JUST HOW PERVASIVE IS MARKETING ?

Using marketing to restore the profitability of a technical team

Serge Crinquand |PMP|MBA Glion Institute of Higher Education

Objective

Understand how pervasive Marketing is

and

how it could be used by people other than the creative types.

The IT world in the late 1990s

And then…

Nasdaq index

What did that mean for us ?

Fixed costs Revenue >>

What were our options ?

1 – increase revenue

  Sell more equipments  Margin ? Volume ?

 Find niche product for higher price

 Time ? Training ?

 Sell more services

 Sell better !

 Define ?

 How ?

2 – reduce costs

 Reduce headcount  Credibility ?

 Find cheaper people  Quality ?

 Reduce fixed costs  Define ?

What we did:

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The holistic marketing framework

The holistic marketing framework

« Managing a superior value chain that delivers a high level of product quality,

service and speed »

Cognitive space

Existing and

latent needs

1 - take stock of your sales force

Account managers Engineers

•  Hunt for new accounts

•  Develop existing accounts

•  Own the relationship •  They have a special relationship

•  They can bring back information

•  Upsell / cross-sell

2 sales forces:

Even the engineers are professional sales men !

2 – train them

•  sell

•  price

•  define

Training for all !

Services

Strong involvment of the engineers in the pre-sales phases

Rules •  NO discounts

•  NO free lunches •  Upsell / cross-sell

Change of culture for sales staff and customers !

Customer benefits

Identify new customer benefits

from the customer’s view

1 – understand your customer

  How would customers react in turbulent times ?  Reduced budgets for investments

 Might prefer expenses vs investments

  Avoid any new investment !   Focus on optimizing existing infrastructure:

 Faster  More secure  More robust  … find ways to add value !

2 – match your customer’s needs

  Develop new services:  Monitor infrastructure

 Maintain / extend lifecycle of infrastructure  Optimize: do more with less

  Develop new ways of selling services:  Projects vs hourly billing  Discounted prepaid blocks of hours  New maintenance models

3 – raise the bar on quality

  Increase the perceived value:

 Quality as a differentiator

 First time right: reinforces the feelings of efficiency and technical mastery

  Position our teams as the only choice

 Hire the bests among the bests

 Train, develop, raise the bar on the engineers

Internal resources management

Have control over your resources

Internal resources management

1.  Increase efficiency

2.  Educate and empower

3.  Manage by objectives

4.  Build a cohesive team

1 – increase efficiency

Time reporting for engineers ?

« Hey, what did you do yesterday ? » « Yesterday ? I worked !»

1 – increase efficiency

Time reporting for engineers ?

Yesterday

work

Yesterday

administration training project 1 project 2

1 – increase efficiency

Time reporting for engineers ?   Without:

  Poor resource utilization / overload

  Revenue leakage, gold plating

  Project management issues (scope)

  Longer billing and charge back cycles

  Errors and delays in billing

  Errors and delays in cost allocation

  Inaccurate estimates / biased forecasts

  With:   Control of resource utilization

  Shorter ‘order to cash’ cycle

  Less billing errors

  Accurate estimates and forecasts

  Indentification of the time sinks

  Future reference for service quotes

  …

1 – increase efficiency

Measuring & Forecasting

  Without:

 Poor resource planning

 Poor financial planning

 No visibility on the business

1 – increase efficiency

Use a dashboard   Use it

 Every day !

  Share it  Colleagues  Boss (and ask for his !)

 Subordinates

  Tweak it  Your tool

1 – increase efficiency

  Check your processes:

 Are they still valid ?

  are they flexible enough ?

  do they help people do their job or do they hinder them ?

GOAL:

reduce order to cash cycle

1 – increase efficiency

  Put new rules in place:

  reinforce the right behavior

  Show you’re serious about the change

  Examples of new rules:

 ALL service offers have to go through the Technical Manager’s desk for approval

 New formal project closure procedure

Internal resources management

1.  Increase efficiency

2.  Educate and empower

3.  Manage by objectives

4.  Build a cohesive team

2 – educate and empower

  Don’t just give ‘orders’, explain, coach, teach, empower !

  Remove any ‘hang-ups’

  Reward time management

 Less overtime

 Less time spent on site, increased efficiency

 Time management = life management

Internal resources management

1.  Increase efficiency

2.  Educate and empower

3.  Manage by objectives

4.  Build a cohesive team

3 – manage by objectives

  Set objectives:

 To individuals  To the team

  Give the engineers the incentive to sell services

  Make sure your objectives :

 are S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound)

 will cement the team and not make it fall apart

Internal resources management

1.  Increase efficiency

2.  Educate and empower

3.  Manage by objectives

4.  Build a cohesive team

4 – build a cohesive team

  Why should you care ?

  High cost of a recruitment

  High cost of training

  Highly difficult to find the bests

  Good engineers are courted from all sides

  How to retain engineers ?

  Give them interesting projects

  Train them, help them reach the next step in their career

  Make them feel part of a family !

The results ?

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  Billable time:

  from 20% to 80%

  Revenue:

  target +30% the 1st year

  Customer satisfaction:

  4.8/5

Questions ?

Thank you !