Overview: A leading office automation provider saw an opportunity to go after market demand, and they needed a plan to get there.
Konica Minolta Business System (KMBS) is a global leader in office automation. Their solutions - which span hardware, software, and services - are all designed to increase efficiency, collaboration and productivity for businesses of all sizes.
While the North American KMBS leadership was generally pleased with their channel team’s results, they strongly believed that material demand in the market, both active and latent, was there for the taking. Their current planning process was inconsistent, not necessarily aligned to the company goals, and they believed they may be missing key observations and opportunities. With this as the internal backdrop, external factors were also in play. They were facing additional pressure from major competitors and their traditional addressable market was shrinking. They needed to accelerate their team’s and their partners’ transition to new solutions and services.
Their goal was to implement a powerful, consistent, and simple business planning discipline and process to ensure the entire team is aware of the overall objectives and strategies, and working in concert toward them.
They wanted to:
deepen partner engagement,
gain strategic alignment,
and accelerate revenue through partners.
Executive leadership concluded that they needed to implement a disciplined yet flexible planning process to reach their top-line revenue and profitability goals. In addition, they were seeking a simple and intuitive methodology so it would be adopted by the employee base as a business accelerator; and not be viewed as a non-value-added administrative burden.
External training with the appropriate “street credibility” would begin the process of taking the team to a higher level of performance and even to a higher level of job satisfaction.
Challenges: What were they up against?
Dual Sales Goals
The team had to close Q4 while preparing for Q1. Like all companies, they had to keep a dual focus on a hard close in the current period and a fast start to the upcoming one.
No Consistent Planning Process
While individuals wrote business plans in the past, they needed a consistent process and framework.
Lack of Clarity on Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics
Like many companies, they needed to derive their objectives and strategies from headquarters for alignment and relevancy. They also needed to identify milestones and metrics for themselves and their partners.
Not Aligned on Priorities
Many partners were sticking to their traditional products and not adopting the new breadth of services.
They contacted us since we’ve been doing business planning for years, and had literally been in their shoes in the past, to help them over-achieve their goals.
Solution: We trained managers and the partner sales team on our 5-step precision planning process.
Step 1: Assess Current State
Understand internal and external resources, capacity, and capabilities from both an objective and subjective viewpoint.
Company assets
Market conditions
Competitive situation
Partner capacity & capability
Step 2: Formulate Plan
Develop high-level foundational objectives and strategic priorities that cascade to each group, individual, and partner.
Objectives
Strategies
Tactics
Potential risks & mitigation plans
Step 3: Garner Support
Roll out the business plan approach and process to internal and external stakeholders and gain alignment.
Seek feedback and alignment
Secure commitment
Internal dependencies and stakeholders
External dependencies and stakeholders
Step 4: Execute Plan
Operationalize strategies and tactics with a disciplined review process to track accountability and progress.
Over-allocate your budget
Put plan into action
Schedule reviews
Step 5: Measure & Adjust
Keep the plan “alive” and relevant by measuring if it’s on track, and adjusting as needed.
Metrics
Leading indicators
Lagging indicators
Rapid response plans
Results: A Clear Plan with a “Single Source of Truth”
“Kevin and Carrie were invaluable to my business. They know dealers, resellers, management, and salespeople, how to manage a P&L, and how to close a deal.”
After working with Gilroy Associates, the KMBS team walked away with:
A single and consistent planning process.
A common set of strategies and priorities for the team and their partners.
Documented action plans for each manager and team member.
Shared commitments and investments between KMBS and their partners.
A culture of accountability for the team and their partners.
“Everyone found both the content and the delivery very valuable. We loved that you had been in our shoes and truly understood our challenges.”
Laura Blackmer, SVP Dealer Sales