Improving business development efficiency as a provider of complex services by focussing activities

Providers of complex and long-term types of services are facing special challenges, e.g.:

  • High investment in tailor-made solutions for the customers
  • Uncertain/ changing structural framework over the contract lifetime
  • Uncertainty about the economic development of the customer organisation as well as decision makers’ career steps over the contract lifetime
  • Changing business parameters of the customer and of the market essentially require sophisticated reimbursement concepts “fitting” for the entire contract duration
  • Perception of “all-powerful” customer organisations

In total, complex services are formed by a set of individually combined solution-components for each customer which leads to the appearance of very explanatory solutions. Therefore, the sales process typically consumes huge time and financial resources. Even more important for efficient business growth is defining the “right” structures for your sales efforts:

  • What is the business focus ? What are concrete business targets?
  • What are the key parameters leading to successful business acquisitions ? What are the main drivers of success/ failure? What are limits of new business acquisitions?
  • In which cases analytical skills of all-rounder type of managers are required, in which cases pro-active sales representatives ? Which concrete skills are the must haves of these resources?
  • How to define the size and structures of a sales team?
  • What size of the sales pipeline and what structure of opportunities is required to reach set sales targets?
  • How to set up a structured Opportunity Assessment?
  • How to set up the Sales-Monitoring ? How much system support is required vs. organisational procedures and leadership?
  • Which external resources are required in stand-by in order to support the internal team in fulfilling all project related tasks?

My expertise supports answering these questions in order to actively drive your efforts towards new business acquisitions as well as customer retention activities. At the same time, an improved opportunity assessment enables both, identification of “unreachable” businesses and refusing to quote for these opportunities “in good faith” without causing conflicts in the own company.