Our leaders have a wealth of experience*, so they know where to look and what to anticipate. Clocking up substantial wins throughout their careers, they bring this knowledge and savvy to each new project that they embark upon.

Structural Redesign

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

Over the last four years our client’s revenues declined but they managed to stabilise EBITDA as a result of a strong focus on cost savings initiatives. They reached a point where the only way they could further reduce cost was to redesign the business operations to a minimum viable structure without compromising the sustainability of the business. The ultimate goal of the structural redesign was to maximise cashflow and there were three guiding principles – retain revenue, minimise cost and stabilise EBITDA. Our approach was to understand the performance, operations and investment plans for each of the business units and identify the platforms that would underpin the redesign of a more cost effective operating model.

Business Impact

⊹ Transitioned from a federated model to a centralised model
⊹ Narrowed company’s strategic focus and alignment of all business unit strategies
⊹ Significant labour savings
⊹ Simplified technology platforms
⊹ Stabilisation of EBITDA Margin
⊹ Maximisation of cashflow

Creating a High Performing Sales Culture

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

Our client changed their strategic direction to be more aligned to the digital advertising market. They had a large Sales force that was required for handling the customer base but their skills were no longer relevant in the agile, digital environment. They knew in order to be successful in achieving their corporate goals their Sales force required a significant shift in culture. In collaboration, we gathered all the relevant information and insights and designed a program for a high performing sales culture. This program provided our client with the solutions and resources required to influence great change in their Sales force and ultimately maximise enterprise value.

Business Impact

⊹ Alignment of Sales objectives to Organisational goals, empowering the Sales force with purpose
⊹ Daily stand-up meetings to motivate staff by keeping them informed with progress and celebrating wins, creating healthy competition
⊹ Improved the dollar return value by 3%, equivalent to $25M
⊹ Updated training/capability program provided the required tools to sell in today’s market with digital products
⊹ Improvement in staff retention, resulting in an improved attrition rate of 1%
⊹ Increased number of F2F and Telesales contacts per week delivering greater efficiencies and effectiveness

Improving Sales Productivity

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The business had established a highly successful field sales go-to-market model in the mid 1970’s that had not evolved in line with the needs of the modern day digital market. The existing model saw sales representatives operating in within their own schedules, which made it difficult to measure and manage sales activities and conversions. At a micro level, this resulted in a longer sales cycles and saw sales managers only spending around 35% of their total available time in front of customers. The macro impact, as evidenced by data insights, was that two-thirds of sales representatives were not making their quota each year, while the organisation was exceeding their budget for remuneration and rewards because of the disproportionate contribution of top performers. These factors made it difficult for organisation to ensure they have a consistent and transparent sales process.

Business Impact

⊹ Achieved sales results with more efficient utilisation of resources
⊹ Improved performance across sales channels.
⊹ Increased visibility and adherence to sales management activities
⊹ Improved sales adherence to pricing policies and eliminated discretionary discounting practises.
⊹ Increased effectiveness of sales pipeline management and specifically moving prospects through towards conversion and close.
⊹ Differentiated the clients profile in the industry as a best of breed sales business renowned for its sales process.
⊹ Improved customer satisfaction relative to delivering customer ROI.

Cashflow Management

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The client had acquired a new business which on paper was profitable, generating revenue and returning good cashflow to previous shareholders. However, the client wanted to maximise the business’ cashflow to ensure every dollar was productive, whether it be investing in the business itself on new capabilities and technology, or maximising debt repayments and shareholder returns.be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

Business Impact

⊹ Significant free cashflow improvements
⊹ Efficient use of funds and improved repayment of borrowings
⊹ Savings in Income Tax payments
⊹ Movement of Vendor/Supplier payments and swifter collections
⊹ Accurate forecasting of cash surpluses
⊹ Streamline of processes and structures
⊹ Reduction in fixed costs as a proportion of total cost base
⊹ Utilisation of excess working capital on other strategic initiatives

Customer Segmentation

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The client was transitioning to a more customer focused organisation and away from its traditional product-led approach. A key enabler to reimagining the sales and service operating model was understanding the organisation’s customer base – what are the key segments, which segments are growing, which segments are profitable and how do we mobilise the organisation around this?

Business Impact

⊹ Customer segmentation driven workforce planning and resource allocation to channels and markets
⊹ Improved average revenue per acquisition through targeted segment-based approach
⊹ Improved business development productivity
⊹ Visibility on potential cross and up-sell opportunities of existing customers
⊹ Alignment of strategic sales and marketing investment to focus on key core and growth customer segments

Optimise Sourcing Model

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The client was facing financial and operational challenges while trying to transform the organisation and compete in new customer segments. Attempting to introduce a new sales and service model, while managing a large and permanent labour cost base with sub-optimal productivity, resulted in low customer experience outcomes and a stalled transformation.

