Client Situation
Our client is a major US multinational company and one of the world’s leading global suppliers of office equipment and document management systems. The client has revenues over $25 billion and more than 145,000 employees. It has recently made acquisitions in the IT and cloud data management space. Many of its performance recently has been so-so, running at slightly above or below breakeven. In order to improve performance, the company decided to re-evaluate all of its global distributors and resellers to determine if they were the right ones for the company’s new direction in digital products and services.
Cedar’s Approach
Cedar was mandated to evaluate the company’s Brazilian distributors and resellers to determine if they fit with the company’s strategy going forward.
- Interviewed the company’s resellers and distributors in major cities across Brazil.
- Also interviewed local competitors and their intermediaries to benchmark our client’s resellers and distributors.
- Interviews were done in Portuguese by Cedar employees at our Sao Paulo office.
- Benchmarked the Brazilian intermediaries vs. their competitors.
- Worked with the client to identify strengths and weaknesses and where changes needed to be made.
Outcome
The main benefits to the client were an objective assessment of it sales and marketing channels in Brazil and the fit, or lack thereof, with their resellers and distributors in executing their new digital services strategy. The results included
- Support or replacement of existing resellers and distributors to still represent current business but be able to take on new products and services.
- Noted improvement in Brazil revenues and profits in subsequent quarters.
- Brazilian resellers and distributors are now aligned with the company’s new strategy.