CATALYST INDIA

Management Consulting Services – Capability building for growth

+91 6362230434      info@catalystindia.in

Experience

Business Transformation

The client is a leading AMI solutions company. The work has involved strategy and roadmap from transforming the company from a billing software company to a revenue maximization company and currently to a leading player in the Advanced Metering infrastructure, and Smart city Industry. Advised, helped build capabilities, prepared business plans, strategy roadmaps, product documentation, marketing collateral, proposals, ongoing research to position company in the industry. Implemented business transformation measures by implementing Agile-scrum work processes in software development, designing and implementing management controls, designed and implemented performance management systems. Re-engineering service support function to for effectiveness and to surpass SLAs

Change Management

Client Challenge: The client is a global brand and the largest player in the Indian power tools market. They have a large and established distribution network in India. However, competition on the technical and innovation front from global brands, and growth of Indian and Chinese brands have been presenting challenges for future growth. Management has put together a comprehensive strategy. The sales team needs to be aligned with the strategy, in terms of process, structure, productivity etc. Channels need to be developed and managed differently and aggressively.

Our approach: The approach involved coaching, mentoring and guiding the sales and service teams to let go of their fears, manage the change and align with the new strategy in the interests of sustainability, profitability and growth. This was done through a combination of training sessions/workshops, simulated games, brainstorming, case studies, behavioural change, personal projects and strategic inputs.

Impact:  Sales team saw an increase in productivity, team members were able to take on individual goals and targets and achieve them. They were able to plan and structure their work more effectively. They now manage ten times the number of distributors that they earlier managed. They have also been able to minimize channel conflict and onboard distributors at a rapid rate. The result has been a sustainable way of growing the business.

Business Transformation – Internal processes & Sales growth

Client provides leading tableware brands to the hospitality sector in India. There were many senior level exits in sales to join the competition. Revenues were dropping and the team needed to be held together and re-built. There were threats from cheap Chinese products, and the client had to find a way to engage customers more effectively and sell high end brands. At the same time a succession plan had to be managed.

Approach: To provide a better customer experience, both the sales and back end processes were documented, re-engineered and improved. The entire back end comprising procurement, logistics and despatch was streamlined, so that the company can respond better to customer requirements with pricing, faster and accurate delivery, effective supplier engagement, etc. Processes across functions like sales, marketing, procurement, and logistics were streamlined and this enabled status reports to be presented every week for follow up and review.

At a strategic level, brands were rationalized, and focus was brought in. Research was done to understand the market and the competition. An appropriate Go-to-market strategy was designed and implemented. Focus was brought along Product lines like kitchenware, cutlery and glassware. Segments were defined, and strategy for each segment was clarified. Brands were rationalized. Channels were also established for high volume segments where high touch was not necessary. A new sales strategy was implemented by working closely with the sales and back end teams. Plan to implement a proactive marketing campaign were also put in place.

Impact: The capabilities were built such that the sales team now felt empowered to grow revenues. Clarity in process and roles brought in transparency, purpose, and rejuvenated the entire organization. An appropriate incentive mechanism motivated them to take ownership, focus and perform to the highest standards. Sales teams not only began focussing on their strategic and large accounts but began to manage distributors to drive volume and pushed the back end teams to fulfil the deliveries. As a result, in the latest annual planning exercise the teams confidently set double the previous target and went about achieving it.

Smart City thought leadership & Strategy

Smart City solutions, Smart Grid, Smart water etc: Work with a mid-size company on developing new product/solution concept and proposal development. Use concepts of value-based marketing to work out the feasibility, returns and benefits from implementing solutions. Create research white papers & presentation to stakeholders on new technology and solution concepts to demonstrate tangible benefits. Help client in structuring marketing collateral, proposals, value proposition, where consortium partners are involved.

Strategy, Structure, Performance Management

Mid-sized company: Designing organization structure to leverage limited functional competencies and complex product centric workflows. Mapping roles, responsibilities and capabilities. Designing and implementing cross-functional work processes based on the type of work whether repetitive, innovative, new product development, operations, complex work etc. Implementation of Performance management system based on MBO framework.

