Global Account Director

We worked with ...

... a newly appointed Business Development Manager (EMEA) and Global Account Director. He wanted to step back from his role and look at the bigger picture, to enable him to focus on the things that would make a real difference to the business:

‘My Accelerated Transition programme was an opportunity for me to take a step back and look at what I'm trying to achieve, and what I need to do differently to achieve my goals. It was thinking time.

I approached the programme quite openly. I thought I would get guidance, then I soon realised it was about me exploring the issues myself, trying to come up with solutions, then having the discipline to make changes to my daily routine. The hardest thing is understanding where something isn't working and what are the options for change. Then having the discipline to implement the options, continue with it and change it if it isn't working.

Prioritisation was an important area for me - I used to be very focused on making sure I always responded to emails and voice mails, which took up a lot of time. I wasn't doing the right things, I was responding to other people's agendas and not creating and managing my own. I never had enough time to do all the things I could do and it was stressful. Now I decide what's important.

I now think more about what I want to achieve each day - it's become a habit. I decide what my top 3 or 4 things are that I want to focus on that day and cross other things out. I have a check point for the end of the day to see what I've achieved, which is gratifying.

As a result of the programme I am more focused and goal orientated. I believe that focus equals efficiency - for the business this means getting the deal in this quarter as planned and not letting it slip, getting a higher wallet share, and getting a higher margin. It means I do the hard stuff, which is selling more things and winning new accounts.

I think about the ways in which we should be engaging with the customer, the ways we should be selling. There are always more things we can sell, more resources we can draw on and more references we can collect.

I hope I also inspire others - for example, there are bright guys in my team who have seen something work in one country and repeated it in another. The benefit to the business is we get a higher margin, which translates into more profit. We also make sure we learn lessons and improve our service when we do that, with both customers and partners.

My Accelerated Transition programme was often the hardest meeting of the week. The programme made me think - about doing the basics, and about changing my behaviour to improve my performance. There are a lot of things I have implemented which have become a part of my job.'

>> Next case study