In the competitive worlds of sports and music, organizational alignment is taken for granted, but it can be rare in business. Too many companies with talented employees fail to execute on their collective ability. Too often employees are busy managing their daily activities, and organizational alignment gets put on the back burner. This can result in suboptimal performance, leading to unhappy customers, missed market opportunities, frustrated employees and disappointed stakeholders. It also inhibits a company’s ability to maintain a competitive edge.
But when leading companies combine organizational alignment with an ability to evolve with the market, they greatly improve their odds of remaining competitive. Eagle Investment Systems recognized its need to change with the market. For 20 years, the company has thrived as an innovative industry leader by providing best-in-class service and support to help financial institutions grow assets with an award-winning portfolio management suite of data management, investment accounting and performance measurement solutions.
Eagle clients value the deep relationships they’ve developed and consider Eagle to be a critical component of their business success. When Diane McLoughlin, a 15-year veteran at Eagle, was named chief client officer in 2015, the company’s client retention rate was an impressive 95 percent. And while Diane and senior management were proud of that statistic, they also recognized that the needs of Eagle’s clients and the marketplace were evolving. Spending on financial services technology was shifting from IT departments to business units. There was also a shift from pure technology to cloud solutions, managed services and outsourcing. To appeal to the business units and C-suite, Eagle recognized the need to change its go-to-market approach from focusing on product features to communicating the impact its products could have on a client’s business.
In Diane’s own words: “Today clients are looking for Eagle to provide guidance and insight on how to solve business challenges. Rather than present a set of features, we must consult on how organizations can meet their business objectives, such as managing asset growth, launching new investment products, understanding exposure to market events and managing data to support global trading activities.“
Eagle’s Key Realization
While Eagle’s management team recognized the need for change and the importance of introducing best practices, they also acknowledged the need for external expertise to help make the transition. The head of product management recommended that Eagle enlist a partner to help evaluate company processes and challenge its view of value delivery. As a result of that recommendation, Baron Strategic Partners began working with Eagle’s marketing and product management teams to evaluate their processes and explore opportunities to better equip the sales team.
Leveraging a Proven Approach to Deliver Client Outcomes
Eagle followed a five-step process to shift its focus. They began by developing a deep understanding of the pressing market problems, exploring opportunities to deliver differentiated value with key internal stakeholders and clients, and then articulating how Eagle’s offerings could help customers solve these problems.
To learn more about the steps Eagle took to shift their focus, read the full article by Neil Baron.
