Helping the newly merged FiberCo increase revenue 10-15%
Helping the newly merged FiberCo increase revenue 10-15%
A private equity deal merged two regional B2B fiber companies. Management and the new owners of the combined entity, FiberCo, set an ambitious goal of 10%-15% revenue growth. They hired Bain to help them accentuate the strengths of the two merged companies and sell the combined product portfolio into each legacy customer base. Within five months, Bain had helped them plot a path to future growth and stand up an entire new commercial organization to achieve that.
Bain teams redefined FiberCo’s commercial engine
Because Bain already works with many of the top telecommunications providers around the world, its team had extensive knowledge of the market. Bain consultants, analytics experts, and specialists gathered to set and enact a plan to help the client reach its full potential.
Bain teams redefined FiberCo’s commercial engine
Because Bain already works with many of the top telecommunications providers around the world, its team had extensive knowledge of the market. Bain consultants, analytics experts, and specialists gathered to set and enact a plan to help the client reach its full potential.
Background
FiberCo was formed through the merger of two regional business-to-business telecommunications companies which enjoyed complementary strengths. One had succeeded in lower layer services such as internet and phone lines, whereas the other had focused on higher layer network and security services. There was a rich opportunity for each to cross-sell its products into the others’ customer base. But now that the merger was complete, management was noticing that sales weren’t rising as quickly as anticipated.
The challenge was, neither company’s commercial organization was prepared to take advantage of the full opportunity. They lacked a consolidated sales approach, had a limited understanding of customer relationships across the combined entity, and were unclear about where the best opportunities lay. To address this and more, the management team and new private equity owners called upon Bain to build a plan to bring the business to its full potential.
The plan
Bain teams conducted an initial diagnostic followed by an “ambition” workshop to help the client’s executives prioritize initiatives. In that diagnostic, Bain’s consultants quickly got to the heart of where the client could create the most value—improving their go-to-market approach. Specifically, the client’s salespeople tended to understand the products they’d sold prior to the acquisition, but not the new ones. And there was little detailed sales reporting, which made it difficult for sales leaders to understand—much less coach on—sales performance and improvement.
Bain helped FiberCo plan. It identified a wide range of measures the client might take, and ways to capture more sales. Using our B2B Commercial Excellence diagnostic tools, the team then assessed ways to improve processes across the company’s revenue streams and conducted extensive behavior profiling to understand the characteristics that differentiated the highest and lowest performing sales reps. That allowed Bain’s consultants to create a detailed roadmap to overhaul FiberCo’s commercial organization.
Questions:
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What levers could FiberCo pull to reach its full potential?
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Where were its 3-5 most important medium-term initiatives?
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How should the company pursue these opportunities?
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What were the key risks?
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What was the market opportunity per customer and category?
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What was the right commercial organizational structure?
The approach
Bain helped FiberCo’s team stand up a newly designed commercial organization. They built a whole new commercial operating model which included detailed role descriptions, new compensation plans, redefined territories, and a blueprint for key pre- and post-sale processes.
Bain teams then set up a “sales play factory” to supply vetted leads so the company’s sales reps could focus on the highest potential prospects and grow comfortable with the new products. Bain also built out a tool known as MoneyMap and modified FiberCo’s CRM to track deal progress and ensure accountability.
After supporting this new organization for several months, Bain transferred full operations to FiberCo’s newly hired head of commercial operations, with the sales engine running.
The results
The new commercial organization quickly began achieving its goals. Sales reps were able to sell a wider swath of the portfolio, and sell bigger, more strategic deals. The clearer handoffs and job descriptions allowed FiberCo to roll out a predictive hiring methodology to ensure new sales hires met expectations. A few months after the work concluded, the new private equity owners successfully sold FiberCo, which generated strong returns.
high-potential leads within a few months
revenue growth
