Defining Your Purpose
Introduction
Following an acquisition, an established medical software developer, was looking to grow aggressively and needed to reset strategy. To kick-start this effort the Managing Director recognised an opportunity to research why its’ customers invested in its’ offerings as the basis for defining company mission, meaning & purpose. The outcome was a clearly defined mission which drove go-to-market plans and more clearly messaged its’ offerings and how it operated with customers. The new mission has become the basis of key decisions for all functions, most notably product strategy and customer support services and has contributed to redefining company culture and values. The net result is a significant contribution to uplifts in revenue, profitability and customer satisfaction.
The Opportunity
An established medical software developer saw the opportunity to re-define its purpose and use that to drive a series of initiatives aimed at revitalising its performance in sales & marketing, product strategy, professional services delivery and customer support.
The process began with structured 20-minute interviews with a range of customers representing the customer base. Transcripts of the interviews were then used to identify:
the reasons customers initially selected the company
their experience implementing the software and working with the company
key outcomes in support of the original business case for investing.
A critical component was to capture the “voice of the customer” and not translate, interpret or otherwise modify their statements.
Interactive facilitated workshops with the leadership team then delivered a new purpose. The leadership team presented this to company staff to seek their feedback and subsequently presented it to a selection of customers.
The outcome was a clear, powerful statement of purpose.
The purpose was then adopted and used by all department heads to assess whether key activities were in alignment and supported the purpose or not.
The Results
As a result of evaluating key departmental activities against the stated purpose, this led to significant changes in:
messaging and go-to-market plans in sales & marketing
structure, content and commercial terms in procurement processes
product strategy decisions - roadmaps, new feature prioritisation and development
creation and delivery of value-adding professional services
enhancement of support protocols, helpdesk ticket prioritisation and mechanisms for soliciting feedback
In the first full year of implementation, the senior leadership team endorsed the contribution this made to improved financial performance, increased customer satisfaction scores and more positive general feedback. It was also noted that employee satisfaction had been enhanced as a result of clarity around the company’s purpose.
More specifically the company experienced:
sales win-ratios improving from <10% to 66%
highest booked revenue in company history
significant increases in up-sell and cross-sell services revenue
profitability improved from break-even to 20%+
customer satisfaction NPS scores improved by 10%+
