Market Problem:
When I joined YA, my mandate was to build a product team and transform the existing platform into a scalable system for managing clients’ promotional marketing programs. But early on, I noticed a bigger issue. The way clients wanted to buy services didn’t align with how we were structured to sell or deliver them.
There was also a deep disconnect between the sales and execution teams. Years of miscommunication had created distrust and blurred accountability. In my first month alone, I attended four retrospectives for failed promotional programs, each exposing the same pattern of breakdowns.
Who’s it for:
Internal Executive Leadership
What we did:
Within six months, I restructured the team’s focus from traditional Product Management to a new discipline: Solution Design.
We introduced a new role that worked directly with the sales team to understand client needs and craft promotional programs using a modular approach based on our core capabilities. This allowed clients to explore what was possible while ensuring that the proposed solutions were rooted in what we could reliably deliver.
Internally, this new role became the source of truth for each project. They documented client needs, partnered with finance to price engagements more accurately, and stayed with the program through handoff to operations and development. This created a clear bridge between what was sold and what was delivered.
Sales could focus on generating new business, while execution teams no longer had to interpret vague or misaligned sales handoffs. The result was better alignment, smoother delivery, and improved morale.
Success metrics ($25m company):
-
Reduced the time to estimate new projects from five days to two
-
30 percent increase in average project revenue
- Improved client satisfaction and internal team engagement