Samuel Case Study

Client Profile

Multinational Metal Corporation

The Client is a family-owned and operated organization comprised of metal manufacturing, processing, and distribution divisions that earn a combined $6 billion in annual revenue.

The multinational corporation has grown since its birth in the 1800s to nearly 5,000 employees who operate in over 100 facilities across North America. This versatile corporation operates in an array of diverse industries, including Aerospace, Energy, Transportation, Automotive, Oil and Gas, and Food Services.

M&R was selected to assist the Client in designing and executing a go-to-market model that enabled the company to refine its segmentation strategy and define offers that allowed it to advise and sell directly to the end users of its product.

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The Challenge

In the midst of losing revenue to encroaching refineries, declining global demand for metal products and falling Chinese steel prices placed downward pressure on the Client’s prices. The Client’s role as a distributor had steadily and inevitably commoditized. A larger steel manufacturer (the Client’s traditional supplier) had begun to eliminate the Client from deals, engaging many of the Client’s key customers with lower-price options. As the manufacturers began to capture a bigger piece of the market, the Client watched its customer base and margins erode. Serving solely as a distributor, the Client was struggling to stay relevant. To differentiate its offerings, the Client had to find a way to provide more value to the end user.

The Solution

Transformation Program Design

To gain market traction and distinguish the Client’s offerings, M&R designed a transformation program to address multiple components of the GTM model.

Stage 1: The Client’s traditional approach to segmentation resulted in solutions focused on the geographic industry vertical. This narrow perspective disabled the Client from aggregating its buyers based on needs, challenges, and attitudes; the geographic verticals cloaked the needs of its customer base, making customer intimacy inscrutable and commoditization certain.

M&R transformed the Client’s perspective of its market by implementing industry-specific verticals. The process entailed evaluating opportunities within a segment, analyzing the execution needs of a segment, and selecting the GTM models to be used for each segment.

This allowed the Client to understand where it was in the supply chain and what was required in its portfolio to engage a variety of different industries.

Stage 2: Once the Client has segmented the market according to industry vertical, M&R helped it view the future state of the business from a portfolio point of view to determine where the Client could compress the Supply Chains.

Stage 3: Once segments and sub-segments were determined and prioritized, the Client began to develop targeted offers. The offers were analyzed from a capability standpoint, and the Client considered enablement plans and investment activity.

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The Client shifted from a distributor role to a manufacturer role, gaining contact and increasing intimacy with the end user.

Our Impact

Oil & Gas: Strategy Meets Application

Although the staged solution was eventually rolled out company-wide, the Client initiated implementation with the Oil and Gas Industry.

Segmentation: Oil & Gas has always been a primary market, though the Client traditionally emphasized geography and defined its value proposition based on availability, location, and price. To begin executing this strategy, the Client focused on this energy sector and emphasized customer similarities, needs, and challenges.

Supply Chain: Once the Client had segmented the market according to industry vertical, M&R helped it evaluate the supply chain for each segment to see where it could jump to the end-users of the steel. Examining each segment based on potential market influence began to impact the Client’s investment decisions, namely the move to purchase fabrication companies in certain segments.

Offer Development: For certain supply chains where it did not benefit the Client to buy up fabrication companies, the Client developed offers that enabled them to play the role of key advisor to the fabrication companies. By improving the fabrication company’s performance, they would be able to buy more steel and were more willing to work directly with our Client rather than the manufacturers.

Sub-segmentation & Offer Development: M&R helped the Client develop sub-segments and define distinct GTM and investment strategies for each. Once these subsegments were established, M&R helped the Client build specific portfolios and offers for each segment. For example, the Client engaged Oil & Gas service companies like Halliburton, Schlumberger, & GE Oil & Gas and presented an Idea that would help these companies determine what to fabricate. With a greater understanding of its customers, the Client was able to sell its insight and expertise at higher margins.

In each case, the Client landed large contracts and took these companies on a journey of understanding – where they are, what they should doing and what they should not be doing, what kind of metallurgy should be used, how the Client’s design should be used, and what they should outsource to the Client. By customizing offers and providing knowledge around a specific industry challenge, the Client formed significant relationships with these Clients. The bulk of their contracts shifted to include outsourcing, some co-sourcing, and some use of the IP paid for by the Client.

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