The transition to the new model will affect your professionals and your relationship with the market, so a good GTM design is only half of the journey; all the winning success stories require solid implementation.

A GTM design defines the service model that serves the market in an efficient and profitable way, serving both the company’s strategy and the needs of its clients and consumers.

However, a new model often represents a profound change to the company’s processes and its organizational structure, affecting a wide spectrum of professionals, clients, customers and distribution partners.

From our experience, 4 main challenges may (co)exist:

1. DEALING WITH MULTIFACTOR INTERDEPENDENCIES: A new GTM model has many enablers as well as blockers and these must be considered in a tailored manner

A company’s culture, context, short and long term goals, regional or segment specificities, organizational structure, systems, processes etc. are just some of the numerous factors that will affect a strategy’s deployment in terms of speed, method, governance, communication and targets. Failing to consider these factors in a structured manner can lead to an unsuccessful rollout.

Practically, an implementation strategy must parse the business into smaller clusters to identify the external pressures and readiness for each area. For example, parts of the business might be facing extreme immediate pressure on results that requires a faster, sharper and, as a consequence, riskier turn-key implementation dynamic. These need to be closely managed alongside other GTM changes in the business that can hedge the impacts on results and protect the service to clients.

2. GENERATING MOMENTUM: Commitment and change management are as critical for success as technical aspects

A GTM project is not just a commercial area project. It impacts the whole company (manufacturing, logistics, marketing, IT, HR, legal, and many other areas) and therefore requires involvement from all those areas.

In many cases, professionals across divisions will be highly impacted by the project and will feel insecure as a result, especially when there are adjustments to the organizational structure. This context can lead to impacts in performance, generate a negative atmosphere, create resistance to the project or lead to key professionals leaving the company and so a robust change management plan is crucial for success.

3. PROTECTING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: Impacts to customers and clients require careful management

Preserving and enhancing your relationship with customers and partners during this time of change will be critical for the success of the new model.

If you are changing the way you reach your clients and your customers, you will have to deal with changes across the whole distribution network. This might involve client migration across channels and sales accounts, negotiating with distributors, changes for sales representatives and many other impacts that must be planned and conducted in an extremely careful manner.

Furthermore, digital transformation often forms part of a new GTM strategy, and also requires expertise and proper monitoring to be launched without disruption.

4. MANAGING EXPECTATIONS – High pressure for results, even in the short term

Each organization is unique and so are the expectations that may arise in a transformation of this nature. When the environment and business context carry high pressure for qualitative and quantitative results in the short term it becomes even more important to be clear on the impacts and potential results, managing expectations from design to implementation.

While planning the implementation, an evaluation of trade-offs between the level of risk, financial returns and contingency measures must be detailed in a very transparent way so that conscious choices can be made. The ability to monitor these choices and its risks along the implementation, checking the reality of the business and always referring back to the results that can be achieved is a core capability that must be embed in any GTM implementation team.

We help our clients guarantee a smooth transition to the new GTM model, supporting not only in project management but in every aspect related to the change and how to turn the new model into reality.

To help our clients face these complex challenges, Integration has specialized over the years not only in GTM design, but also in GTM implementation, aiming to guarantee a suitable and robust transition to the new model.

We divide our offer into 5 main fronts:

• Reduced disruption to professionals, increasing commitment and engagement towards the new sales model
• Reduced disruption with clients, consumers and distribution partners
• Improved speed and preparation to launch the full model and capture market opportunities
• Refined top-level GTM strategy to meet the needs of each region or segment
• Increased team alignment towards the objectives through comprehensive stakeholder engagement
• Increased agility through faster and more informed decision making

We understand that HOW you conduct a transformation is as important as WHAT you are doing.

The right approach must balance preparation and speed and will vary depending on the context, your culture and the project’s goals. From client to client, no two approaches will be exactly the same. However, our approach is likely to land somewhere between these two extremes:

• Robust planning approach: focus on detailed planning to guarantee quality and comprehensive transformation
  • Recommended when your company is facing a deep transformation and wants to be more cautious about the new launch
  • Integration will spend the initial weeks guaranteeing a robust plan involving all of the impacted areas, before putting in place a strong governance to begin the implementation

• Practical approach: Focus on speed and testing solutions in the field to bring faster short-term results
  • Recommended when there is high pressure for short term results and/or clear GTM levers that can be implemented quickly
  • Solutions are implemented and then refined, with less time spent on strategy and planning and with quick wins and isolated initiatives prioritized

Regardless of the chosen approach, Integration will support using our methodologies of planning, governance and change management.

The way we do this is the way Integration works in all its projects: A real hands-on approach, engaging side by side with you to build trust, involve your teams, exchange experiences and finally reach a model that is adherent to your reality and so actually works.

We aim to work all the way from the leadership team to your field sales employees, to ensure (i) the most suitable rollout strategy is selected (e.g. phased by regions or channels, with or without pilots) and (ii) the right support initiatives are implemented (e.g. regional roadshows, proofs of concepts, KPI monitoring, preparation for launch, leadership preparation, business case refinement, etc).