Selected examples of what we deliver
Case Studies
Major Card Payment Provider, UK
Growth, Performance Improvement, Interim Management
The client was acquired by a global player and needed an Interim Executive to join the company for 12 months and lead their ‘Sales Operational Performance’ team throughout the integration. This team was responsible for all Sales Operations not related to the day-to-day management of the sales channels (i.e. financial planning/ forecasting, commercial strategic planning, operational performance, roll-out of systems enhancements, sales and product training, among other activities).
Prior to the acquisition, the client had experienced declining sales. In order to mitigate this, its commercial strategy was focused on increasing the volume of customers acquired.
The assigned Plenus commercial executive quickly assessed the situation and identified the issue was being caused by:
– Low quality of customers being acquired (rather than the volume of acquisition) due to the wrong type of Products being offered
– The Sales team commercial bonus structure
– The way results were being measured.
A comprehensive review changed the product proposition, aligned sales commissions with the organisational objectives, and improved the efficiency of the Sales Channels management. New productivity measurement tools were rolled-out and new governance processes established.
As a result, the company achieved 25% y/y growth on the value of acquired customers: Total Revenue increased by 10% and the Operational Costs went down, as less ‘low quality’ customers were put through the boarding process.
Major non-grocery retail business, UK
Performance Improvement, Advisory
The client is one of the biggest non-grocery retailers in UK, with c.850 stores and high-traffic website, leader in the homeware and white goods categories.
The rise of global e-retail companies and reduced high-street traffic has forced “traditional” retailers to review their operating models to reduce costs, increase digital presence and evolve their customer experience to continue to be relevant in the new market.
In order to free up resources to invest in new capabilities, the client needed support to identify operational efficiencies and cut through internal red tape and politics that usually can hinder this kind of project.
Plenus not only worked at a senior/executive levels, but also heavily with the middle/lower management: getting first-hand insight from those executing the operations was imperative to identify the “fat” areas and the real impact of operational changes and budget reduction. This “in the weeds” approach allowed Plenus to identify and substantiate opportunities not considered before and challenge executives that were “too protective” of their budget/operations scale to change.
As a result, Plenus was able to identify and agree with the Executive team savings 2x higher than the original target, and just as importantly, Senior Management agreed none of these opportunities would significantly impact current operation.
Energy Service Management business, UK
Growth, Performance improvement, Advisory
The client is one of the biggest third-party energy service providers in UK, with significant market share in energy Procurement and energy Bureau services.
In the past few years, the business has seen increasing change in the dynamics of the energy market (rise of renewables, electric vehicles adoption, disintermediation of the energy market, among other trends). The client needed support to better understand the dynamics of this new market, emerging opportunities for growth and how to capture them.
Plenus presented to the Executive Board a comprehensive view of the market (size, evolution, trends), the customer’s strength vs the competition, as well as an assessment of their operations and systems efficiency.
Together with the senior management, the Plenus advisor identified, agreed and quantified the opportunities to focus on, as well as gaps in its people, operations and systems capabilities that might prevent their capture. Plenus prepared a transformation plan for the client, identifying what needed to be done (i.e. go-to-market strategy, comms, commercial structure, commercial management, systems capabilities, governance, among others), how (what the final state should look like, considering client operational reality and financial constraints) and when (prioritisation) in order to be able to develop the required capabilities. Plenus also advised on the transformation plan execution.
As a result, the company EBITDA increased 1.4x times in year 1*, well on the way to achieve the 2x growth in the 3y transformation plans
*Project is still being rolled out; to be updated as further results become available