Chicago, Illinois | info@kinetic12.com
Manufacturer
Strategic Planning Process Design and Training
Developing more impactful strategic plans by implementing a new planning process and building strategic planning skills
Client Challenge
Despite a highly skilled and seasoned team of marketers the leadership determined that their annual strategic planning process was not yielding well thought out and impactful plans. Situation assessments were not sufficiently grounded in data and research that led to weak insights and strategies that were not solving for the most important opportunities and issues.
Additionally, the planning process itself was ad-hoc and treated as a “b”-priority. Plans were based off last year’s plans and often completed in a rush without sufficient cross-functional input,
How Kinetic12 Helped
Kinetic12 led the development of a new strategic planning approach that included a simplified process and worksheets that included examples and writing tips.
The new planning process was based on the clients existing approach and language so as not to represent too much change. It incorporated best-in-class tools and models to help the marketing team identify the most important opportunities and issues in their categories.
Training classes and small group coaching sessions were conducted to build capabilities in the areas of critical thinking, insight development, cross-functional input and alignment, scorecarding and measurement, and selling the plan.
Coaching sessions were conducted to “learn while doing” by writing the actual plans.
Results
More compelling and actionable plans have resulted. The company’s senior management has seen a dramatic change in the flow of logic, the use of insights linked to strategy, and the confidence in which the marketing team presented their ideas.
Cross-functional involvement and alignment increased. Stronger relationships were built as a result of asking for input and involving other managers in the process. Sales felt they had a jump-start on execution because they knew ahead of time what was coming.
As a result of this success, Kinetic12 was asked to come back the following year to repeat the training and coaching process to further elevate these planning capabilities.
BEST-IN-CLASS CUSTOMER BENCHMARKING
Client Challenge
The sales team of a leading foodservice manufacturer knew that a deeper understanding of their customers was critical to continued success. While this manufacturer had the resources to gather some of the information on their own, they knew they needed support from an outside organization to gather first-hand information from their customers and help them turn it into actionable customer plans.
How Kinetic12 Helped
Kinetic12 conducted interviews with the client’s key national account and distributor customers, as well as potential new customers, and researched the client’s key competitors. Utilizing a proprietary customer benchmarking methodology, we focused on establishing what the client’s key customers felt made a supplier “best-in-class” in sales, supply chain, innovation and marketing support.
Additionally, the client and their competitors were score carded against what each customer viewed as best-in-class. During the process, Kinetic12 uncovered what each customer valued most and what frustrated them when it came to supplier support and specifically related to the client’s performance.
Kinetic12 then delivered a customized best-in-class supplier report, including:
- A new customized Best-in-Class Supplier Model and explanation
- A detailed Benchmark Analysis of how the client scored against the model
- Customer verbatims on what the client did well and where customers saw growth opportunities
- Insight (including strengths & weaknesses) on how their competition was perceived by their customers
- Recommendations on what actions the client should take to move their organization closer to best-in-class
Results
As a result of this work, the client adopted a new approach to chain account and distributor sales that leveraged their strengths, addressed their weaknesses and ensured their entire organization was focused on what their customer valued most from a supplier.
Key actions implemented by the client included:
- Better utilization of value-added resources, such as culinary and insights, against key accounts
- Consistent approach to customer communication/information sharing, such as supply chain reporting
- New sales training program launched
- Sales team performance tracking and reporting updated
CUSTOMER PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
Client Challenge
The sales leader of a foodservice manufacturing organization was looking for a way to re-energize his sales team and encourage them to once again think strategically about their accounts - after being forced to spend the last few years focused primarily on solving operational problems brought on by supply chain constraints. With no consistent approach to account planning taken across accounts, they were unable to align priorities cross-functionally, equitably apply resources to customer activity, and track progress against key accounts in a consistent manner.
How Kinetic12 Helped
Kinetic12 partnered with the company’s sales leadership and their L&D team to develop customized account planning templates focused on emerging accounts, strategic accounts and transactional accounts. They then held a day-long, in-depth training session to help explain the importance of account planning and teach the organization how to apply a best-in-class account planning methodology based on Kinetic12’s proven six-step planning approach.
Results
The training class was attended by 30+ tenured salespeople who learned how to leverage Kinetic12’s planning process to identify insights, understand the implications of those insights and turn them into impactful customer initiatives. Real-life customer examples were developed and shared to help participants internalize the process and jump-start their thinking on how to strategically approach account planning with their specific customers.
Direct feedback from the participants indicated very high overall satisfaction: a post-class survey indicated overall satisfaction with the class as 8.23 on a 10-point scale.
The client now has customized templates, a trained sales force and concrete plans against how they will strategically grow their key accounts in the upcoming fiscal year. These plans, once rolled up as a sales team, will help their company allocate resources more effectively, and will help them achieve cross-functional alignment against customer priorities and track their progress against critical customer initiatives throughout the year.
