The organisation: Red Systems
Red Systems are a successful SME based on the Wirral in the UK selling and installing glazing products to the commercial sector.
The challenge
Red were undergoing a significant rethink of the business, driven in part by their MD enrolling on an MBA programme at Manchester Metropolitan University. As part of this rethink they recognised that they needed to become more skilled at sales and marketing in order to optimise the growth potential for the business.
Our solution
We ran a series of small workshops for the sales team that focused on the Tuning into the Market stage of our Sustainable Growth model. We helped them to score their customer base against a set of segmentation criteria so that they could identify the customers they wanted to nurture and maintain, those that they wanted to grow and develop and those that were the least attractive. We then designed a Voice of the Customer survey which was sent out to key contacts in all their customer organisations. We then analysed the data to provide feedback on what their key customers valued the most and therefore what they needed to focus on improving within the business.
The impact
Our key finding was that the customers that they really wanted to grow and develop valued expertise and advice more than getting a cheaper price or even quality. This raised questions for the business about how they sourced their design and consultancy expertise. They had been on a drive to outsource this and only employ people for the core functions of the business. But the MD recognised that this meant they had less control over the quality of the advice, so initiated a rethink around strategic resourcing.
