How it began
Alpha Limited is a 5 year old company providing IT & ITes enabled services with a top-line of over USD 6Mn based out of India with offices in Sydney, San Francisco & São Paulo. Prequate was brought in to help Alpha manage growth during the period of rapid scaling. Alpha was in a spurt stage with idea of expanding its service visibility overseas. They relied on a set of marketing consultants for their onground presence in the overseas locations.
Getting to work
Alpha started a continuous engagement model that allowed Prequate to develop the management reporting frameworks within the CFO Office offering. Over the course of the next 6 months, Prequate became an integral part of the business with specific charge of the management reporting for Alpha. In the course of such delivery, Prequate Team noticed:
Huge expenses on commission to Business development teams
Commission was a standard rate of paid out at a flat rate on sales upon collection
Established business practice was the logic/rationale behind the % paid and not visited periodically
While BD is critical function, the payment of standard rates that don’t match business interest meant BD meant transactional support and no partnership approach.
The approach
The main questions to be addressed behind any variable based payment needed to be addressed. We asked:
Does it keep the teams motivated?
Is there continuous incentive for continuous involvement?
Do incentive payments breed loyalty?
Do the incentives accrue for greater involvement?
⇒ A new incentive plan was needed.
Action Time
1
Detailed contract study: Identify and develop master tracker of all BD agreements, past and present
2
Understand the rationale: Speak with all key past and present BD professionals on how they viewed the terms
3
Ask the fundamental questions: Do the terms of the relationship address the long term vision keeping in mind the above fundamental questions?
4
Create responsibility matrix: Break down the activities and related responsibilities over their critical parts
5
Develop new scheme: Create a scheme that rewards greater involvement while reducing cash outflow
6
Buy-ins: Communicate with current providers on new scope and greater opportunity and help visualize lon term win-wins
Activity x Continual Generation Structure (AxCG)
Impact
Win 1 | Net addition of ~5% to net profits over 3 years
Win 2 | Increased efficiency and long term involvement by the BD team
Win 3 | Attrition rates lower by 22% over 1 year
Win 4 | High loyalty for continuing accounts among BD teams
Win 5 | Proactive account management assistance from BD teams
Win 6 | Simplified measurement and monitoring of the sales cycle
What happens when Finance goes beyond financial statements
Disclaimer: The nature of professional services is to provide tailored advisory based on the facts and circumstances of the case. Advice is never a one-way-fits-all. You may need to approach your advisor to effectuate a plan that suits your business.
You can contact us at [email protected] if you wish to see how this can be executed for your business.
