Case Studies

Documented engagements,
measurable outcomes.

Each engagement below is anonymized but otherwise specific. Numbers are real, scope is real, and the work was led by Alex personally — not by a team operating under his name. Results came from clear diagnosis, deliberate design, and disciplined rollout, not from generic consulting frameworks.

Commercial Excellence · Manufacturing

Individual accountability replaces regional team-based bonuses at a €1.5B global manufacturer

Industry
Global flexible packaging
Revenue
€1.5B
Salesforce
300 reps across 4 regions
Engagement
Sales incentive plan redesign

The Situation

Four global regions ran four different sales incentive plans. Europe paid on regional sales plus working capital. India paid on regional sales only. Southeast Asia and Oceania mixed sales budgets with cash collection metrics. Middle East and Africa paid on sub-region sales budgets. All plans were team-based, semi-annual, and disconnected from individual performance. Most salespeople didn't understand the plans. Top performers were silently subsidizing underperformers. The commercial strategy was inconsistent across regions because the incentives that drove behavior were inconsistent.

The Problem

Beyond the fragmentation, the plans were structurally broken. Europe's working capital metric drove no behavior because most reps didn't know what working capital was. Southeast Asia's past-due-balance metric incentivized salespeople to extend payment terms (which mechanically reduced past-due balances) rather than actually collecting faster. Across regions, there was no individual accountability, no incremental upside, and no way to identify or reward the salespeople who were genuinely outperforming.

What I Did

Replaced all four regional plans with a single global structure built on three components. Component 1 (65% of variable comp): individual gross profit target equal to prior-year actual gross profit on the rep's accounts — protect what you built. Component 2 (35% of variable comp): individual DSO improvement target of 10% on the rep's accounts — reduce payment terms and collect faster. Component 3 (uncapped): incremental gross profit kicker paying 1% of base salary for every 1% of incremental gross profit above target — allowing top performers to earn up to 100% of base in bonus.

Result
EBIT +25% over 2.5 years — surpassing the prior historic peak year (which was driven by raw material cost windfalls).

The Transferable Lesson

Top performers didn't change behavior under the new plan — they had been outperforming the average for years under the old team-based system. The plan didn't create top performers; it stopped under-rewarding them. About 10% of the salesforce earned 40–100% of base in bonuses; about 50–60 reps earned no bonus at all (versus always earning something under team-based plans). Both effects are by design: a good incentive plan exposes performance, it doesn't average it out.

Commercial Excellence · B2B Services

From passive bonuses to gross profit ownership at a $600M services company

Industry
Waste & environmental services
Revenue
$600M (grew to $585M during the engagement)
Historical Growth
2–3% annually for 5 years
Engagement
Commercial excellence build + share-of-wallet program

The Situation

The company had grown 1–3% annually for five consecutive years despite operating in a market with substantial growth opportunity. The compensation plan paid every salesperson the same bonus — roughly 15–20% of base salary — based on total company performance. New customer acquisition was the primary growth motion. Existing customer expansion was largely ignored: only the top three customers were buying multiple services from a wide portfolio.

The Problem

No individual accountability meant no individual ownership. Salespeople were essentially being paid as a function of leadership performance, not their own. The cross-sell opportunity sitting inside the existing customer base — hundreds of accounts using only one or two of a dozen services — was invisible because nobody was incentivized to find it. The commercial excellence function existed but had no mechanism to influence frontline behavior.

What I Did

Three changes, executed together. One: moved sales incentives to individual gross profit performance, paid monthly, with each improvement validated through opportunity entry in Salesforce. Two: launched a share-of-wallet program that mapped, for each existing customer, what percentage of relevant spend the company actually owned and which additional services they could realistically sell. Three: tied bonus validation to CRM data quality, which transformed Salesforce adoption from a compliance issue into something salespeople did because their compensation depended on it.

Result
Gross profit +30%, sales +20% within 9 months — from a company growing 1–3% historically.

The Transferable Lesson

Most B2B companies dramatically underestimate the revenue sitting inside their existing customer base. Pair a share-of-wallet program with a cross-sell motion and individual GP-based incentives, and existing accounts can grow 10–20% with much less effort than equivalent new customer acquisition. The salespeople already know the customers; the customers already know the company; the only thing missing is the structural incentive to look.

Commercial Excellence · CRM Adoption

CRM adoption through incentive alignment at a mid-size services company

Industry
B2B services
Revenue
~$600M
Tool
Salesforce.com
Engagement
CRM adoption + commercial discipline

The Situation

Salesforce had been deployed for years but adoption was poor. Salespeople entered opportunities sporadically, often after the fact, and the data was incomplete or inaccurate. Pipeline forecasts couldn't be trusted. The commercial excellence team couldn't support pricing or bidding decisions because the underlying data simply wasn't there. Mandates and training had been tried; both had failed.

The Problem

The company was treating CRM adoption as a compliance problem when it was actually a compensation problem. Salespeople will use the tools that pay them. Without a direct link between CRM data and earnings, no amount of training, mandate, or escalation would change behavior in a sustainable way.

What I Did

Tied monthly bonus validation directly to opportunity entry in Salesforce. Every improvement claimed by a salesperson had to be logged as an opportunity, then validated monthly before payment. No entry, no bonus validation. The structural change was minor on paper but transformative in practice.

Result
CRM data quality transformed within months. Pipeline visibility became reliable. Win/loss analysis became possible for the first time. None of it required a separate CRM adoption initiative.

The Transferable Lesson

Compliance through mandate creates resistance. Compliance through alignment creates habits. When you want salespeople to do something consistently, the most reliable mechanism is to put it in their compensation plan, not in a policy document.

Business Performance · Multi-Location Foodservice

Daily revenue buckets transform frontline behavior at a 7-location restaurant chain

Industry
Fast-casual restaurants
Revenue
~$2M annually at peak
Locations
7 walk-up cafes plus catering
Engagement
Frontline compensation redesign

The Situation

The business operated 7 small-footprint walk-up cafes serving made-to-order crepes and pizzas. Sales were inconsistent across locations. Staff hourly pay was flat, regardless of location performance, customer service quality, or daily revenue. Total revenue across all locations was around half a million dollars and growth had stalled.

The Problem

The compensation system gave frontline staff no reason to influence daily revenue. They were paid the same whether traffic was high or low, whether service was attentive or rushed, whether upsells happened or not. The single most influenceable lever in the business — the quality of the customer experience at the moment of purchase — was not connected to anyone's earnings.

What I Did

Designed a daily revenue bucket structure. Each location had defined revenue tiers, and as a location's daily revenue rose into a higher tier, the staff working that day earned a higher hourly rate for that day. Staff saw the connection between effort and earnings every night at POS close. The system was simple, visible, immediate, and entirely within frontline control.

Result
All 7 locations grew within 2 months. One location doubled. Multiple locations grew 45–60%. Others grew 10–20% — without any other operational changes.

The Transferable Lesson

Compensation design is not a function of company size — it's a function of human nature. The same principle works at $2M restaurant chain, a $600M services company, and a €1.5B global manufacturer: clear line-of-sight from individual action to individual outcome. If you're waiting until your company is "ready" for individualized compensation, you're already behind.

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