Su-Kam: Transforming sales to power performance and growth

Client profileSu-Kam is a leading solar power solutions provider in India with a presence in more than 90 countries. The company designs and manufactures a wide array of back-up power and solar power solutions for both retail and institutional customers.

OpportunityThe power grid infrastructure in India is not yet able to keep pace with the increasing demand of its population leading to regular power interruptions. Consequently, Su-Kam experienced strong growth from 2012 onwards in the wake of this rising power deficit and the promising potential of solar energy.

To capitalize on this growth, the company recognized a number of opportunities including:

• Geographic diversification. In 2015, the total contribution to Su-Kam’sturnover from North India was 70 percent; together, the South, West and Eastregions only accounted for 30 percent. Increasing the contributions from thesethree regions presented a significant opportunity for growth.

• Channel expansion. In 2015, the top distributors were mainly concentratedin tier-one and tier-two Indian cities. Only 30 percent of Sukam’s distributorsaccounted for 80 percent of its turnover. This highlighted an opportunity toexpand the company’s channel reach.

• Credit management. Su-Kam had established long-term relationships with itschannel partners, some of which had been associated with the company formore than a decade. The majority of sales to these partners was on credit. Withflexible terms and inadequate collection tracking, cash flow was becoming anissue and affecting its operations. This was hampered further by unforeseenfactors such as abnormal rainfall disrupting the rural income. Improvingcredit management would enable the company to operate more efficientlyand effectively.

• Sales tracking and monitoring. The process and governance for sales trackingand monitoring was not streamlined. This meant business could not respondpro-actively to changing market conditions for products which had highseasonality and demand that was driven by events such as power outages.

• Mobility-based solutions. Orders were mostly received by the branchaccountant via email or telephone. This provided little visibility as to the timingof sales received and also the sales lost due to stock shortage or credit issues.The right technology would address these issues and increase sales.

• Product awareness. Su-Kam has a portfolio of 300 feature-rich products.Communicating the value proposition of these products (in terms of contentand reach) was a significant opportunity.

• Channel partner engagement. Increasing engagement with Su-Kam’sdistributors could help them feel more engaged and connected to the brand.This would differentiate Su-Kam from its competitors and support thepricing model.

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• Leadership development. Su-Kam’s operations could be enhanced byredesigning business processes and by focusing on developing the capabilitiesof its people while managing their performance. Opportunities existed indesigning a flat organizational structure and improving the team’s agility.

Su-Kam engaged Accenture Strategy in a sales transformation initiative to capitalize on these opportunities as it believed Accenture Strategy could meet its needs at the intersection of business, functional and technology strategies. Moreover, it recognized Accenture Strategy’s collaborative style of working and commitment to helping it achieve its overall strategic business objectives.

SolutionFor 12 months, Accenture Strategy collaborated closely with Su-Kam to identify key growth levers and implement a broad sales strategy program that would provide a foundation for breakthrough growth in 2017 and beyond.

Together with Su-Kam, Accenture Strategy worked to implement a sales strategy initiative that focused on developing a scalable operating model to support the company’s growth. This included redesigning and strengthening its business processes for sales and channel management, launching integrated product marketing campaigns, and focusing on people capability development and performance management.

To this end, the team reviewed Su-Kam’s internal and external environment and its key processes. Initiatives were then prioritized and pilots were executed in key geographic locations. Accenture Strategy also supported the company’s organization development through both hiring and training, as well as managing the pan-India roll out of the successful initiatives.

ResultsAccenture Strategy teamed with Su-Kam to position it for sustainable growth. This was achieved by optimizing sales costs through designing a leaner sales organization, process standardization and automation—all underscored by a robust data-driven approach.

Furthermore, talent acquisition and retention was improved with clearly defined roles and responsibilities as well as performance management. Importantly, the next line of leadership at Su-Kam was also developed. Accenture Strategy worked closely with the core leadership, collaborating on key assignments, assisting in successfully managing cross-functional teams, navigating complex issues such as credit/service by leveraging prior experience, and institutionalizing the importance of fact-based, data-driven communication as a guiding principle.

During the course of the engagement, Accenture Strategy collaborated with Su-Kam to execute interventions in several key areas:

• Sales tracking and monitoring. Accenture Strategy led multiple initiativesthat helped increase sales in nascent markets such as Kerala, Karnataka, Gujrat,Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Some key initiatives included:

o Launching a mobile-based ordering application that reduced full timeequivalent (FTE) requirements in terms of administrative tasks at the branches.Currently, the application is used by over 500 channel partners and serves asa platform for analyzing quantity shortfalls due to non-availability of stock aswell as capturing important primary and secondary sales data.

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o Deploying and training teams in critical states.

o Devising and launching a sales force incentive program.

o Developing and institutionalizing a cluster framework, as well as empoweringsales and service as a team for a particular cluster—with joint accountabilityto increase revenue and reduce the costs within their control.

• Effective direct marketing campaigns. Acknowledging Su-Kam’s corecompetency in technology, Accenture Strategy encouraged the companyto use its Electroscopie—an innovative tool it developed to compare powersystems—to support its sales efforts. With assistance from local teams, the coreteam rolled out direct marketing campaigns focused toward product featurepromotion across 11 states and 2,000 dealer points. This campaign was atremendous success—especially in increasing the sales of certain high-marginproducts that had historically low sales volumes. Accenture Strategy assistedSu-Kam in creating informative animated videos, which proved to be tools toclearly explain product features to both channel partners and end customers.Accenture Strategy also led key above the line (ATL) and below the line (BTL)marketing campaigns by teaming with various media houses, governmentbodies and third-party agencies on behalf of Su-Kam.

• Channel expansion. Accenture Strategy teamed with Su-Kam to increase itschannel to market by about 15 percent. This reduced the risk to the businessfrom concentrating the bulk of its turnover in the geographical North.Accenture Strategy also helped Su-Kam finalize and implement a robustprocess to add new distributors, launching request for information (RFI)campaigns in key states and onboarding category-specific channel partners. Italso facilitated a number of channel partner meetings across the country, wherenew product launches and promotion schemes were shared as well as training.

• Credit management. Accenture Strategy helped Su-Kam effectively manageits outstanding credit as well as to deploy tighter credit control and lucrativecollection-linked schemes. These efforts led to an 18 percent decrease in daysoutstanding within 11 months. Additionally, the contribution of cash and carrysales increased from 12 percent in April 2015 to 29 percent in February 2016through introducing cash discounts and early bird schemes.

By teaming with Accenture Strategy, Su-Kam has established a solid foundation from which to capitalize on opportunities for growth and become a high performance business.

“ Accenture brought a robust data-driven approach to the project, ensuring that decisions were made insightfully and with the potential to achieve optimal results. A strong focus on systems, processes and people development has positioned Su-Kam to reach its ambitious growth targets.”

- Kanav Sachdev, Promoter Group Lead, Su-Kam

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About Accenture StrategyAccenture Strategy operates at the intersection of business and technology. We bring together our capabilities in business, technology, operations and function strategy to help our clients envision and execute industry-specific strategies that support enterprise wide transformation. Our focus on issues related to digital disruption, competitiveness, global operating models, talent and leadership help drive both efficiencies and growth. For more information, follow @AccentureStrat or visit www.accenture.com/strategy

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