“We realised that after the merger we needed to really understand each other better, create one way of working out of this, to form one high performing commercial team and to create a new direction and story for the future from our different backgrounds.”
The CEO question to us
“Our customers have responded positively to the news of our merger and the new banner under which we approach the market with our combined assets. Our new commercial teams have become operational, and we have defined structures, systems, and processes. We do realise that success will now depend on how well these new teams, globally dispersed in their offices and in HQ, will work together. How well will they communicate to customers the advantages this new combination offers? And how do we develop their abilities to collaborate if we cannot bring people together due to the pandemic?”
Background
Two competing transport companies had both invested heavily over the years to build and own costly specialised transport assets. With both individually having to serve a global market, they realised they were not doing this optimally, as their respective fleets could only cover a part of customer demand. Combining their assets into one pool made more sense and after lengthy talks they signed a Memorandum of Understanding to combine assets in one pool and act as one to the market. With that, the realisation came of the effort it would take to build a combined global commercial organisation that goes beyond simply combining assets and procedures.
The challenge as we saw it
- How to build the value proposition towards customers, agree on how and through which channels to communicate this value?
- How to develop the commercial teams to adapt their sales approach based on matching the customer segment with the right offering?
- How to build trust within commercial salespeople who were used to competing?
- How to get exponential value out of combining the assets of both companies (rather than simply summing up)?
What we did
Creating a high performing global commercial team that can win the right business, we needed to create clarity, ownership, and a learning culture in the new commercial teams.
We designed and delivered a development trajectory focusing on two pillars simultaneously:
- Building a high performing team. We started making personal behavioural and team preferences transparent. Together with the teams, we agree on a shared way of working which was customer focused and internally effective and efficient.
- Creating a clear commercial strategy with associated habits and ways of working that puts customer focus in the heart of all activities. It was imperative to define a clear value proposition for the customers and define and support the behaviours that are necessary to put this in practice. This was also to tap into unexplored growth and market opportunities by developing new value propositions that could fully leverage the benefits of combining assets.
In a series of online workshops supported by a learning platform, we worked together with the teams to realise the above objectives. Customers voiced and unvoiced needs were articulated by inviting them to share their expectations and using this input to further sharpen the new value proposition and go-to-market approach. Through the development trajectory we brought together content (direction) and behaviour (effective teams): while the teams worked together on the commercial goals, they strengthened their team effectiveness based on value building behaviours and the insights from their own personal preferences.
What the client got out of it
- The teams themselves developed in the workshops a preferred way of working based on the model of value building behaviours. Having made it their way of working they could commit to it and define their personal implications and learning points to display that effective behaviour.
- A reference point for all global teams to evaluate their behaviour to and give effective feedback in a learning organisation.
- A commonly agreed upon and shared commercial strategy which shifted from an offer based approached leveraging their asset pool, towards a customer value based tendering process.
- A structured way of working to understand and deliver the value customers are looking for.
- A roadmap to put the strategy into practice. This roadmap ensured that the new alliance not only focused on the daily operation, but also had a clear agenda to develop a successful future for the alliance.
This resulted in a commercial team that operates as one, proposing and delivering value to customers and realising strong turnover growth already in the first year for the combined organisations.