Creating Sales Opportunities Through Creation of a New Business Line and Advancement of an Existing Business Division 

“Through the creation of a multidimensional sales strategy, Whitespace has proven to be a real strategic partner to ENSCO.”
 Neil Fifield, Vice President of the Innovative Systems Solutions Division, ENSCO

Introduction
Headquartered in Falls Church, Va., ENSCO, Inc. provides engineering, science and advanced technology solutions for the defense, security, transportation, environment, aerospace, and intelligent automation industries.  Founded 25 years ago, ENSCO has built a strong customer base of industry and government organizations, supported by offices in the U.S. and Asia.  ENSCO’s capabilities are broad, ranging from equipment that helps train travel safer to designing computer models that make NASA’s launches more successful. Today, ENSCO is a $100 million corporation employing approximately 800 people.

Challenge
Innovative Systems Solutions (ISS) is ENSCO’s largest division, representing nearly one-half of the company’s business.  The ISS division is known for the strength of its advanced information technology solutions, which it provides to customers such as Lockheed Martin, IBM and BAE Systems.  Relying on existing customers and word of mouth marketing, ENSCO and its ISS division primarily focused on its core competencies and did not develop a well organized sales and marketing operation.  Without a formal sales organization, the company did not have the bandwidth to explore potential growth opportunities.  Thinking like its customers, who believe in ENSCO as the best provider in their field, the company realized that it required the best strategic thinking and execution to elevate its sales activities, particularly for the ISS division.

Solution
To address their sales challenges, ENSCO sought to work with a strategic partner that possessed knowledge of its core markets and had experience in executing multidimensional strategies.  After considering many potential partners, including technology analyst and market research firm Gartner, ENSCO decided to initiate a relationship with Whitespace Strategy Partners to help address its sales challenges.  Whitespace was chosen based on its unique ability to approach the challenge through a comprehensive combination of its strategic thinking, research driven approach and tactical execution focused on delivering results.

Whitespace began the engagement with a research-based analysis of ENSCO’s broad market opportunity and developed thirteen potential strategic initiatives for boosting the company’s sales performance.  Through further analysis and prioritization, Whitespace and ENSCO selected two of the initiatives for immediate implementation.  

The first initiative was based on Whitespace’s identification of data management software and services as a new business for ENSCO.  The opportunity was significant given ENSCO’s experience in advanced information technology and the market need for integrated solutions that help organizations derive maximum value from information assets.  Whitespace’s recommendations helped to identify the right pricing strategy, identify potential customers and determine the best way to reach them. To advance ENSCO’s speed to market, Whitespace evaluated potential acquisition targets and based on its ROI analysis, ultimately recommended the hiring of two key ENSCO executives that now work alongside Whitespace.  Further, Whitespace identified several potential strategic technology partners and helped ENSCO to establish an alliance with Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), to leverage FAST’s real-time search and filter technology solutions, an important part of ENSCO’s data management capability.   

Based on its existing knowledge of the pharmaceutical market and the particular need for access to reliable data rapidly, Whitespace recommended that ENSCO target this untapped market for the company’s data management solutions.  The financial services and heavy manufacturing sectors are also being aggressively pursued for similar reasons.

Whitespace’s research also identified a clear opportunity within ENSCO’s own existing business, its avionics division. The company possessed superior technology, however, its value was not clearly understood in the market. This second initiative focused on retooling the company’s approach to the avionics market, leveraging ENSCO’s proven capability in support of companies such as Lockheed Martin.  Working with Whitespace, ENSCO’s messaging was recast to focus on the value and expertise that the company provides to advance the success of military and commercial aircraft.  New messaging was reflected in all external communications and was incorporated into all of ENSCO’s go-to-market activities.

Whitespace established a go–to-market approach for both strategic initiatives that included a structured revenue generation program, which created a strong pipeline of Confirmed Sales Opportunities (CSOs).  CSOs are prospective buyers that have been accelerated down the buying cycle, and have indicated a committed budget and stated intention to make a product or service purchasing decision for ENSCO’s solution.

Results
Whitespace’s multidimensional strategic initiatives created new opportunities for growth though increasing performance of ENSCO’s existing avionics business and entry into a new market for data management solutions.  As a result, new sales opportunities have been identified in each market and the sales pipeline for its ISS division is increasing based on Whitespace’s development of CSOs.  Based on current results, ENSCO has extended the duration of the existing relationship and is exploring opportunities where Whitespace can advance the progress of its other key divisions.

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