How Konica Minolta Boosted Pipeline Velocity and Secured 40% Pre-Booked Revenue for the Next FY

Konica Minolta UK Cloud Services faced the challenge of growing their Managed IT Services business by shifting from product-led to service led and problem centric sales. The team had diverse sales capabilities, with members coming from various backgrounds and operating at different levels of expertise. Sellers were new to recurring revenue sales models with experience in product-focused sales.

The key challenges included:

• Inconsistent Sales Approach: No unified sales process or toolkit, leading to varying sales actions across the team.
• Sales Complexity: Sellers were handling deals ranging from low-value one-off products to complex multi-million-pound IT solutions, with no alignment on how to approach these opportunities.
• Sales Velocity Issues: The team needed to pursue a high volume of opportunities each month to meet revenue goals, but the low conversion rates and inconsistent qualification were slowing progress.
• Limited Sales Enablement: The team relied on pipeline reviews, sporadic one-on-ones, and ad-hoc sales coaching without a formal framework to guide or unify their efforts.

To address these issues, a Guided Sales Playbook was developed and implemented. This included:

• Sales Process Playbooks for ITSM and Document Management: The playbooks provided step-by-step guidance on what sellers needed to know, show, do, and say at each stage of the sales process.
• Strategic Sales Methodology Integration: A problem centric sales method and the SPICED sales qualification model were selected and embedded into the sales process to ensure consistent opportunity assessment and deal progression.
• Sales Workflow Integration: The playbooks and sales methodology were integrated directly into the team’s existing sales workflow tools, including CRM, so that sales guidance and best practices were available at the point of use.
• Training and Coaching: The team was trained extensively on the playbooks and the SPICED qualification framework. Ongoing coaching was provided to ensure that sellers consistently applied the methodology and behaviors in their everyday work.
• Key Sales Assets: The solution included discovery conversation guides, in-stage playbook guides (what to know, show, do, and say), SPICED question primers, customer discovery scorecards, and business case templates to improve qualification and deal management.

After the implementation of the Guided Sales Playbook, Konica Minolta UK Cloud Services achieved significant improvements in both sales execution and outcomes:

• Improved Sales Consistency: Sellers were aligned under a unified framework, creating a consistent approach to every sales interaction. This ensured that all sellers, regardless of background, were operating with the same best practices.
• Faster Pipeline Velocity: The integration of the SPICED qualification framework and refined sales processes helped increase pipeline velocity, allowing the team to progress more opportunities more efficiently.
• Increased Conversion Rates and Deal Size: With improved qualification and a standardized sales approach, sellers were able to close larger deals with greater consistency, resulting in higher win rates and deal values.
• Enhanced Seller Confidence and Capability: The sales team gained a new level of confidence and strategic understanding. They were better equipped to handle both smaller and more complex sales with equal proficiency.
• Proved Recurring Revenue Model: The playbook helped prove the viability of the recurring revenue model, laying the foundation for long-term, scalable growth.

• 40% Goal Achievement: The team started the new fiscal year having achieved 40% of their revenue goal early on, proving the recurring revenue model’s success.
• Improved Qualification and Sales Velocity: There was a marked improvement in how opportunities were qualified and moved through the pipeline, resulting in higher deal velocity and better in-stage conversion rates.
• Increased Sales Consistency and Execution: The team operated with greater alignment, leading to more predictable outcomes and a more efficient sales process overall.