Supporting business evolution across the UK, EMEA & APAC, creating an impactful partnership lasting for over a decade
Supporting a transition from a fast-growing early-stage company to a company operating in a maturing market needing to proactively generate both demand and value for prospects and customers.
Rackspace Technology are a global IT services and technology provider, offering both their own and partner’s technology platforms. With cloud, data, security and applications experts Rackspace Technology is a trusted IT solution partner for business customers in over 120 countries.
“SBR evolved Rackspace’s sales capability on its way from being a hosting provider to leading on thousands multi-cloud transformations. Started working with Rackspace 11 years ago across the UK, EMEA and APAC the engagements have been focused on lead generation, acquisition sales, installed based account teams, customer success and leadership development. The outcomes included enhanced conversion rates, in contract percentage, reduced churn, contract duration, and engagement scores.”
Simon Busby Global Talent Development Solutions of Rackspace Technology
WHAT DID THE CLIENT WANT TO ACHIEVE?
Rackspace engaged with SBR to drive revenue commitment, customer experience and mitigate churn risk through more effective and strategic engagement with their customers. Throughout our engagement there has been a focus on having customer conversations go beyond tech and infrastructure to how they can solve business challenges and add value at a strategic level.
WHAT ISSUES WERE THEY FACING?
The leadership at Rackspace understood that their industry was transitioning from a fast growth environment, where they had competitive advantage based on being an early-stage entrant to a competitive market, where they needed to proactively generate both demand and value. Therefore Rackspace needed a transformation of their sales approach to become truly value and outcomes focused versus purely technology lead.
THE RESULTS
- 24 to 42% increase in close rates on “key deals” based on qualification framework and deal reviews.
- Uplift in monthly recurring revenue in mid-market of 66%, £120k MRR per month to over £200k in just 18 months based on account development framework and methodology.
- Close rates of acquisition sales went from 17%-32% based on tailoring and presenting value.
- Retention rates of Service Delivery Managers increasing and churn rates down to their lowest recorded level.
- Win rates on revenue that Sales Executives have been involved with have gone from 28% to 53% based on collaborative engagement methodology with sales.
- Rackspace has also seen impacts across contract renewal rates, senior stakeholder engagements, upsell and cross sell and zipper relationships.
SBR’S APPROACH
SBR focused on lead generation, acquisition sales, installed base account teams, customer success, and leadership development -specifically around the ability to coach. Many of the programmes we developed for front line teams were rolled back to create sales onboarding so that when new Rackers join, they are aligned with the Rackspace way of selling. SBRs programmes enabled “Rackers” to engage with a consistent value proposition, articulating the value of change and why Rackspace are the correct transformation partner.
Simultaneously, we also worked with the technical and customer success teams helping them to evolve an enhanced commercial capability based on improved ability to align with strategic road maps, enable growth across the Rackspace portfolio of products and services and increase their effectiveness in contract renewal discussions.