Sales Transformation Case Study

Determining if a private equity backed aerosol manufacturer should hire a Chief Commercial Officer.

The client is a private equity backed industrials company that manufacturers numerous aerosol spray products.

Client

The company has disparate sales divisions as a result of growing through acquisition. The private equity sponsors are considering hiring a Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) to spur cohesion within the sales function.

Context

  1. Interview 20 sales professionals across multiple divisions to better understand best practices and areas for improvement.

  2. Interview five of the company’s biggest customers to learn their perspective on what the client is doing and not doing well.

  3. Present recommendations on hiring a CCO to the company’s CEO and private equity sponsors.

Tasks

  1. The company lacked communication between the disparate sales groups, resulting in multiple groups reaching out to the same customer and missed opportunities for up-selling.

  2. The compensation plan did not incentivize sales groups to work with other sales groups and did not encourage up-selling opportunities.

  3. Each sales group had different leadership philosophies with no overarching direction provided by the C-suite.

Problems

  1. Hire a CCO to provide overall direction to the commercial function.

  2. Adjust variable pay in the compensation plan to encourage up-selling across sales groups.

  3. Create an internal task force to identify sales best practices and share them across the team.

Recommendations

need help with sales transformation?

I would love to hear the challenges you are facing with your sales function and see if I am the right person to help. Please reach out and I will be in touch soon.