Market research projects

  • Executed several market research assignments involving Primary / secondary research, Qualitative & quantitative, Focus groups & surveys
  • Provide analysis of syndicated research & data, Insight reports for Strategy, Regular updates for Decision support

Marketing support services

Support client (a pharma equipment supplier) with regular marketing activities and frugal brand building.

  • Branding – Creation of high-quality original content for newsletters to establish thought leadership in the minds of the target segment.
  • Well-crafted digital marketing campaigns (email & social media) that are focused on the target segments
  • Build the prospect database and maintain integrity of the database

Distribution Channel Development

Client is a large industrial battery manufacturer with plans to launch new products. We worked with the client to develop the channel structure, build the brand and establish a strong sales and service structure. The work involved

  • Developing effective channels and drive the channels for Revenue growth – identifying and onboarding new dealers and distributors
  • Develop an effective sales function that will drive institutional sales – align sales team with distribution, strategic accounts & OEMs, New business development
  • Build marketing capabilities to build and position the brand, implement go to market strategies – identify key market segments, targeting the segments with appropriate policies and products, positioning to these segments.

Large Builder – Market research

The client is a reputed builder and developer of high-end real estate projects. There were several real estate projects developed with mounting inventories of unsold units. We helped client to get in touch with a large number of prospects who visited but never purchased to identify detailed reasons for not liking a particular project/property. The primary market research (qualitative and quantitative) involved surveys, interviews, focus groups etc., to identify reasons for buying/not buying, customer preferences, priorities etc., so that the client can revert with better offers, and incorporate these strategic inputs into future project development.

Market Entry – trade agency

Client challenge: An international trade agency wanted to facilitate it members to capture revenue in the Indian market. India is a dynamic and challenging market, with lack of sufficient information and a myriad of complex channels to reach out to customers. Without significant investment in time and resources and management bandwidth, they found it hard to break into the market.

Our approach: Extensive work was done for the trade agency and its members to undertake market development work in South Asia. We enabled more than 30 companies to cut their time to market in India. The gamut of activities involved organizing events to publicize their umbrella brand, organizing speaking slots to promote companies at thought leadership forums, undertaking business development activity to identify large projects, influencing and advocating to top management of all stakeholders, identification of alliance partners, negotiation of MOUs, building business traction, research to identify opportunities and follow through to close deals etc. Marketing and sales programs to generate leads was also managed.

Impact: Companies would normally have taken at least 2 years to understand the market, hire resources, build relationships and identify & close opportunities. The process was accelerated and they were able to hit the ground running with the right partnerships in place and opportunities to follow up in less than a quarter. Some partnerships have now fructified into joint ventures. The trade agency was able to account for around $ 80 million in business deals closed through our facilitation.

Information Security & Management Control Systems

Mid Size Software company: Implementation of Information security management system, management systems that comply with ISO, implementation of agile-scrum system in new product development in a software company

Inside sales & marketing projects

Worked with many companies (software services, cloud products, engineering utilities, business solution providers etc) to manage their marketing operations and inside sales support including lead generation, frugal brand building through content creation and digital marketing to drive their business operation. We use our agile processes to ramp up quickly, use our own Customer Data management systems, Call and account management processes, content creation and email marketing to drive interest and generate interest to meet or serve proposals

Large Project Structuring

Large BOT project structuring, contracting between project sponsors and partners, working out detailed project cash flows and profits, investments required, capex schedules, pricing, preparing detailed project reports, proposals, tender documents, Project planning, execution and monitoring

Systems, structure, processes

SME: Worked with the company to implement cross-functional processes and documented systems to improve productivity, help in making the work process/quality sustainable, helping employees in taking ownership, bring in transparency and visibility into work done, measuring & quantifying work done etc. Employees were largely dependent on the owners for guidance, instructions and decision making even for regular activities. Such dependence was reduced through structured processes and systems where the MD could monitor what was being done through dashboards, and could now focus on strategic issues such as growth & direction of the organization, and the employees could function more productively using documented processes and structured sharing/visibility of information for regular decision making.