The Challenge – A Frost & Sullivan client in the Water Treatment Industry identified the need for local market knowledge as being key in prioritizing sales opportunities and developing a targeted and well-planned customer proposition. This was particularly important given the long lead times and the significant level of investment required to win new projects. Frost & Sullivan was selected due to our ability to combine knowledge of the global water industry with workshop facilitation and training.

The Process – A two-day Growth Strategy Workshop was developed to bring the client’s board members and global sales team together with three Frost & Sullivan consultants with differing but complementary skill sets.

The first stage of the workshop involved a presentation of the key market dynamics by a leading consultant, focusing on the implications for the client’s business. This was followed by a session from a Frost & Sullivan expert on how to best utilize the market information, highlighting how the market data could be maximized to support opportunity evaluation, customer segmentation, and prioritization. The third session was designed to bring together modules 1 & 2 with an emphasis on developing the customer proposition and sales process and applying this to different regional scenarios.

The key outputs from the workshop included:

• Review of the Global Water Treatment Industry market dynamics and implications for the organization and regional sales team
• A comprehensive and fully documented sales strategy process and planning document
• A system for analyzing and determining the "best" projects to pursue and develop
• A check list for eliminating errors and omissions during the sales cycle
• A sales pipeline process for tracking and evaluating the probability of closure on projects

The Solution – Once the workshop was delivered, Frost & Sullivan continued to work with our client to support implementation of the sales strategy and to ensure that the value delivered through the event was maximized throughout the organization.

The client went on to implement a strategy of aggressive international growth based on opportunities identified via the workshop and its follow-up. For the past two years, the company has seen consistent double-digit growth in its international operations.