At a Glance
- A joint venture telecommunication operator in an Asian country engaged Renoir for a project to revitalise their sales department.
- We designed, developed, and piloted a model Sales Performance MCS within its dealers, which was later rolled out nationwide.
- At the end of the project, the reload voucher sales recorded a 21% growth, surpassing the 16% target.
BackgroundÂ
The telecommunications industry comprises the companies and regulatory bodies responsible for providing the services and infrastructure needed to transmit signals, messages, and data. Â
The pace of telecommunications innovation and development in a specific region is shaped by significant changes in technology, customer demand and local regulation. As of 2022, the global telecommunications services market was valued at US$1,805 billion, with expectations of sustained growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.2% from 2023 to 2030. Â
Given the current fast-paced and technologically ambitious climate, telecommunication is one of the most important industries of the 21st century. Our client is one of the largest joint venture (JV) telecommunication operators in an Asian country. Â
AnalysisÂ
The client engaged Renoir to conduct a comprehensive business analysis across the company’s main divisions. Our analysis identified several areas in need of improvement. Following discussions, the client decided to engage Renoir for a project aimed at revitalising the sales department. Â
The objectives of the project were to:
- Design, develop and pilot a model Sales Performance Management Control System (MCS) within two of its dealers to monitor financial and operational key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Implement the new MCS across the remaining 164 dealers throughout the country’s divisions, while providing coaching and training to the management teams.
- Provide training and support to 10 regional managers and 80 area managers, to ensure their proficiency in using the newly developed system.
- Provide training to distribution sales representatives, focusing on active selling approaches to increase route compliance and strike rate.
- Achieve a 16% growth in reload voucher sales nationwide.
Project approach
The project commenced with Renoir’s Focus Process® for the first 13 weeks. This was followed by a 26-week implementation phase was initiated. During the Focus Process, we identified the following issues:
- Dealers lacked business management skills and as a result were not using financial and operational KPI dashboards. This lack of a control mechanism and system for capturing information was a significant challenge.
- Regional sales management did not have a standard performance reporting metrics, which hindered their ability to effectively monitor the dealers reload voucher and SIM card sales.
- Distributor Sales Representatives (DSRs) lacked the fundamental knowledge to actively sell the company’s products.
- Point-of-sale expansion target was not monitored through to the dealer level, resulting in a lack of achievable targets from the dealer’s internal management.
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Project implementation
Pilot project: Design, development and pilot installation
To address the above issues, Renoir and the client jointly identified two dealers for a pilot project — one in a developed market and the other in an emerging market. This approach was designed to develop relevant solutions for the project.
We designed a new MCS to seamlessly link KPIs, performance reporting and management reviews. The new MCS was then installed to monitor performance improvement and validate the growth of financial KPIs (comprising reload vouchers and SIM card sales) and operational KPIs (including route compliance, strike rate, and point-of-sale expansion).
Implementation
A project team was set up, comprising four Renoir consultants and 12 full-time task force members from the client’s office. The team implemented the new MCS across all 164 dealers nationwide, at a pace of approximately one location every week and a half.
The use of an internal task force was designed to ensure commitment and buy-in from all dealers, a critical element in ensuring the sustainability of the project. The internal task force also helped to overcome the language and cultural challenges.
One of the most significant outcomes of the implementation was the successful change in the behaviour of the regional sales management team.
Results
Reload voucher sales recorded a 21% growth, surpassing the 16% target.
Average strike rate increased from 71% to 87%, a 23% improvement in sales representative strike rate.
The point-of-sale expansion rate increased by 178%, growing the outlet base significantly.
*We have intentionally omitted client-specific details to maintain strict confidentiality.  
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