Specialty Chemicals Distributor Case Study

Sales function analysis and market insights identified six initiatives to generate nearly 75% organic growth in the next five years.

Situation and Challenge

Growth in the company’s 5 geographically-segmented divisions had historically come through the acquisition of new supplier lines
Management was now looking to drive organic growth and hypothesized that there were multiple sales force-related growth levers that remained untapped
Blue Ridge Partners was asked to identify high-potential organic growth levers and to develop an action plan to capture perceived opportunities

With an open-ended directive, we used a hypothesis-driven approach to uncover opportunities
Developed a focused list of hypotheses based on internal interviews
Conducted The Nine Voices of the Market ^®interviews with current and lost customers and competitors to identify additional areas of opportunity based on their perspectives and determine response to potential recommended changes
Analyzed internal financial and sales information, including territory data, time allocation, cross-selling, pipeline performance, and compensation to test and further refine hypotheses
Conducted ‘ride-along’ of certain members of the organization to gain a deeper understanding of growth inhibitors
After identifying promising areas of opportunity, we developed an action plan including supporting technical/system support requirements to both close gaps that inhibited growth and bolster areas with high potential

The projected impact of the recommended changes for the six initiatives was nearly 75% organic growth over a 5-year period or an average CAGR of 12%