development contract, would be difficult to expand to new customers without considerable additional development

As a considerable amount had been spent on the new system, there was little appetite for the large software development that the supplier was recommending.

Arben provided a plan to support the planned expansion and align activity with other critical business objectives. These included some immediate quick fixes to do with altering business processes, providing documentation and training. A roadmap outlined the way that processes and the new client management software could be augmented to accommodate customers with different needs to their current contract. In this case, Arben recommended ring fencing the existing system and bolting on true Cloud products, with the products recommended being at an acceptable price point.

A few years down the track and things are looking up for the organisation. New money was creatively sourced and the roadmap Arben recommended was completed. They are making inroads into their new target markets and have expanded their customer base. Staff retention is high.
Some difficult lessons were learnt along the way, mainly about organisational change not being predicated on IT systems but on the operating model, transferable business processes and knowledge transfer between staff. It was about doing the right things, as well as doing things right. The organisation is working to retain institutional knowledge and move into the future with eyes wide open.

Client: Pseudo Government entity
Industry: Mediation
Services: Call Centre, Domain Specific Technical Knowledge, Complex Process Flows and Business Rules
Solution: True Cloud based application that was scalable and optimised leverageable process flows across industry sectors
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Client: Large communications company
Industry: Technology, Media and Telecommunications
Services: Data and analytics, Technology
Solution: Cras ultrices tortor a dapibus venenatis
Pellentesque eget turpis nec nunc tincidunt sagittis
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse ac consectetur nulla, eu consectetur ligula. Praesent sed nibh quis ligula pulvinar cursus.
Client: Large communications company
Industry: Technology, Media and Telecommunications
Services: Data and analytics, Customer Strategy
Solution: Cras ultrices tortor a dapibus venenatis
Cras ultrices tortor a tortor dapibus venenatis
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse ac consectetur nulla, eu consectetur ligula. Praesent sed nibh quis ligula pulvinar cursus.
Client: Large communications company
Industry: Technology, Media and Telecommunications
Services: Customer Strategy, Technology
Solution: Cras ultrices tortor a dapibus venenatis
Pellentesque eget turpis nec nunc tincidunt sagittis
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse ac consectetur nulla, eu consectetur ligula. Praesent sed nibh quis ligula pulvinar cursus.
Client: Large communications company
Industry: Technology, Media and Telecommunications
Services: Data and analytics, Technology
Solution: Cras ultrices tortor a dapibus venenatis
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