Case Study
At a Glance
- $1B projected Net Present Value (NPV) over five years
- 20% increase in winning bids
- 30% increase in growth for existing accounts
- 40% year-to-year growth for target
The Story
The Situation
In the increasingly competitive marketplace, IT ServiceCo* set an ambitious goal of maintaining its rapid expansion, growing at a year-to-year rate of 30 percent to 35 percent.
The company's strategy called for strong growth, both organically and through targeted acquisitions. But with geographically diverse and fragmented operations, IT ServiceCo's CEO needed to transform the company from an organization where business managers worked independently into a fully integrated culture that focused on the customer.
Our Approach
Bain worked closely with IT ServiceCo's CEO and top executive team to develop and implement a comprehensive performance improvement transformation plan. We started by evaluating three critical performance areas:
Optimizing sales: To identify key areas for improvement, we conducted a diagnostic review of customers, the sales organization, analysts, competitors, processes and incentives.
Integrating mergers and acquisitions: We developed a step-by-step M&A integration plan to ensure that IT ServiceCo could capture the full value of both current and future acquisitions.
Bain worked closely with IT ServiceCo's CEO and top executive team to develop and implement a comprehensive performance improvement transformation plan. We started by evaluating three critical performance areas:
Optimizing sales: To identify key areas for improvement, we conducted a diagnostic review of customers, the sales organization, analysts, competitors, processes and incentives.
Integrating mergers and acquisitions: We developed a step-by-step M&A integration plan to ensure that IT ServiceCo could capture the full value of both current and future acquisitions.
Performance scorecards: To gauge the company's health, we designed a performance scorecard based on 10 key metrics that enable the CEO to quickly detect problems and take corrective action.
Our Recommendations
We recommended that IT ServiceCo implement its performance improvement plan by launching several major growth initiatives.
Specifically, we worked together to:
- Develop and roll out solutions for improved sales optimization, including more adeptly managing large accounts, building a world-class engine that generates sales' leads and responses; and developing state-of-the-art domain capabilities.
- Fully integrate IT ServiceCo's acquisition to maximize the revenue promise despite major cultural differences, focusing on the acquired company's sales organization.
- Implement Performance Scorecards and management dashboards to align the organization, encourage buy-in for the transformation and ongoing change, with an emphasis on putting employees first to reduce attrition and improve performance, resulting in improved customer service.
The Results
The performance improvement transformation we collaboratively developed with IT ServiceCo's CEO has turned around an underperforming sales organization, put in place aggressive—and achievable—growth targets, improved customer management and provided a roadmap for successful acquisitions.
Increasing NPV: Net Present Value is projected to top $1 billion over five years.
Rising sales: New account management practices boosted winning bids by 20 percent, with a 30 percent increase in growth for existing accounts.
Successful acquisition: The fully integrated and aligned acquisition delivered a 40 percent year-to-year growth for target and 25 percent margins.
Organizational redesign: The transformation plan won broad support with no attrition among senior management.
* We take our clients' confidentiality seriously. While we've changed their names, the results are real.