Our client operates in the Toy and Hobbies market with the leading brands of Hornby, Scalextric, Corgi, Airfix and Humbrol.

Recent years have been challenging from direct competitors, own brand, and changing consumer lifestyles. Following the posting of a significant loss and the appointment of a new CEO, the company embarked upon a turnaround with a specific focus upon the capabilities of the sales teams.

Both the turnaround and transformation were required at pace.

The metrics for success are;

1. 2016 / 2017 Revenue Budget
2. Transformation Journey & Capability Foundations

There are several significant challenges for Hornby, based upon the pressures of delivering numbers; the planning cycle required for a supply chain predominately from China; and numerous leadership changes over a two-year period.

• The first challenge is the inconsistencies in which the sales cycle and customers are activated.
• The second challenge is the structure of commercial terms which does not support business development with strategic partners.
• The third challenge is the lack of planning tools to support business development.
• The fourth challenge is the need to deliver short term revenue targets whilst starting the transformation journey.
• And finally, the fifth challenge was activating the capabilities of the sales leaders to support the transformation whilst delivering the numbers.

Our approach of Assess, Recommend, and Implement provided the Leadership Team with the necessary confidence to activate the transformation programme.

Our experience of managing sales teams across multiple channels, including export, allowed us to gain the necessary insights into the barriers of performance and combining this with our recent consulting experience of developing sales academies provided the foundations for the development of commercial capabilities. Our line management experience, both leadership and operational, provided the necessary gravitas and credibility to the sales teams to fully engage in the transformation programme. Finally, our coaching capabilities allowed us to activate the sales leaders as coaches to engage the sales teams.

What did we deliver?

We introduced, at pace, two programmes;

• Developing People to Deliver Change – the introduction through training interventions of sales competencies, planning tools, and coaching capabilities
• National Accounts Challenge – the re-engineering of commercial terms to provide a platform for business development with strategic partnerships

A culture of Plan B was introduced to provide confidence that short term revenue targets would be hit – what are you selling to whom and by when.

This approach has been applied to the UK Field Sales & National Accounts teams, plus International (Export) Sales Managers.

This has provided the necessary foundation for capability development whilst delivering the 2016 / 2017 revenue budget.