In late 2019, the Menzies Commercial team refocused their strategy on boosting sales effectiveness. As a result, and despite 2020 being a dreadful year for the aviation industry, they secured more than £350million of future income for Menzies last year. So, how did they do it?

Colin King, SVP Global Sales, explains; “The strategy started with the introduction of a new sales process designed to deliver better growth. We adapted our approach to winning and retaining contracts. There’s a lot of evidence that points to the benefits of a dynamic sales process – we’ve developed a ‘playbook’ so that all our sales teams follow the same sequence of steps from early identification of an opportunity through to winning, or renewing, a contract.”

Additionally, the sales teams are working more closely across the operating regions with weekly reviews of the opportunities in the pipeline and more focus on reporting. They’re also sharing best practice, knowledge and resources (with the help of Microsoft Teams) and developing regional strategies that support Menzies’ overall growth plans.

The long-term benefits Colin and team expect to see include; better attainment against sales targets (budgets), a shorter sales process and increased customer retention. And they’ve already taken the first steps, with successful wins and renewals worth more than £95m and £250m respectively in 2020.

Chris Wilson, Bid Manager, who worked on the recent successful bid in Cyprus explains how the team approached the opportunity. “We knew the opportunity was coming up, so we were able to follow a set process and define our position before the bid was published. Most importantly, were able to talk to and listen to the customer early in the process and tailor our solution to their requirements. We worked together to prepare for the customer presentation and even did a dress rehearsal to make sure our message was clear and consistent.”

Of course, the pandemic has meant that most sales meetings and customer presentations have had to be virtual, rather than face-to-face. Koen Slembrouck, VP Business Development Europe, used Microsoft Teams to host the presentation, “We made sure we had branded backgrounds during the Teams call and everyone was dressed in the same style. It may not sound like much but the way we presented Menzies in that virtual environment was carefully considered so that it added to the authenticity of the bid itself.”

It was a similar story for Adrian Yazdi, VP Eastern Europe (interim) as he negotiated the contract with Wizz in Budapest. Early engagement with the potential customer back in 2019 helped create a positive working relationship which meant that, even when the process was disrupted by coronavirus, a valuable new customer was brought on board late last year.

“We met Wizz before the tender was released. It was an interesting experience and certainly we have come out of it in a strong position with Wizz and made some good relations along the way. We adapted our sales pitch to focus on the things that were most important to Wizz – the strength of our network, our operational capability, our risk management - and over a period of months reached a five-year contractual agreement with them,” says Adrian.

Want to know more about our contractual wins and renewals? Keep an eye on WeAreMenzies.com for all our news.