selling panels internally - australia post

Selling panels internally

“How to get your key internal

stakeholders to buy into and

share the vision”

Paul Fanthorpe

Head of Insights

Australia Post

June 2012

Explaining the context of the Australia Post transformation

landscape & impacts on the Insights group

Why Small Medium Businesses (SMBs) are the future of

Australia Post

How to approach stakeholders with the idea

The “what’s in it for me” that encourages participation

During the development stages – keep the eye on the end goal

Agenda – some background on why we’re launching the

Australia Post Business Forum

What Australian’s think of Australia Post

3

Australia Post is two years into the largest change programme

in our 200 year history

Restore our

Letters business to

profitability:

• Reduce costs

• Restore pricing

• Develop new product

Grow our Parcels

business especially

with online retailers:

• Increase marketshare

• Drive volume

• Align our businesses

Grow our position as

one of Australia’s most

trusted service

providers:

• Develop new services

• Adapt our store

formats

• Build a digital

channel

1 2 3

4

We welcome competition

Commercial culture & ROI

Everything is up for change

Centrally controlled Insights

Ask (Customer focus)

Where we are moving to

As a result of the transformation programme the role of the

Insights group has shifted dramatically

The requirements for Insights has changed dramatically necessitating

a dramatic rethink of the way we work

5

Government culture

Monopoly

Very little change

Decentralised Insights

function

Tell (us focus)

Where we’ve come from

SM

B

Australia Post has a relatively small account base, most of

whom are unmanaged & about whom we know very little...

Enterprise

Large

Account

Mid Market

Face to Face

Mid Market - Telephone

Account Managed

SMB unmanaged

Number of Customer

Accounts

95

1,069

3,755

6,618

86,639

6

...in addition there are a much larger group of customers who

we know nothing about.

Non - Account

SMB / SOHO

530,000

1 – 4 employees

SMB

228,000

5 – 19 employees

Enterprise

95

Large Account 1,069

SMB 97,000

Account

?

Our future “best” customers are today’s

unknown customers!

7

Moved us from mainly “bespoke” projects to “on-going” programs

of work

Need to create an “infrastructure” of solutions to cover our

various segments – Consumer, Enterprise & SMB

Recognition that different initiatives require different levels of

Insights – not all projects warrant more than a simple “sniff” test

How the transformation of Australia Post has changed our

Insights philosophy

8

To creating a higher level engagement with our customers we

started with the “easy”

9

On-going focus groups weekly with a representative

coverage of all Australians

Co

nsu

me

r

Quarterly quantitative measurement Usage & Attitudes

of a representative coverage of all Australians

Bu

sin

ess

En

te

rp

r

ise

S

MB

On-going Enterprise engagement program

Australia Post Business Forum

Difficulty

Low

Lowest

High

Medium

How to “prepare” to approach stakeholders

10

Create a culture of value for money. This

will add credibility to the proposal.

Don’t call it a “panel”. You might lose

some of your stakeholders.

Find stakeholders that “get it”.

They’ll act as advocates and help

take detractors over the line.

The “what’s-in-it-for me” selling message to stakeholders

11

During the “development” stages – keep your eye on the end

goal

12

Get your launch projects lined up with

the more junior stakeholders. Then

cascade out to the more senior ones.

Get the Brand team involved early –

they’ll help with the positioning and

create the “touchy-feeling” stuff.

But ultimately, draw a line in the sand on

ownership – especially with Marketing.

This is an enterprise wide initiative.