Restaurants & Hospitality
MERU CASE STUDY
Revamp sales infrastructure, processes, and tools to drive profitable growth
COMPANY OVERVIEW
- The client, a provider of employee recognition and reward programs, sales channel incentive programs, and customer loyalty programs had been experiencing significant losses due to poor contracting, product pricing, and a costly failed attempt at bringing a new product to market
- Recent major headcount and cost reductions associated with the shuttering of the failed new product launch has made company marginally profitable
- MERU was engaged to redesign their sales process to drive profitable growth, design a “fit for purpose” org structure, and stand up a “Revitalization Office” to support ongoing effort
OUR APPROACH
- Evaluated profitability of existing clients, identifying which clients should be kept or terminated
- Stood up a deal review committee to review upcoming renewals and new work to drive margin accretive pricing and contracting
- Conducted client interviews and design sessions to identify pain points and inefficiencies within current org structure
- Assessed breakdowns and inefficiencies in existing sales process, product pricing, and contracting practices which were leading to long sales cycles and solutions being sold for less than cost
- Stood up a “Revitalization Office” to drive sustainable change
OUR IMPACT
Delivered ~10% increase in overall EBITDA by re-negotiating eight client contracts representing ~25% of revenue (run-rate impact est. to be ~30-50% increase in EBITDA).
Customer profitability analysis identified 18 number of negative / low margin accounts to be terminated.
Established weekly deal review process and implemented standard business case review template for account teams. Achieved 50bps of pricing increases on reviewed accounts in the first 3 months and shifted the mindset of the account teams from “settle for less” to “negotiate for more”.