Concur is the world’s leading provider of on-demand Employee Spend Management services, enabling organizations of all sizes to globally control costs by automating the processes they use to manage employee spending.
Situation
Concur was moving down market with a standardized version of its highly customizable market leading corporate expense management solution and transitioning itself from a standard licensed software model to an on-demand recurring monthly revenue model.
Business Objective
As Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, now a Chief Outsider, Rex Bull was charged with re-aligning the market strategy and marketing mix to support the corporate goal of maintaining their leadership position as they moved down market.
Approach
Bull quickly re-aligned marketing from an advertising and sales support organization to a tightly focused marketing engine, closely aligned with sales. Every component of the marketing mix was evaluated in terms of ROI and its ability to support the move down market. Key components of the strategy included:
- Revised messages around the product portfolio to highlight the benefits and value proposition of outsourced solutions.
- Significantly cut advertising, industry events and conference participation.
- Developed a segmented and priority market profile.
- Launched a coordinated and ongoing direct mail and tele-marketing process to drive highly qualified leads from the global 4000 market.
- Implemented a pipeline tracking and valuation process to manage leads through closure with greater revenue forecasting ability.
Results
- Delivered a 10x improvement in pipeline valuation in less than 6 months.
- Shortened the average sales cycle from 9-10 months to less than 4 months.
- Moved the successful outside tele-marketing function inside as an ongoing integral part of the sales team.
- Enabled a successful move down market, where Concur continues as the market leader in corporate expense management.