CASE STUDY

Background: Situation the candidate is in

You're getting pressure internally because your customer account is deemed stagnant, and entrenched in

purely price driven behavior. Some leaders are saying it's not worth the effort to sell to them e$.$g$.$ they've been

late on payments, occasionally send you on fire drill assignments, etc. However, the customer is in a dynamic

market which is growing at $6\%YO{Y}_{?}$ and you believe they could become a strategic account given synergies

between their business strategy and $x$ company software offerings roadmap. Your competition is mounting

with new entrants every day and you know many of them are knocking on your customer's door. But your

customer is still looking to X company based on the historical relationship and belief that X company

endeavors in Software could open yR new opportunities.

Areas of focus: What the candidate should analyze and consider

You know the customer stakeholders better than those internally who are pressuring you to make a change

but you are in a situation where you need to sell your ideas internally. Based on discussions with the customer

you are confident that $x$ company has more to offer them across the portfolio and that they are evolving their

buying behavior to focus on value over price. However, you're reliant on others across X company businesses

and functions to work with you on building commercial insights and value propositions that will elevate the

customer dialogue and you're hitting barriers due to internal resistance. Additionally, $x$ company software

solutions, which you believe are highly relevant to the customer, are not yet well defined and the internal

staffing is ambiguous so trying to find the right influencers and decision makers has been a struggle.

Meanwhile, your customer is looking forward to your big ideas and how $x$ company can help.

The customer is calling and says they want to meet within $2$ weeks, to discuss the husines; strategies, big

ideas and value for the long term.

Internally you believe Marketing should be in the discussion and because this could become a software

focused discussion, you would prefer to have some technical experts involved as well.

Your sales colleagues and leaders brush off your invites and when you corner them, they're disinterested and

"too busy." They tell you, "gond luck getting engagement from Marketing."

Actions for Candidate:

Develop a plan and pitch it to the panel $($the panel includes those reluctant internal sales leaders described in

the case$).$

Then respond to the customer's request for a meeting. What does your response entail?