Business Impact

⊹ Significant labour costs reductions
⊹ Co-location of different teams, enabling faster learning and job readiness
⊹ Improved productivity through cross-skilled teams, improving turnaround times
⊹ Rapid workforce scalability and flexibility to cater for seasonal workload demands
⊹ Economies of scale and quicker recruitment as our partners have large resource pools
⊹ Able to tap into the industry expertise of our partners

Property Optimisation

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The client is a well-established Australian household name, with a large national portfolio of properties to accommodate its workforce; servicing key customers in all geographical locations. The consequence of this structure is a significant, underutilised fixed cost base that is difficult to optimise.

Business Impact

⊹ Sales force moved from being office-based to a mobile model
⊹ Outsourced facilities management
⊹ Strong focus on cost efficiency
⊹ Leasing lower cost collaborative spaces for parts of our business to encourage innovation
⊹ The three year plan will see 20 properties being exited and a final property portfolio of two offices - Melbourne and Sydney

Protecting The Core

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The client was on a transformation journey, moving from a product-led organisation to one with the customer placed at the centre. To enable this, the client had several initiatives underway; including a new customer segment-led sales and service strategy, as well as a new customer experience led approach to workforce planning. Despite these, revenues and margins for their core proprietary assets were continuing to decline.

Business Impact

⊹ Reduction in digital acquisition headcount to save $4.2m
⊹ Proprietary asset decline slowed with a 4% improvement in the customer churn rate
⊹ Weighted average gross margin improvement of 2% on proprietary digital products
⊹ Successful stabilisation of the regional customer segment
⊹ Aligned the marketing spend of the business to key customer markets
⊹ Established a series of customer retention and acquisition experiments to rapidly swarm around the customer churn issue

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The client was a large domestic business offering many products to customers, each with a unique and often manual fulfilment process. The client was cognisant that there were many inefficient processes at play, driving costs into the business. With double (and often triple) handing of activities, existing procedures were resulting in poor customer satisfaction, increases in staff churn, and disengaged employees across the board. Fulfilment processes were complex and required multiple hand-offs points across the value chain. The client was interested to understand how Robotic Process Automation (RPA) could be implemented to produce cost savings and improve engagement within the business.

Business Impact

⊹ Established a lite in-house RPA capabilities
⊹ Deployed first automated process in the cloud-based solution in month 5
⊹ Automated 18 processes over 3 business divisions in first 9 months
⊹ Released 14k hours back into the business for more value-add activities
⊹ Established a framework for assessing and backlog grooming candidate processes

Sales & Service Approach

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The client was focused on transitioning from their traditional advertising business model. Involving a large labour and customer claims cost base, this setup resulted in poor net promoter scores and unnecessary expenditure. The goal? Evolve to a more nimble, customer focused, digital advertising business - enabling them to compete with domestic and international players.

Business Impact

⊹ Improved customer experience & reduced customer churn
⊹ Reduced customer claims through early issue remediation
⊹ Improved Sales productivity by segmenting service related activities
⊹ Improved average revenue per acquisition through targeted approach
⊹ Customer segmentation driven workforce planning

Zero Based Budgeting

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

Introduced Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB) for a client who recently acquired a new business. They were keen to understand the expenses for each business unit within the new organisation – from overarching down to a granular level. ZBB was implemented to enable all business units to build their budgets from a “zero base” – allowing each function within the organisation to analyse their strategy and associated costs. This approach assisted management in understanding the diverse business activities, alongside the cost structure of operational functions. Once established, the client was able to link key strategic goals to specific functional areas of the organisation to maximise effective output.

Business Impact

⊹ Grouped strategic priorities and focus areas can be achieved more successfully
⊹ Business unit initiatives are more tightly coupled to support aligned objectives
⊹ Annual review ensures initiatives do not continue beyond their productive life
⊹ Efficient allocation of resources, based on needs and benefits - eliminating wastage and out-of-date operations
⊹ Promotes questioning - increasing staff engagement by encouraging individual contributions to the decision-making process

Vendor Strategy

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

Our client was in the process of transitioning to a stand-alone entity and as part of the Transitional Services Agreements (TSA) they to be completely separated from the previous owner within 18 months of the deal closing. A key component of the TSA was negotiating major commercial contracts with providers of Sales, Service and Operations activities and under current contracts, costs would likely increase due to anticipated rate rises to offset declining volumes and loss previous owner’s buying power. The existing services are covered by a range of vendors and rates are based on the number of employees, not on service delivery. The current vendors performance delivery was adversely affecting our client’s customer experience.

