SUCCESS CASE

Transforming legacy thinking into a culture of collaboration & change

This telecommunications giant was challenged with assimilating a series of recent mergers and consolidations. Total commitment was required of leaders in each member organization around a common 3-year strategic plan and aggressive merger targets. Achieving the plan called for unprecedented levels of cross-business collaboration and innovation. Failure would risk monumental write-downs and permanent loss of market leadership.

Working closely with the firm’s top executives, BTS created a strategic alignment initiative employing a highly customized business simulation to challenge 350 vice presidents to team cross-functionally and make the 3-year plan their own, while focusing on implications for customers and talent.

Interactive, discovery-based pre-work, delivered online, served to ground participants on the firm’s key financial and operational terminology while acquainting them with strategic imperatives and industry trends. Then participants engaged in a business simulation workshop, collaborating in teams and vying with other teams for customers and talent in a competitive marketplace.

In addition to experiential learning, participants also benefited from officer and senior-manager-led discussions, subject matter experts and peer networking, with a focus on the following key areas of development:

  • Strategic alignment
  • Global perspective
  • Leading change and innovation
  • Collaboration and employee engagement
  • Cultural transformation
  • Financial and business acumen

As an end result, each participating leader committed to a personal action plan, drawing line of sight from the firm’s strategic objectives to their day-to-day work.

To date, participants have targeted hundreds of million of dollars worth of business improvements. Moreover, the initiative has been credited with accelerating the formation of numerous new workgroups and organization changes to support the firm’s business strategy.

The success of the initial VP-focused program has led the firm to elevate it to its senior officer group, as well as cascade it to executive directors and directors. In all, nearly 6,000 leaders are expected to participate.

Inquire here to learn more about BTS’ Strategic Alignment & Execution practice and our success record in your industry.

Introducing the most unforgettable leadership development experience on the planet

The BTS Global Business Tournament

Enter Here For full information or a no-obligation guided tour

SALES PRACTICE

Why today’s tough economy could be the sales opportunity of a lifetime
By Lou Schachter

If you’re selling into today’s stressed out economy here are seven ways to get the wind at your back.

  • Don’t write off every player in an afflicted industry. For instance, BTS is working with several leading banks who are taking this opportunity to transform their business model and capture market share.
  • Revisit clients that previously wouldn’t give you the time of day. Their world may well have changed.
  • Forget that you may be behind revenue plan and focus on what you can do to drive your customer’s revenue growth. Understand what drives your customers’ customers.
  • Now, more than ever, establish the value of your offerings before you talk price. Don’t get caught in a discounting death spiral.
  • Leverage the rapport you have with your current customers to sell them products and services they may never have dreamed you have to offer.
  • Direct your sales managers to spend more time coaching and less time selling. They’re needed to encourage new sales behaviors, and deflect their people from negative thinking and defeatism.
  • Take advantage of competitors who’ve made short-sighted decisions to scrimp on product updates and customer support. This just might be your chance to get your toe in the door.

Above all, remember this: deep customer partnerships get formed in difficult times. These partnerships are generated not because salespeople keep doing the same things they’ve always done, but because they adopt new behaviors that are focused on the business results the customer is trying to achieve.

Lou Schachter is the co-author of the new McGraw-Hill release, The Mind of the Customer. To learn more about BTS' sales leadership expertise simply visit our Sales and Sales Management practice or email a Sales Practice representative, Shannon Dodd.

PROJECT LEADERSHIP PRACTICE

“Accidental Project Leaders” Need Additional Leadership Competencies
By Dennis Cohen

In today’s turbulent business environment, you need leaders who can cope with ambiguity and confidently take command of important priorities where established authority alone isn’t sufficient to carry the day. You need “Accidental Project Leaders.”

However fighting brushfires and leading strategic initiatives may not come easy for managers who are used to established reporting relationships and defined work processes. So you’ll need to take some initiative yourself to be sure your leaders are competent at:

  • Promoting cross functional collaboration
  • Leading interdisciplinary teams
  • Exercising influence in the absence of authority
  • Managing the expectations of project stakeholders
  • Developing plans that align with enterprise priorities

And that’s just the beginning. Today, your “Accidental Project Leaders” will also need to be able to:

  • Manage more autonomously, as project sponsors become diverted by other priorities
  • Deal with reduced budgets and staffing levels, even play an internal “venture cap” role to get the resources required
  • Overcome occasional collaboration breakdowns and selfish behaviors from team members in the throes of being downsized or reorganized
  • Turn on a dime to embrace shifting enterprise priorities
  • Prototype the new business processes and practices your organization will need to formalize in the future in order to emerge from the current recession on top

About 18 months ago, a major worldwide business services firm tasked BTS to help them equip their “Accidental Project Leaders.” They could see that standard leadership skills were coming up short, and they were seeking a different set of competencies.

BTS developed a customized solution around our Project Leadership Live simulation. After a successful pilot, this solution has been rolled out worldwide for more than 2,500 leaders.

To learn more about BTS' project management expertise simply visit our Operational Excellence and Project Leadership practice or contact Dennis directly.

NEWSWIRE

BTS Launches First Virtual Business Tournaments in the U.S.

This March, we will introduce our unique Global Tournament experience to the U.S. market. BTS Tournaments integrate BTS-owned, Finland-based, Business Game Factory, the leader in web-based simulation tournaments, with BTS’s development and distribution expertise. Now U.S.-based organizations can participate in these acclaimed business tournaments, which provide web facilitated 10-week competitions between 5-person teams from different companies. The first U.S. tournament will commence March 3. View our complete news release here.

See sidebar for an opportunity to learn all about this unforgettable leadership development experience, or to apply for a no-obligation guided tour.

New Edition of Why Finance Matters Makes Its Debut

We've totally updated Why Finance Matters to reflect today's business reality, and engaged a six-time Emmy-award winning producer to contemporize the video.

See for yourself. Take advantage of our offer to field test the new Why Finance Matters across your organization for 60 days without obligation.