Success Story Follow-Up: AccuSpec Electronics Partners With Athena To Accelerate Time To Market And Leverage New Business Development Process Model

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Client Profile

AccuSpec Electronics is a full-service provider of Electronic Manufacturing Services (printed circuit boards and wire harness assemblies) for both the medical device and industrial control industries.

Business Situation

Under new management direction, AccuSpec was targeting a 30% sales growth initiative within a three year period. A large percentage of this growth plan was based upon an increase in new account development. Accuspec was faced with limited internal sales resources to dedicate to this effort. Their network of manufacturing representatives were primarily focused on leveraging their existing relationship and did not possess the skill sets to develop new relationships. AccuSpec realized they needed additional sales support and an infrastructure that’s focused on building this process, with the goal of achieving their long-term sales growth initiatives.

Given the complex nature of their lengthy sales cycles (at least a year) and various technical contact levels, AccuSpec needed a process model that could tactically strike quickly and educate a niche market segment regarding their value-added offer. Lastly, AccuSpec required a process to qualify and convert active opportunities with an overall goal to compress sales cycle times and increase sales rep productivity.

Creating a Partnership

AccuSpec partnered with Athena SWC, a business improvement consulting firm, to leverage Athena’s Synchronized Relationship
Acquisition and Management Process (RAMP), outsourced marketing support infrastructure, and web-based technology tools, which tracked and monitored return on investment metrics. AccuSpec chose Athena as their business development partner, because of their ability to objectively understand the complex needs within their target market place, as well as of Athena’s proven process model that had been successfully implemented within similar contract manufacturing environments.

The first task Athena accomplished was to create a program that focused on two niched market segments, including medical device and industrial control applications. Athena developed a highly targeted, custom built list containing validated contact information of specific decision makers and centers of influence. Athena’s synchronous touch process (which uses a combination of synchronous touches including direct mail, email, web marketing, inside sales follow up) ensured each prospect received multiple and continuous touches throughout the campaign effort, building awareness and education regarding AccuSpec’s value-added electronic contract manufacturing service offering.

Off to a Strong Start

As part of the outsourced program, Athena created and used both direct mail and email targeted messaging aimed at the decision makers and key influencers focused on each specific industry’s needs and business pains. On the first day of program execution, and prior to the start of Athena’s outbound call execution process, a targeted prospect who had received the direct mail piece contacted Athena expressing an interest in evaluating alternative manufacturing environments. The prospect was experiencing uncertainty in their current manufacturing environment and was quickly scheduled for an educational web conference (the first step in AccuSpec’s sales process) by Athena’s highly trained inside sales staff.

The Results

Accuspec Case Study Result

Long-Term Value

Within three months of the program’s kickoff, AccuSpec received multiple RFQ’s, on-site meetings, and webcasts that added multiple opportunities into the active sales pipeline with an expected annualized value of over $5 million.

Athena’s offering helped AccuSpec build relationships for the long term (which is helpful since the average sales cycle could last over one year), and created awareness for AccuSpec’s complete valueadded contract manufacturing service offering.

The process enabled AccuSpec’s sales reps to focus on speaking with new prospects, closing the relationships and growing existing clients. As a result, this significantly increased sales rep productivity and their focus on the active sales cycle.

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