Commercial Capability Building Programmes
For Your Pricing, Marketing & Sales Teams
Looking For Ways To Drive Your Commercial Strategy?
Commercial Capability building: Are You Looking To Your Teams To Capture Commercial Strategy – Not Consultants?
Having an optimised commercial system to build and embed commercial capability across the business is the best way to drive and capture commercial strategy.
- An internal commercial system to build sustainable value capture
- Avoid costly training courses and workshops that deliver zero margin
- Enable teams to learn the right skills at the right time
- Ensure all teams move toward the strategic commercial destination
- Generate at least 2-4 per cent additional margin within the first 3 to 6 months
Download your Executive leadership guide to Commercial Capability Building
THE NUMBER 1 MISTAKE
The biggest mistake CEOs can make right now is to rely on training courses and workshops to achieve the necessary level of pricing and commercial capability building across the business.
Indeed, training does not teach the appropriate pricing skills necessary for a new pricing project or embed price rise strategy or process, for example.
Research shows that within only 6 days, teams forget what they have learned from training courses because much of the workshop content, timing and sequence of training is flawed.
Having a commercial system of building capability and embedding learning within the business will bypass the ‘forgetting curve’ and enable teams to apply the right skills, at the right time and the right place to achieve the right outcomes.
Indeed, training does not teach the appropriate pricing skills necessary for a new pricing project or embed price rise strategy or process, for example.
Research shows that within only 6 days, teams forget what they have learned from training courses because much of the workshop content, timing and sequence of training is flawed.
Having a commercial system of building capability and embedding learning within the business will bypass the ‘forgetting curve’ and enable teams to apply the right skills, at the right time and the right place to achieve the right outcomes.
WHAT’S CHANGING
Across the business, departmental leaders and their teams are operating in the toughest market environments of their careers:
- Finance, sales and pricing teams are implementing some of the biggest price rises ever to offset inflation and cover costs
- Purchasing teams are making further material and supplier cost reductions across purchasing spend
- Commercial teams are updating rise and fall clauses driven by changes in input costs and demand
- HR teams are bringing the workforce back to the office en masse while dealing with growing demands for better talent, pay, flexibility, incentives
Due to the urgency of many of these challenges, many often see building commercial capability as a luxury. Still, what if you could feed the right amount of learning and information into everyone’s day without overloading them? Only enough to ensure vital project workstreams as well as BAU activities were all completed proficiently?
IMMEDIATE RISK TO PROFIT
A recent report from the World Economic Forum finds that investment in closing the skills gap in businesses can boost GDP by $6.5 trillion by 2030. However, last year it cost businesses approximately $340 billion dollars to train their teams. Moreover, large businesses spending on average is $22 million (c.17% of their budget) with very little to show for it.
Whatever way you look at it, building capability using traditional training models is expensive and often fruitless. Nevertheless, the opportunity cost of inaction (not developing your teams) is even greater.
Over this year and last year alone, the market value of many great Australian B2B and manufacturing businesses plummeted as share prices drop. In fact, we know of one business whose share price dropped by 80 per cent in < 1 year due to sitting on these very kind of people and culture decisions.
Whatever way you look at it, building capability using traditional training models is expensive and often fruitless. Nevertheless, the opportunity cost of inaction (not developing your teams) is even greater.
Over this year and last year alone, the market value of many great Australian B2B and manufacturing businesses plummeted as share prices drop. In fact, we know of one business whose share price dropped by 80 per cent in < 1 year due to sitting on these very kind of people and culture decisions.
ADDITIONAL RISKS
When businesses leave it to individuals to manage their own development, they often don’t know where to start and end up doing their own thing anyway.
Once a business skimps on developing its people, skill gaps grow. What’s more, the ability of teams to develop and implement commercial strategy diminishes. This often leaves executives with no choice but to seek external consultancy support.
When businesses rely on pricing training, often the timing, content and structure of the training course is flawed and teams forget it or stop using it.
If pricing tasks are shared across teams without a structured development plan or integrated processes, critical actions and great ideas are lost and implementation stagnates.
When teams firefight issues daily, they stop embedding better ways of working and go back to doing their own thing.
If pricing is outside a teams’ area of expertise, they can make repeated and costly mistakes and undertake lengthy workarounds to compensate.
Once a business skimps on developing its people, skill gaps grow. What’s more, the ability of teams to develop and implement commercial strategy diminishes. This often leaves executives with no choice but to seek external consultancy support.
