Oxford Analytica world renowned for global strategic analysis

Founded in 1975, Oxford Analytica is an international, independent consulting firm drawing on a network of over 1,000 senior faculty members at Oxford and other major universities and research institutions around the world. Oxford Analytica provide an in-depth understanding of global events and their impact on the risks and opportunities facing its clients through bespoke consultancy and the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, its flagship on-line subscription service.

Issues faced

Oxford Analytica (OA) is a very successful business servicing clients around the globe. However, management felt that the growth potential for OA was not being achieved for a variety of reasons:

• The sales organisation was primarily focused on the short term, concentrating on the currently identified opportunities, with no formal means of prioritising where the most valuable opportunities are
• The sales team is global in nature with no easy means of sharing information and collaborating with each other
• A new CRM system, SalesForce.com had been implemented with little enthusiasm from the users (and some management!)
• Consequently, the company’s growth has been steady but slow over the last 5 years.

How did Dialectyx help?

Dialectyx drew up, with OA’s participation, a position statement showing where there is potential for growth (compared to an "as is" position) and recommended a "sales improvement programme" covering the following areas:<

• Compensation planning to ensure behaviour is reinforced with appropriate pay mechanisms
• Creation of a "Sales & Marketing Task Force" to support the sales team
• Central and local marketing plans
• Personal development plans
• Integration of IT

Dialectyx used their own SAMSAM software package, integrated with OA’s SalesForce.com, to be able to report upon 3 new metrics for OA as a whole as well as for each sales portfolio in OA. This new integrated IT solution, along with the new sales management process is now being rolled out to OA to enable them to identify where there is potential for growth, agree options and actions, and to keep the information underpinning the decisions up-to-date each week.

 

How have Oxford Analytica benefited?

OA have, for the first time, been able to identify and prioritise the activities of the sales force based on revenue potential, and to align those same activities with the strategy of the business. Users are now seeing benefit in the systems (including SalesForce.com!), with information being available for the weekly management meetings in real time, as well as greater direction in improving the immediate potential in their pipeline and the longer term potential in the myriad regions and industries covered.