‘Eisenfelt has created awareness: what opportunities are really promising?’

Philips Innovation Services is an innovative service company with 1,000 experts, working on contract to support the development and application of products, processes and technical solutions. Philips Innovation Services is working for Philips companies as well as for a growing number of customers outside Philips. For a variety of companies, from start-ups to market leaders, they transform ideas into unique products or processes, develop technological solutions and have a large toolkit for technical and laboratory services. Ruud van Vessem and Willy Enzing have requested Eisenfelt to professionalize the bid and funnel management. “A good qualification of leads will lead to greater effectiveness.”

Qualification methodology

“Philips Innovation Services works for Philips, but also for third parties.” According to Van Vessem, an evaluation done in 2009 showed that qualifying leads needed improvement. “Sales people are, by nature, very optimistic and therefore not always very efficient,” Enzing explains. “With a good qualification methodology you force them to think: What opportunities are really promising and thus worth picking up? Eisenfelt has helped us with the entire process: from the first contact and ‘spotting’ the opportunity to closing the deal.” A good qualification of leads is important for Philips Innovation Services. “We are dealing with new businesses and new customer segments.”

Dual policy

Over six months, Eisenfelt coached seven customer relationship managers. Why Eisenfelt? “We were not looking for trainers, but people who came out of the field,” said Van Vessem. “Eisenfelt applied a dual policy, consisting of workshops and individual coaching,” Enzing added. “Because the workshops are spread over a longer period, you can master the method much better. Our people were coached on the basis of real customer situations.”

Compelling Event

How did the team experience the coaching? They gained new insights. Enzing gives a real-life example: “You can have very good conversations with a customer, but in an opportunity there needs to be a so-called ‘compelling event’. What makes a customer decide to assign a project? For our people it was really another way of thinking. Some opportunities were rightly disqualified. Other opportunities we pulled in, in collaboration with Eisenfelt. We have created a good deal of awareness.”

“And the hit rate has improved,” adds Van Vessem. “We are well on the way to grow from a rather technical project environment into a commercial, customer-oriented and business organization.”

Better delivery

Enzing believes that the Eisenfelt methodology can also be applied within a project approach. “Eisenfelt pays a lot of attention to defining value for the various levels and members of the DMU. You should have a good answer to the different needs. A project team should always focus on what a customer finally wants to have solved. In this way, their methodology also contributes to a better delivery.”