Business Development

THE CLIENT: a central European bespoke software development house.

THE REQUIREMENT: in a notoriously contended and busy market, with relatively little differentiation, our client was looking to increase their presence in the UK and western European market. They also wanted to branch out of the sectors they were successful in and win clients and build their reputation in new industries.

THE APPROACH: the first step was to spend time understanding where and how the company had already been successful. We also examined the barriers to expansion and the challenges they expected us to face. From there we built a multi-faceted campaign of action (liaising with our client at regular intervals).

The project included:

  • conducting a comprehensive competitor analysis study
  • interviewing their existing customers to understand what was working and where there was room for improvement
  • setting up a front line business development team
  • creating an “A-List” set of targets for the bus dev team
  • sourcing relevant private sector tender information
  • reviewing the marketing approach and positioning

Initial focus was on driving the business development activity as quickly as possible. This was for two reasons (1) to ensure the quickest possible ROI for our client and (2) to rapidly get feedback from the market on their offering and positioning.

THE RESULTS: with a focused and professional business development team in place – people who understood the market and were ready to ask good questions and listen to the answers – we were able to drive early results. We also fed back to our client on ways of amending their operational approach. All of this meant that within the first six months our client had secured seven new contracts and a revenue return well in excess of our target. Equally importantly in a very competitive market, they were able to significantly increase their share of wallet within a number of their existing key accounts. 

Business development

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