Transition to Aeries’ Purpose-Built Model for Renewal Management

Companies count on renewal sales for predictable recurring revenue, which is extremely important for the stability of a business. In addition, because you are providing value over time, renewal business fosters higher lifetime value and a greater opportunity for customer churn prevention and loyalty than nonrecurring revenue streams.

Business Challenge

• The client is a leading provider of secure access and mobile security solutions to enterprises and service providers.
• The client had contracted a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to manage renewals. The proprietary nature of the MSP’s process & software prevented control, transparency & insight for the client
• Renewing service contracts amounted to 40% of our client’s revenue, and lack of control meant our client could not use insights to gain customer awareness, improve renewal/upgrade rates, or implement a cross-sell/upsell strategy.
• Renewal rates were drastically inconsistent at times, at time declining; and the MSP was dealing with high attrition levels.
• Their commission rates had also increased, leading to higher costs due to these factors.

Aeries Solution

Aeries worked with the client to help them overcome their challenges by suggesting moving from a managed services model to a Aeries’ Purpose-Built Model which gave them dedicated resources and operations to handle their sales renewals.

• Aeries developed a tri-phased transition plan to mitigate the risks of losing accounts/revenue for the client. The Tri-Phased Transition Approach included:

• • Tech Refresh Program (Oct 2016 – Mar 2017)
    • Hardware product & software service upgrades + service maintenance contracts.
    • Utilized channel sale distributors and resellers to create leads.
    • Worked with marketing to develop programs/ campaigns.
  • New Business Unit (Aug 2017 – Dec 2017)
    • Transitioned new renewal opportunities
    • Value-add: IT dev/ testing, process & policy dev/ enrichment, project management.
    • Maintained consistent renewal rates, per forecast.
  • Full Renewals Transition (Jan 2018 to-date)
    • Initially: split ownership with existing MSP to reduce risk of lost revenue.
    • By Jan 2018: full ownership of all accounts by in-house, Mumbai-based renewals team.

• A 40-member team was hired in India in phases, who worked on Tech Refresh and upgrade programs. They began renewing service contracts for new business units, ultimately expanding to renewals of core global business.
• The Mumbai renewals team is split between quoting operations and frontend sales. They are globally focused and are promoting new revenue lines by upselling Tech Refreshes to renewing customers.
• Leveraging digital transformation services, Aeries applied big data analytics to improve forecasting, prioritization, and revenue realization.
• Aeries also hired multi-lingual employees to serve the client’s global customers – Italian, French, Spanish/Portuguese, German, Mandarin, Japanese etc.

Business Impact

• Through the Aeries Purpose-Built Model with dedicated operations, and tri-phased transition plan developed by Aeries, the client realized cost savings of 37% in 2019 – at USD 1M.
• The client has also seen an increase in renewal rates to 75% for the year 2019 along with improved transparency and control of the business.
• Additionally, it booked $19 million of tech refresh(upgrades) in FY 2019.
• The team also improved operational efficiency: greater overlap with client’s time zone and expansion of the team’s functional responsibilities.
• Streamlined business operations. SLAs reduced from 72-hours with the 3rd party vendor to 48-hours. Now, most inquiries are answered in less than 24-hours, which directly improved customer satisfaction.
• Implemented Renewals module for the Sales Department in Salesforce.