Business Impact

⊹ Completed vendor assessment to deliver the optimal vendor strategy
⊹ Consolidated major vendors for sales, service and operations from 3 to 1 vendor
⊹ Streamlined back of house business processes (service and fulfilment)
⊹ Transitioned front of house service back on shore, driving a significant improvement in customer experience (NPS +20)
⊹ Improved 1st call resolution to 95% ⊹ Delivered financial benefits of $11M over 3 years

Aligning Sales, Service Marketing

200k+ customers • 1500+ employees • $600M+ Revenue

The silos between the sales, marketing and service functions needed to be removed to promote sales effectiveness. There was nobody in the organisation taking responsibility for the end-to-end customer experience. Sales indicated they were taking the lead on customer experience yet revenue (-29%) and NPS scores (-88) were moving backwards every quarter. Marketing insisted that they were listening to the voice of the customer and focused on lead generation however the leads being generated were in verticals the business could not serve. Service had a company leading episode NPS(+12) result however churn (19%) was at an all time high.

Business Impact

⊹ Sales, service & marketing functions aligned on goals, lead definition, and processes.
⊹ Teams now spend their time more effectively on promising leads and conversions have increased with now common dashboards and tools, including engagement platforms to understand customer needs.
⊹ Revenues increased as a result of clear alignment on customer ROI metrics.
⊹ Improved efficiencies as a result of sales & marketing working together to shorten the sales cycle. This included go-to-market strategies based on segmentation, content development, contact strategy, nurturing, engagement, and customer support.

Business Planning Process

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client had only ever built an annual operating plan (12 months) so developing a plan for 3 years was a new activity. The company’s existing planning process was completely disconnected from the business and the process itself lacked clarity, rigor, and sequencing and dependency mapping. As a result, there was no buy in from the business about the process or the plan

Business Impact

⊹ Board approved 3 Year Plan with endorsement from all relevant Committees
⊹ Aligned the plan to the company strategy and identified the metrics and investment required to achieve the plan
⊹ Developed group and divisional plans establishing clarity of key dependencies to ensure right sequencing
⊹ Aligned on key metrics to measure with targets and profiles to track the progress along the way

Carve-Out

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client purchased an advertising business for $450+M that was entrenched in the corporate structure of an ASX listed company. The following deliverables needed to achieved to carve-out the business and set it up as a stand-alone entity: Prepare Transitional Services Agreements (TSA) before Day1 to govern the transition period; develop a completely (100%) separate IT infrastructure; contract separation; stand-up of stand-alone functions including procurement, tax, corporate affair and human resources; new contracts for employees, new entities to be set-up with effective tax structures and consolidation of office space for give back in 4 month period.

⊹ Carve-out was delivered early and under budget
⊹ Stand-alone IT systems transferred directly to the cloud - 1 step approach, reducing the need for databases
⊹ New contracts negotiated with no impact on underlying cost base
⊹ License arrangements renegotiated with service providers to reduce the exposure of audit
⊹ Set-up of new entities to minimise the tax obligation
⊹ Reduced property and facility costs by $10M p.a. as a result of reduced accommodation footprint and sublease arrangements

Customer Experience

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client transitioned customer service responsibilities offshore to Manila as part of a cost reduction initiative without understanding the implications it could have on the service experience for their new and existing customers. Shifting majority of their service responsibilities offshore resulted in customers having multiple touch points, significant inbound call volumes (complaints) and claims, high customer churn, and consequently a Net Promoter Score (NPS) as low as -89 which highlighted the extremely poor customer experience.

Business Impact

⊹ Transitioned service responsibilities back from Manila to Australia
⊹ Net reduction of 310 FTE
⊹ Established an integrated service model
⊹ Delivered improvements in revenue and customer numbers
⊹ Reduced customer cancellations
⊹ Improved customer experience
⊹ Increased the percentage of calls resolved in the first call
⊹ Implemented processes for continuous experience improvement

Data Strategy

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client had multiple data silos, variable levels of data expertise and no formalised data governance processes. This manifested into common issues associated with a failure to regard data as a strategic asset such as high-cost, redundant infrastructure and a lack of accountability over data quality. It also highlighted that business growth and operational efficiencies were being compromised by the lack of a unified view of the advertiser and consumer

