For the businesses we partner with, a strategic acquisition is often a critical step in entering a new geography. But the acquisition is only the start of the journey. An excellent example of this is Peoplesafe’s acquisition of Ok Alone.
Peoplesafe is an industry-leading, technology-led employee safety business and the world’s largest provider of lone-working solutions. While Peoplesafe knew that the UK was the largest market for lone worker safety solutions, they understood their need to internationalise – specifically into Canada and the US where the most significant future market growth is forecast. This led to the successful acquisition of Ok Alone in August 2023, but what went into developing a North American growth strategy to deliver further growth from the combined business – before and after the acquisition?
Where to invest time and resource across a vast geography
Peoplesafe recognised a need to have a North American growth plan ready ahead of the acquisition, so they tasked ECI’s New York office with the research to inform that plan. A key objective was determining which geographies and customer end markets would provide the best return on commercial investment.
Questions that we addressed to determine where to focus included:
- Where and what types of customers make up North American revenue today for Ok Alone and competitors?
- How many addressable customers exist across different combinations of target industries and geographies?
- Where is the most interest in lone worker safety solutions by relevant keywords and search terms for marketing?
- Where do relevant regulations, professional associations, and key events exist to promote lone worker solutions?
Based on our findings, we prioritised which US states and Canadian provinces to target along with the industries most interested in lone worker solutions. Importantly, once we developed this list of geographies and end markets, we could tailor the findings to develop a plan for digital marketing investments, industry associations and events to attend, and lists of business development targets for outreach.
Implementing the strategy
With the strategy in place to establish our commercial focus and plans for growth, the team progressed to implementation with steps that included:
- Recruiting a US sales leader and mapping all business development territory/sector combinations across the sales team
- Joining target associations and attending relevant events
- Enhancing product features, marketing collateral, and pricing to reflect research findings
- Investing in digital marketing and public relations in prioritised areas
- Building out a North American approach to tracking requests for proposals and tenders
- Refining partnership processes and approach
This is now all in place with forecast activities, spend, and deadlines detailed for the remainder of the year.
Net recurring monthly revenue doubled
With the whole team pulling in the same direction, the benefits of a comprehensive go-to-market approach are now being realised.
To date, the business has seen a 40% increase in inbound leads through the focused digital marketing efforts that the research suggested. As a result, net recurring monthly revenue in North America has doubled over the last 12 months through additional sales to both existing customers and new logos – even faster than the historical 40% recurring revenue growth the business has demonstrated.
There remains a lot to learn, especially as Peoplesafe looks to educate a nascent American lone worker market, and they may need to refine their approach from these lessons, but the results so far show the value that a clear research programme can deliver – and we expect to be able to share even better results in the months to come.
