1. Mike Day Office: 01235 429882, Mobile: 07929 043733
Case study
When Mike was working with an Opto electronics business (a newly combined single business unit formed
after 6 businesses were amalgamated) he was tasked to transform the performance of the sales team and
improve the sales processes.
The program had four strands:
1. Get the right people in position
o Reviewed the personnel in the team
o Exited the weakest members of the team
o Recruited new team members
o Put in place a development program for both new and retained members of the team
2. Align the sales resource with the opportunities
o Separated the management of Defence and Non-Defence opportunities as the required
skill set was completely different
o Focussed the individual sales team members on the technologies that had the greatest
opportunity (previously the organisation had one or two sales managers per business unit)
o Identified and focussed the technical leaders who worked on bids and ensure that they
had the skills behaviours and aptitude to deliver compelling propositions
3. Implement a disciplined prospecting and bidding process
o Implemented the practice of Bid teams, with all relevant capabilities included (but not
those surplus to requirement)
o Ensure that CRM system (Siebel) was used effectively and ensured periodic review of
Optronics opportunities
o Ensured that sales teams were actively finding applications for the centres technologies
and reviewed this via the sales funnel reporting systems
o Developed improved relationships with the Pan QinetiQ market channels (market
specialists who both actively scanned different markets for technology trends and
managed the key account relationships)
4. Built a rapport between the sales and technical teams
o Ensured clear, in the moment communication
o Clearly agreed with all interested parties the roles and responsibilities around winning
business and ensuring follow up contracts
o Ensured all parties delivered on their promises to build trust
o Admitted previous mistakes and challenged poor practices and behaviours
After leaving the role Optronics was far more focussed and efficient this was reflected in the successful
launch of products such as the Clarkes/Stride Rite optical foot measurement system, SPO 20 IED detection
System and the Zephir Wind LIDAR measurement system. In addition, the success rate of winning MOD
research contracts was increased and Optronics won its first contract with DARPA (US defence agency).