Business Impact

⊹ Improved customer data quality mechanisms as part of ROI stabilisation and churn mitigation initiatives
⊹ Cost savings from eliminating multi-vendor data infrastructure redundancies
⊹ Real-time and consistent reporting of business critical metrics
⊹ Domain-specific access to decision insights
⊹ New data product pipeline and monetisation options
⊹ Safeguards against data breaches
⊹ Accessibility of relevant data and better enterprise-wide data literacy

Digital Transformation

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client plays in a market that has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, and the business was running on systems delivered in the 1980s. While the platforms were stable, they couldn’t be changed to adapt to the evolution of the digital world to meet the needs of the business and its customers. For the organisation to have a chance at succeeding as a digital business, they needed a platform to enable them to deliver that capability.

Business Impact

⊹ Exited all on-premises infrastructure and now everything has migrated to the cloud
⊹ Enabled new product development outside of its core offerings
⊹ Established omnichannel commerce services
⊹ Encouraged business units to test and trial new ideas in the market before making financial commitments – driving an innovative culture
⊹ Ability to easily engage with customers and stay connected
⊹ Created self-service capability for customers
⊹ The stability and self-healing capabilities of AWS increased productivity

Finance Operating Model

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client was acquired by a Japanese manufacturing company and the scheme to buy the business was predicated on the synergy benefits driven from the concept of a unified company that emerges stronger commercially and financially. Post the transaction there had been no integration or centralisation of commercial and finance activities resulting in inconsistencies, siloed approaches, inefficiencies, too many Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and high costs. In order for the purchasing company to maximise the return on sale it was critical that the synergy benefits in the business case be delivered – this would require investment in technologies and enablers to set the team up for future success.

Business Impact

⊹ Reduce overall costs of the Finance department by more than 20%
⊹ Alignment on operating model and how to get the leadership team to work together ⊹ Developed roadmap for technology transformation
⊹ Established a clear vision, mission and priorities for the Finance team to help navigate towards a best in class finance team
⊹ Clarity on roles and responsibilities
⊹ Established simplification initiatives

Geographic Expansion

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client has a digital product that has been scaled and well received in the USA so they are looking to maximize top-line growth by launching this product in other geographies. Our client has a footprint across the globe, but they need to complete a market assessment to uncover which geographies would be most inclined to benefit from this specific product.

Business Impact

⊹ Performed a detailed market assessment of 10 geographies
⊹ Identified 90% of markets assessed could benefit from the digital product offering and would deliver opportunities for revenue growth
⊹ Identified targeted growth opportunities within the existing customer base of 9 countries
⊹ Designed 9x Go To Market strategies to launch the product into new geographies

GTM & Distribution Strategy

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client developed a new insurance product that offers business owners group health and wealth protection plans, that can be customised to suit their business size, needs and budgets. Our client attempted to take the product to market without a robust Go To Market Strategy which unfortunately resulted in minimal uptake. Whiteark was engaged to establish a GTM strategy and arm the team with all the required tools to deliver an effective product launch

Business Impact

⊹ Built a robust GTM strategy and respective blueprint within 10 weeks to enable the client to successfully launch their new product
⊹ Created a comprehensive set of high quality tools and materials to arm existing and future sales agents to grow group insurance revenue
⊹ Test and trialled 4x MVPs
⊹ Created social marketing campaigns to drive awareness amongst Small to Medium Businesses
⊹ Developed a reporting dashboard with the key metrics to measure the success of the new product offering

Mergers & Acquisitions

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client purchased an Australian packaging business in April 2020 for $1.7B. Whiteark was engaged to help solve the following key deliverables: Day1 Readiness, Integration Plan, 100 Day Plan and Value Creation Program of Work. Ultimately each of these deliverables would set the foundations for the acquired company’s ability to maximise the return on sale.

Business Impact

⊹ Successful execution of the deal during Covid-19
⊹ Completion and Day1 transition went to plan
⊹ Value creation plan developed to deliver $100M+ benefit over 2 year period
⊹ Program of work for value creation delivered
⊹ Completions accounts successfully negotiated with an improved outcome of $40M+ from well managed process

Pricing Strategy & Optimisation

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client was in the process of transforming their proprietary digital advertising product to offer substantially greater value to both customers and consumers, and as part of this product transformation the pricing and packaging strategy needed to be constructed. The pricing strategy had three guiding design principles: to be consumption driven, protect the value of the proprietary product and unbundle the legacy product within three years that was becoming redundant in today’s digital environment.

