A B2B Fiber Company Reinvents its Commercial Operations

A private equity deal merged two regional B2B fiber companies. Management and the new owners of the combined entity, FiberCo, set an ambitious goal of 10%–15% revenue growth. To get there, they asked us to help find new customers and expand share of wallet with customers that the two companies had brought to the table.

Over five months, our team designed and built a sophisticated commercial operations organization for the company, developed a proprietary view of prospects and their propensity to buy, aligned the sales force with prioritized market opportunities, and teed up more than 1,200 high-potential leads for FiberCo to pursue.

Pre-merger, one of the companies had primarily found success in lower layer connectivity (i.e. Internet and phone services) while the other offered higher layer products (like network and security) services. The chance to cross-sell products to both customer bases was central to the new entity’s growth strategy. Another post-merger ambition was to develop a structured way of identifying and qualifying prospects.

As a first step, we measured and identified a wide range of revenue-generating measures and enablers to capture this revenue, such as redefining territories and building new sales capabilities. Using our B2B Commercial Excellence diagnostic tools, we assessed ways to improve processes across the company’s revenue streams. Soon we had a detailed roadmap with action plans, charters, and initiatives to overhaul FiberCo’s commercial organization.

Next, we helped stand up that new organization, designing an entirely new commercial operating model that included detailed role descriptions and a blueprint for key processes. We set up a “sales play factory” to supply vetted leads to the company’s sales reps, so they could strategically target the highest-potential prospects. This gave FiberCo a full view of market opportunities, broken down across product categories and customer types.  

We developed specific sales plays, responsibilities, ways of working, and compensation plans. We established a weekly cadence for sales team meetings where cross-functional leaders planned campaigns, coordinated marketing efforts, and tracked progress. We built a proprietary prospect database and modified FiberCo’s CRM system with an automated process to track progress and promote accountability among sales managers and field reps.

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After standing up this organization and supporting it for several months, we transferred full operations to FiberCo’s head of Commercial Operations. In short order, FiberCo had a full view of the market, broken down by territory, product and customer types. They had created the right coverage model and assigned the appropriate number of sellers to their territories and segments. And they had started to drive momentum on their commercial engine with sellers connecting with the most promising customers. Within months, FiberCo’s Commercial Operations team had identified an additional 1,200 high-quality leads.

A few months after our work was finished, the private equity owners closed on a successful sale of FiberCo, generating strong returns on the back of the powerful commercial engine.