Case Studies - Ambit |
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Ambit and Huthwaite: Two BRW “Fast-Movers” Shift into High Gear (Download this Case Study via PDF) The Ambit Group is one of Australia's fastest growing recruitment, HR solutions and IT consultancy organisations, comprising the largest privately owned IT&T recruitment firm in Australia in addition to four specialist consulting and people management divisions. With an annual turnover approaching $200 million, and a staff of 170 recruitment professionals, Ambit are market leaders in specialist people, process and performance solutions, and were recently named to the BRW Fast 100 in 2005. THE CHALLENGE Ambit’s Professional Services division, a relative newcomer to the Ambit Group, was faced with a variety of challenges common to new divisions or businesses in a “startup” phase, including: lack of brand recognition/history in the industry, significant “price” focus from clients, and difficulty in differentiating their offering from the growing number of high-level competitors. In addition, like many companies that specialise in selling intangibles, Ambit’s Professional Services sales force were initially faced with the challenge of providing their prospects with a compelling reason to change.
“Upon launching this new division, we became increasingly convinced
that we needed to set ourselves apart in the highly competitive Banking
and Wealth Management marketplace. We realised that we needed a partner
on this journey who was as passionate about our sales results as we
were.”
Malcolm Waldock, National Manager of People & Performance
Ambit THE SOLUTION Huthwaite’s SPIN® Selling methodology was rolled out across Ambit’s Professional Services division in August 2005. The combination of specialised SPIN workshops and management coaching programs -- complemented with strong buy-in and follow-up by Ambit Managers –- helped Ambit’s Account Managers identify the key challenges facing their potential clients, and then leverage Ambit’s expertise in a way that increased their prospects’ desire to advance the business relationship.
“Ambit was very clear in their strategy to add clear “value” in
their sales calls. Huthwaite’s SPIN® Selling provided the “how” for
their Account Managers to engage in productive sales discussions with
high-level decision makers.”
Wayne Stewart; Director of Consulting Services
Huthwaite THE RESULTS Ambit’s “value” strategy had an immediate impact on new sales within Ambit’s pipeline. In 12 months, Ambit’s Professional Services group successfully increased their annual turnover from $40k in 2005, to over $5 Million in 2006, including a recent major “win” of a 110-role account totalling $700,000 with one of Australia’s Big 4 banks.
“Huthwaite has played a critical part in the Professional Services
growth story. Our Account Managers are now getting in earlier in the
cycle, and engaging more effectively in business dialogues with senior
executives. Huthwaite has been a solid partner throughout the process,
and we look forward to further building upon this success.”
Peter Acheson, CEO
Ambit Group FROM THE FIELD
“I had a meeting with [company] recently who had a self-sourcing
arrangement with a number of competitors. Before the meeting, they had
no intention of looking at alternative suppliers. The Account Manager
and I planned verbally for the meeting using the SPIN framework. In the
meeting we focused on applying the questioning model to explore the
current situation. They were experiencing issues in relation to the
market which had time constraint implications for them. From here, we
were able to uncover some of their explicit needs; we offered them a
solution and basically had them sold in the one meeting. It was a great
result and we were successful in achieving our advance, which was to
formally come onto the supplier panel.”
Ambit State Manager
“I had a client with a very specific and critical need involving a
pretty rare skill set. They had been using other agencies for over two
months and hadn’t been successful. I realised that this was a good
chance to use the Needs-PayOff questioning as I wanted to highlight the
impact on their business if they didn’t fill the role in the short
term, and in doing so negotiate on our price. After stating how
critical their need was, I advised them that given the urgency, our fee
would be [5% higher than market equivalents]. Initially, they were
taken aback, but eventually agreed. I really believe that if I hadn’t
used this approach of having the client acknowledge the potential
impact of their problem themselves, I would have backed down on price.”
Ambit Account Manager
“We were tendering for [account], and decided to use the SPIN®
planning framework to prepare for our pre-tender meeting. The main
objective of the meeting was to really dig down to the details of their
current problems. We knew that they weren’t happy with their existing
service provider, what we needed to clarify was why exactly they
weren’t happy with them. We planned for this as our key advance and
prepared a series of SPIN® questions in order to uncover as much detail
as possible. This approach was successful and we were able to uncover
that they were not feeling looked after on a number of different
levels. As a consequence of this, we were able to incorporate these
concerns into our tender and ensure that they were addressed. Value
adding was something that was important to them so we included some
specific details to address this. Certainly from this perspective, the
SPIN® planning was very useful. We were successful in being selected
which was an excellent result as this has the potential to be one of
our most profitable accounts.
Ambit Account Manager
“...They had been experiencing some problems sourcing
candidates for a particular role and I used situation and problem
questions to get some more detailed information on the issues
surrounding this. This approach was really successful in highlighting
to the client that there was a real and serious issue which needed an
immediate solution. Another result from this approach was that he
needed a nudge in terms of committing to timelines and he accepted the
urgency and did this. In the past, I would probably have tended to wait
for a client to provide me with information. The SPIN approach is more
proactive. Through the planning you can go into a meeting knowing
exactly what you want to achieve, how you aim to drill down to the real
issues and how you will convince the client to acknowledge what needs
to be done to resolve them.”
Ambit Account Manager
MOVING FORWARD
Over the next 12 months, Ambit aims to further incorporate the SPIN
Selling techniques and skills in their quest to develop strategic,
high-level dialogues with decision makers at target companies. To
achieve this: ABOUT HUTHWAITE Huthwaite, the creators of SPIN® Selling, is the world’s premier sales performance improvement organisation. Since 1978, they have helped hundreds of organisations achieve competitive advantage by developing sales skills, sales management and strategy programs, and innovative sales force responses to market-place demands.Huthwaite’s worldwide research analysing more than 35,000 sales calls over a 12-year period is regarded as the most important study ever conducted in the sales field, and is summarised in the best-selling business book SPIN® Selling, by Neil Rackham. Ongoing research has led to the publication of articles, white papers, books, sales models and performance improvement solutions that have been proven to be both practical and effective for building world-class sales organisations through sustainable performance change. Established in Australia in 2002, Huthwaite Asia Pacific has continued this track record of success, while undergoing unprecedented growth throughout the region. With offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore and a client list of Australia’s most respected companies, Huthwaite Asia Pacific was recently named #24 on the 2007 BRW Fast Starters List. |
