Wabtec Strategy
Wabtec is a Fortune 500 company that sells products and services to the rail and transit industries. Their growth strategy has been primarily acquisition culminating with the purchase of GE Transportation in 2019. While this move doubled revenue, it came with a host of challenges as two very different cultures tried to go to market as one.
I was the lead on this project, establishing the approach and working with the team to conduct research, gather insights, and translate them into actionable strategy.
The Situation
The Wabtec Marketing and Sales group was laser focused on organic sales growth. They had consolidated three sales teams with significantly different operating models causing critical roadblocks to achieve their goals. In addition, the business faced an aging workforce and information gaps.
They desired to remove friction from the sales enablement process and to create a common sales language, tools, and methods on how to sell and grow.
Our Approach
We embarked on a Discovery phase comprised of qualitative and quantitative research to obtain direct input from the global sales team about the work they do, pain points they encounter and input on solutions. We also spoke to customers to gain insight into their current and desired future relationship with Wabtec.
Insights
Our research resulted in a significant amount of data that the team reviewed and collated into six macro-level insights focused on areas of obvious and hidden friction in the sales enablement process.
Opportunities
Insights were translated into 10 strategic opportunities to improve the sales enablement process. For each opportunity we recommended project initiatives they could embark on to solve the problems they are facing.
Initial focus was on establishing a common culture and vision, communicating it and then teaching the organization how to model it.
A number of opportunities focused on improving the use of current tools and recommendations for tools that will help employees use their time more efficiently and collaborate with each other.
Establishing intentional career paths and placing more focus on growth was another opportunity that was uncovered as the workforce skewed late career.
Value Streams
Opportunities were also defined by the value they create for Wabtec. This added layer of classification helped clients prioritize initiatives.
Priority & Roadmap
To help Wabtec understand what it will take to address each opportunity we plotted each initiative into a wave of implementation and created a roadmap to illustrate how and when each initiative can be addressed.