Initial situation

A medium-sized manufacturer of commercial kitchen technology for the hotel and restaurant industry, with revenues of €95 million, is in a head-to-head race with a foreign competitor for additional market share. Despite launching an innovative product line, sales did not increase, as the dealers mostly reacted only to immediate demand. In most cases, the client’s old products were simply replaced by the new ones. Contrary to expectations, no market share was gained.

Task/Objectives:

The company needs more dealers with strong marketing performance to achieve its growth targets in Germany. The goal is to activate capable and committed specialist dealers while simultaneously mobilizing its own field sales force.

Implementation:

The first step is a strategic evaluation of the specialist dealers. The key question is: what qualities make a dealer attractive to the company? This evaluation is carried out together with the field sales team. It begins with customer segmentation and the development of a customer activity matrix, followed by the selection of dealers and end customers for building cooperative marketing efforts. This requires the design of multi-stage measures to position both the dealer and the new product line with high-potential restaurant businesses, which are then implemented in the market. At the end of the process, a joint acquisition campaign (manufacturer and selected dealers) is launched.

Results:

These measures delivered the following benefits for our client:
The selected specialist dealers learned that sales success can be generated through joint efforts. The new product line was successfully positioned with new customers in the restaurant end-customer segment. Both the selected dealers and our client were able to gain noticeable market share and, as a result, achieved significant sales growth.