ABM has delivered extraordinary business growth for Atos and has elevated its marketing team into becoming truly client-centric. Now, as a business and as marketers, it’s more innovative, creative, digital, braver and bolder.
About Atos
Atos is a leader in digital services, with annual revenues of €11 billion and 110,000 employees in 73 countries. The group provides cloud, cybersecurity, high- performance computing, big data, business applications, BPO and digital workplace solutions. Atos’ marketing team has always worked closely with account and sales/deal teams to create new business opportunities through differentiated, high-value content and client engagement.
Three years ago, its SVP for sales and marketing had seen that what marketing was doing on some of the bid/deals was differentiating it from competitors. The SVP challenged the marketing team to devise a model for doing this more systematically and consistently across all new deals, in a way that would give Atos a competitive advantage.
Objectives
- Create a 50% increase in new business won over a three-year period
- Increase the win rate on deals by 20% within a 3-year period
- Ability to support an additional 30 deals during 2018/2019
- Bring 10 new clients into the business during 2018/2019 › Deliver a 50:1 ROI through the programme during 2018/2019
Target audience
Senior client/prospect buyers on Atos’ bids/deals including board level individuals (CEO, COO, chief digital officer, CTO/CIO, CFO, CPO) and their direct reports. Covering private and public sector markets.
Media, channels and techniques used
Atos’ approach embedded a new business-wide model that applies ABM technologies, techniques and methodologies to winning new deals. Marketers spend 50% of their day supporting deals and work collectively on 10-15 deals each day.
Specialist agencies included:
- Agent3: Built a client insight team specifically within marketing, which provides deal-based client insight on individual stakeholders.
- Coterie: Delivered value propositions/messaging by working with Atos’ marketers on market/industry-based content that is re-used and tailored to each deal.
- Oliver: Joined a hybrid creative onsite team specifically to work on each deal. This provided individual, personalised and digital creative for each deal.
Example ABM campaigns
Atos included a mix of media/channels in supporting each deal from initial awareness generation through to closure, with different tactics chosen depending on what was needed to respond to the target audience.
Example: A leading gas and electricity provider (new client, winning new business)
The challenge was to illustrate Atos as a digital disruptor in the gas and electricity industry so that the prospect would have confidence in their long-term relationship bringing new possibilities, delivering transformation and future-proofing solutions.
- Creative: Atos delivered a 12-month campaign under the theme of ‘What If…’ This included presentations, emails, executive summaries, infographics, diagrams, direct-mail shots (hand delivered), social media to provide consistent, personalised and differentiated messaging. Interactive rich pictures, animations and videos to illustrate the long-term journey they would embark on together.
- Client insight: Stakeholder mapping and relationship trackers, utilising the client insight platform to provide real-time insight to the sales/deal teams. Events: Sponsorship of an industry summit, innovation sessions, workshops and a site visit to demonstrate credentials and build relationships.
Example: Public sector body (existing client, winning new business)
The challenge was to radically change perceptions of Atos from a traditional IT vendor to a trusted digital innovation partner at the heart of public sector modernisation. Atos introduced an innovative 18-month campaign: ‘Reimagining the User Experience’ which rebranded/repositioned it by showcasing its digital story and end-client focus.
- Creative: Blend of digital and printed collateral, including interactive rich pictures, augmented reality and use of AtosConnect (its personalised digital app for clients).
- Events: Sponsorship of innovation and diversity events bringing the key stakeholders andclient influencers together.
- Messaging: Utilised for a new account vision with senior Atos stakeholders.
Timescales
- Jan-April 2015: Research and planning
- May-July 2015: Business case and pilot model deployment
- Aug-Dec 2015: Pilot model deployment
- Jan-March 2016: Pilot review and model sign-off
- 2016-now: Full model deployment and refinement including resource expansion in January 2019
- Weekly: KPI calls, sales/deal/marketing team workshops/resource/results/progress calls
Budgets
This is the largest investment Atos has ever made into a marketing programme. The costs cannot be provided as they are commercially sensitive but include all resources, media, technology described in this case study.
Results delivered
- 167% increase in new business won over a three-year period (against 50% target)
- 76% deal win rate in 2018/2019 (compared with a 34% win rate in 2015/2016) (42% increase compared with 20% target)
- 18 new clients brought into the business in 2018/2019 (compared with three newclients in 2015/2016) (15 new logos increase compared with target of 10)
- 40:1 ROI delivered during 2018/2019 (against 50:1 target)
Additional results/benefits
Marketers are more creative, proactive and braver in their approach.
Marketers feel highly valued, illustrated through receiving 87% in 2018’s Great Place To Work survey 7 x internal accolades received.
“Our deal-based marketing model has enabled a significant transformation for our business. The team has collaborated strongly to beat our ambitious sales targets, bringing new rigour, creativity and passion in positioning Atos as a tier one digital services leader. We stand out far above our competitors.”