When businesses rely on pricing training, often the timing, content and structure of the training course is flawed and teams forget it or stop using it.
If pricing tasks are shared across teams without a structured development plan or integrated processes, critical actions and great ideas are lost and implementation stagnates.
When teams firefight issues daily, they stop embedding better ways of working and go back to doing their own thing.
If pricing is outside a teams’ area of expertise, they can make repeated and costly mistakes and undertake lengthy workarounds to compensate.
THE COSTLY ROAD TO RECOVERY
Since 2010, Taylor Wells Advisory has worked through 23 pricing transformations. With many leaders and teams in a variety of B2B and B2C segments and industries. We have seen a lot, from:
- Sales teams giving away procurement savings because they set the wrong prices.
- Pricing teams issuing price rise notifications to customers without updating customer prices and contracts.
- Product teams overriding prices without authorisation or guidance.
- Executives explaining to the board why over a million dollars of revenue was not invoiced due to a combination of systems issues and price complexity.
- Commercial teams miscalculating price changes in the system and the business missing its margin target before end of year.
- A business that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars launching a new sales incentives scheme but worked against the new way of pricing proposed by the Executive General Manager and a published commercial strategy document.
Training alone does not solve these problems. In fact, relying on training alone to build and embed commercial capability across your teams means immediate and significant margin loss. The average $ loss ranges from between -3- 5 percentage points each year. On top of this, factor in well over 36 months+ of a long and painful change process.
Download your Executive leadership guide to Commercial Capability Building
HOW TO ACCELERATE COMMERCIAL STRATEGY
Commercial capability building goes well beyond traditional training of employees: It’s about fundamentally changing how sales, pricing and marketing work gets done.
In fact, our research shows that you get the most impact from commercial capability building programmes when workflows and working days get stripped down to their most basic components.
However, what is equally important is the rebuild process. As it is only though rebuilding the entire pricing process that teams can embed new skills, knowledge, practices, processes and habits around new and existing workstreams.
In fact, our research shows that you get the most impact from commercial capability building programmes when workflows and working days get stripped down to their most basic components.
However, what is equally important is the rebuild process. As it is only though rebuilding the entire pricing process that teams can embed new skills, knowledge, practices, processes and habits around new and existing workstreams.
THE SOLUTION
Our optimised commercial optimisation system covers the basics. Just like a fitness programme. Then, it builds up from there as teams master new skills, kick key milestones, reach personal and team goals, and achieve shared outcomes.
The lessons can be basic. For example, how to take a price rise and how to write the most effective price rise communications to customers and staff. Or more sophisticated. For example, how to prioritise your responsibilities to integrate anticipated project tasks into BAU and optimised multiple team workflows.
They can also be technical or functional to get key workstreams and tasks completed on time and generating $ value improvement. For example, how to create a strategic price structure with optimal price levels to generate an additional 6 per cent margin within 3 to 6 months.
The system is applied to all departments and functions – not just pricing or sales or product teams. HR as well. Nothing goes missing, everything is captured.
The lessons can be basic. For example, how to take a price rise and how to write the most effective price rise communications to customers and staff. Or more sophisticated. For example, how to prioritise your responsibilities to integrate anticipated project tasks into BAU and optimised multiple team workflows.
They can also be technical or functional to get key workstreams and tasks completed on time and generating $ value improvement. For example, how to create a strategic price structure with optimal price levels to generate an additional 6 per cent margin within 3 to 6 months.
The system is applied to all departments and functions – not just pricing or sales or product teams. HR as well. Nothing goes missing, everything is captured.
OUR APPROACH
Many consultants argue the complexity of commercial strategy or execution is the great barrier to success. However, from our consulting research we find that there are two reasons teams struggle to learn, apply and embed training. These are:
- They are not learning the right things at the right time
- There’s no system to guide, remind, and regulate the flow of work, monitor learning outcomes. As well as lack of a system to update capability-build programmes according to the business’ needs.
Connect with our commercial capability building service
THE PROCESS
Our Commercial System is spread out at different levels of the organisation. Starting with:
- Initiating Diagnostics
- Setting up Teams
- Phasing in Targeted Learning
- Tracking Progress
- Optimising As Required
Learn more here.
CASE STUDY
HOW AN ASX INDUSTRIAL BUSINESS GENERATED AN ADDITIONAL 9.5 PER CENT MARGIN IN UNDER 6 MONTHS WITH NEW TARGET PRICING
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