Formkraft
...and Smartwork
FormKraft is a company that supplies all the goods businesses need to run their operations, from till rolls to mannequins and everything in between, the company covers three major sectors: manufacturing, catering and retail – the largest of which being retail. Traditionally sales were reactive and the company had many dormant accounts which, they knew, represented a huge untapped potential for growth. Our challenge was to work out how to rejuvenate these dormant accounts and establish a proactive marketing programme.
Working with our associate Rachel Goddard we embarked on market research to discover the customers’ perception of FormKraft and their offering. We then conducted internal interviews to discover the employees’ perception of the company, followed by a workshop with the senior management team to deliver the results and work out a way forward.
It became clear that for many accounts the contact with the client was not at the strategic level, meaning that any purchases were being made on what had historically been ordered, not what could be supplied. There was also a need, with the accounts that were conducted at the strategic level, for FormKraft to get across much more about their available products and solutions.
We came up with the concept of SmartWork. A proactive customer account management approach where instead of simply selling, FormKraft would supply their clients with solutions, in other words FormKraft would define the customer’s needs and issues and then provide the solutions to meet these needs; in this way introducing new product lines, broader services and latest offers. The approach also sought to bring the sales team together, giving them freshly branded internal materials and a comprehensive new website to back up their efforts.
To date SmartWork is leading to a major cultural shift at FormKraft with a team of customer facing account managers backed-up by an expert in-house team with fantastic product knowledge, leading to some incredible business development of key accounts.
“Services designed to make your life easier. Flexible, innovative, competitive. Working with national retail and hospitality chains, buying groups, independents and manufacturers, we have helped Cotswold Outdoor, Costcutter, GT Retail, Massarella Catering Group and Trans Oceanic Meat (Nottingham) Ltd. to all work smarter.”
