“It’s time for companies to rethink their growth logic and strategy,” according to Christoph Senn and Mehak Gandhi, authors of the new book, Triple Fit Strategy: How To Build Lasting Customer Relationships And Boost Growth.
The authors affirm that there would be much more value if companies no longer operated in a transactional buyer-seller relationship, but instead as a singular team. A team where buyer and seller can collaborate on decisions around planning, execution, and resources like they were one company.
“Today’s business customers don’t just buy products and services; they buy expectations,” explain Senn and Gandhi. “What the customers want is the commitment of and access to the supplier’s total operation. They want problem-solving and creative thinking to keep their business ahead of competition. They want partners.”
In the book, Senn and Gandhi forge an entirely new path for business that embraces a 360-degree customer-centric approach, and they lay out the Triple Fit Strategy framework where customers are at the heart of three core “fit” areas: planning, execution, and resources.
The Triple Fit Strategy helps sales and business leaders better understand the health of their customer relationships and allocate resources for faster breakthroughs.
Triple Fit Strategy:
1. Planning. This level comprises three building blocks—strategies, relationships, and communication—and indicates how closely a company’s strategic direction is aligned with the customer’s. A company must assess the degree to which its sales team takes the customer’s strategy perspective into account and figure out how to use it to develop a joint three-year vision. The sales team must build and maintain multilevel contacts that promote stable relationships and communicate relevant information the customer needs for effective decision-making.
2. Execution. Also composed of three building blocks—solutions, processes, and systems—this level shows how effectively suppliers execute the joint strategy by developing unique solutions and services that create value for customers; executing processes efficiently along the value chain; and implementing adequate systems for IT, financial, and legal support.
3. Resources. The three building blocks here are people, structures, and knowledge. This level indicates whether the supplier has the necessary resources to support customers, including trusted advisers with a customer-centric mindset; an adequately customer-centric organizational structure; and a dynamic learning environment for new-business generation.
Through their decades-long research, Senn and Gandhi reveal that companies who apply the Triple Fit Strategy contribute ten times more to their customers' success and can double account values in less than three years.
The book draws from extensive training and advisory work with Fortune 100 and global companies (Microsoft, Coca-Cola, GE, BASF, Sonos, Best Buy and more), including Danish shipping giant Maersk, which unlocked hundreds of millions of dollars in new business opportunities using the Triple Fit Strategy with a New Zealand-based customer.
With a database of 10,000-plus cases, Triple Fit Strategy introduces an entirely novel approach to business. Complete with practical steps to invite your customers and stakeholders into your company’s internal process, businesses will also be able to better evaluate customer relationships and allocate resources for faster breakthroughs.
In short, Triple Fit Strategy can transform companies and future-proof their processes while unlocking new sources of growth.
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Christoph Senn is an adjunct professor of marketing at INSEAD, one of the world's leading and largest graduate business schools. He is also Codirector of the INSEAD Marketing & Sales Excellence Initiative (MSEI).
Mehak Gandhi is the Head of Research at Valuecreator, Switzerland, where she designs and implements B2B growth accelerator programs and next-generation sales organization strategies.
Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.
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