Business Impact

⊹ Developed a pricing strategy that is consumption driven and protects the value of the core product
⊹ Improved weighted average gross margin on proprietary digital product by 5%
⊹ Created a dynamic bundle discount model
⊹ Built a ROI calculator and alert trigger within the CRM to notify account managers when a customers offering is not delivering expected results to mitigate churn

Product Strategy & Innovation

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client’s proprietary product’s revenue declined 11% over three years and usage dropped 7%. The market remains highly competitive with top 10 competitors gaining 25% in usage in the last 12 months. Our client needed help with developing a clear roadmap for their proprietary offering to ensure consumers and advertisers could see value in their product. Consumers wanted an easy to search, comprehensive and centralised business listing platform and advertisers wanted awareness driven through interactions.

Business Impact

⊹ The product strategy roadmap drove the client to relaunch the product’s brand
⊹ Delivered 17 product enhancements in 18 months
⊹ Improved traffic to the digital platform by +8pp
⊹ Enhancements to the UI/UX resulted in +20 point improvement in NPS
⊹ The products net return improved 5% YoY

Profitability Models

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

The client had a well-established annual budget process, which drove much of the strategic decision making on product pricing, as well as the sales and service organization structure. Employing the traditional drivers of revenue (and expenses) in decision making, the client experienced profitability continue to decline, despite introducing initiatives focused on efficiencies and improving customer acquisition and retention.

Business Impact

⊹ Redesign of the Sales and Service strategy
⊹ Rebalance the profitability of the customer base, with a focus on nurturing profitable customers
⊹ Reduction in the number of loss-making customers and channels
⊹ Acquisition sales effort focused on customers with propensity to upsell
⊹ Pricing rationalisation of products
⊹ Pricing rationalisation of products

Sales Effectiveness

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Our client was predominantly a print based advertising business which generated strong revenues for many years. As the world began to go online our client created digital offerings for their customers but over the years, competition strengthen and resulted in steep revenue decline for our client. Our client needed to created a growth strategy and a key enabler was transforming the sales model. As part of transformation the sales teams needed to become more efficient and productive.

Business Impact

⊹ Plan Your Work Week provided a consistent way of working and a transparent structure to the work day across all levels within the Sales department
⊹ Increased the time sales agents spend with customers
⊹ Enabled sales agents to focus on activities valued by customers
⊹ Increased closes per day
⊹ Increased the number of customers contacted per day
⊹ Delivered improvements in revenue and customer numbers
⊹ Reduced customer cancellations

Supply Chain Transformation

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

This retailer had grown exponentially over a few years with acquisition activity and organics growth. They did not have a standardised way of running their store operations (across a fleet of over 300 stores), nor did they have a supply chain that was focused on supporting the stores deliver an exceptional customer experience or inventory availability to customer. The Factory to Customer Supply Chain was disconnected from the strategic intent, with inefficient data, information and communication exchange unable to deliver profitable performance end to end

Business Impact

⊹ Implemented new operating model for all stores
⊹ Delivered significant cost savings
⊹ Standardised new operating processes for deliverers Implemented a lean continuous improvement framework
⊹ Implemented inbound planning and stock presentation principles
⊹ Implemented retail and shelf ready guidelines
⊹ Developed 5 regional stores of excellence

Systems Optimisation

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

Due to the system’s inability to meet the company’s existing functionality requirements, the business avoiding using it because no new processes were implemented for the new system. This created manual work-arounds which resulted in increased errors, inefficiencies through duplication and an incline in labour intensity. The business was utilising 400% of support hours per month and payroll error rates were high.

Business Impact

⊹ ERP system now being utilised by Finance & other departments
⊹ Operating model designed to identify the root cause of issues as they occur to determine if related to system, process or training and plan is put in place each month
⊹ New vendor relationships in place to deliver the required outcomes
⊹ Minimal noise around the ERP system
⊹ Reduced rework in payroll by 45%, and error rates by 25%

Transformation

200K+ CUSTOMERS • 1500+ EMPLOYEES • $600M+ REVENUE

For many years, our client was predominantly a print based advertising business and their sales, service and operations models were aligned to products rather than customers. As customer adoption for digital products and services increased, customer expectations changed and became more complex and our client was seeing significant declines in their customer base and revenue. Our client realised their product led approach was redundant and it was time to reset their business model to be customer centric.

Business Impact

⊹ Transitioned from a product led business to a customer centric business
⊹ Enhanced the customer journey
⊹ Tailored service requirements to customer cohorts/segments
⊹ Improved customer and revenue retention
⊹ Reduced customer value of customer rebates/claims
⊹ Generated cost savings as a result of technology adoption, creating labour efficiencies as a result of automation of processes