Market Problem:
When I started at YA, my mandate was to create a product team and turn the platform under redevelopment into a scalable system to run clients’ promotional marketing programs. However, when I observed how clients chose the services and wanted to be sold programs, it became apparent that the company was not structured to serve their clients’ needs.
Additionally, there was a significant cultural divide between the teams that sold engagements and the teams that executed the programs. Through years of miscommunication, there was distrust and a lack of accountability, leading to major moral and execution issues. During my first month, I observed 4 retrospectives for promotional marketing programs that had gone wrong.
Who’s it for:
Internal Executive Leadership
What we did:
Within 6 months, I shifted the structure and discipline of my team from Product Management to Solution Design. We created a new role that would work directly with sales teams to understand client needs and then build promotional marketing programs using a series of our productized modules. The clients were able to explore the possibilities and then an expert in our capabilities applied the needs to what we could execute.
Internally, this new role took responsibility for clear documentation of the projects, along with teaming with the financing to better price profitable engagements. Once sold, they would present the promotion to the development and operational teams and take ownership of the promotion to reduce back and forth with the client. The execution teams no longer needed to interpret what was sold and the sales team could focus on finding the next opportunity.
Success metrics ($25m company):
- 3-day reduction in the time required to estimate new projects from 5 to 2 days
- 30% project revenue size increase
- Improved client satisfaction and employee engagement