Moving up the value chain

3M

Market Growth, Stakeholder Management, Skills Development

Approach

Impact

A large multinational had historically focussed on resellers to sell their protective equipment. Direct sales to large defence customers had the potential to increase profitability and market share.

The provision of Personal Protection Equipment to the Armed Forces has typically been through commoditised provision. However, the ability to move up the value chain and create strategic relationships with customers and tier 1 suppliers meant increased influence on the direction of major programmes, the ability to influence requirements and increased profitability.

Cynapse was contracted to work with the business development and sales team to devise and exact a stakeholder engagement, project alignment and partnership programme to position the customer with key influencers. In addition, we were contracted to provider domain specific training to improve the skills and knowledge of the business development team following reorganisation.

• Review of existing position and product portfolio

• Stakeholder mapping of key customer and supplier groups

• Identification of upcoming high category projects

• Training in customer structure, decision-makers and business development techniques

Through our involvement the customer was able to improve the skills and knowledge of the team and to identify major programmes for direct involvement. They were able to understand and engagement with key stakeholders in the customer and supplier community to influence requirements and testing and align their offerings to meet their requirements. As a result, the customer was able to move up the supply value chain to increase influence and profit margins.