OpportunityOur client is a successful, specialized engineering consulting firm, providing highly competent project-based services to the food and beverage industry. The focus has traditionally been on process and chemical engineering services. As a result of the excellent reputation with one specific customer, the company’s resources were in danger to being monopolized by that customer. The client wanted to avoid excessive dependency on a single customer by boosting new business development, naturally without jeopardizing the excellent relationship with the key customer.
Action
We considered that a fundamental review of the clients portfolio of unique engineering services would be essential to allow for a clearly differentiated positioning of the competencies in a highly competitive environment. In addition, a detailed analysis of potentially accessible target market segments was important, esp. in light of the decisive confidentiality implications toward most important, existing customers. In the course of this process, it became apparent that a more concise definition of the clients overall performance program and its corporate identity was needed, so as to communicate the unique value proposition to any new customer who may be inquiring for these services through established search methods.
Result
In the process of refining the overall positioning of the company, we developed a distinct segmentation of the engineering services offered by the client into three, clearly differentiated strategic service units, two of which represented a significant expansion of service elements that exceeded even the work performed for the dominant key account in the past. By redesigning the overall corporate identity and implementing the entire compliment of contemporary marketing communication tools (web,, social media, blog, PR activities, and many more), we succeeded in substantially strengthening the foundation and broadening the company’s overall footprint, without requiring significant investment into additional engineering resources. A focused key target account acquisition program yielded 6 highly promising, new customer contracts. Moreover, the relationship with the formerly dominating key account grew even more substantial, as newly positioned services allowed for vertical penetration into departments that previously had not perceived the client as a viable solutions provider for their specific challenges.
We would be glad to share details of our work without identifying the client’s name or specifics which would allow identification of the company or its competitors.
