ZS Associates

Issue

Given a high-level deal structure already in place, the US subsidiary needed to maximize the value of the alliance and meet its own strategic objectives.

Results

Our client experienced immediate business gains and the joint venture has been extremely successful over time. ZS helped the client gain the customer relationships and market/therapeutic area expertise it sought by redefining its channel strategy, level of sales force investment, and geographic coverage strategy within the context of the joint venture. At the client’s request, ZS also worked with the joint venture partner to define an improved go-to-market strategy that enabled the partner to implement its customer coverage approach in a focused fashion, while avoiding some potentially unproductive investments. Specific wins included:

• Devising a strategy for partners to cover a smaller specialty segment rather than a broad generalist customer segment by showing that the larger segment’s decisions were predominantly influenced by the specialty segment. This more focused, strategic customer coverage approach enabled the joint venture to drive stronger sales results with less than half the investment initially planned.
• Recommending coverage of a customer segment that was considered hard to influence and hence low-value, based on the partner’s prior experience. ZS helped design a multi-level customer coverage strategy that proved highly effective at converting many of these large customers and helped the joint venture tap into this highly lucrative market segment.

Approach

ZS analyzed the marketplace in terms of customer segments, competitor strategies, product potential, and market evolution to advise both the client and partner about mutually beneficial and complementary go-to-market strategies. In all cases, we provided data and fact-based recommendations rooted in research and analysis. The rigor of our approach helped convince top management to significantly reshape the two companies’ initial strategies for greater top-line and bottom-line success. We also helped the client (and partner, upon the client’s request) implement their strategies and we have supported the joint venture alliance through years of significant growth since inception.