What do careers in aerospace engineering and consulting have in common? Michael Moorman says they both require analytical and problem-solving capabilities. As an engineer for NASA and Rockwell International in the 1980s, Moorman mastered those abilities, but he was looking for a new challenge that would tap into his people skills. "Consulting seemed perfect for that," he says. In 1993, after earning an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business, Moorman found his calling at ZS Associates in Chicago. Over the next 14 years, he would help boost the sales and marketing specialty firm to one of the leading consultancies of its kind in the country.
Most recently, Moorman, managing principal, b-to-b sales & marketing, helped struggling United Airlines completely revamp its business-to-business sales and marketing efforts. In 2004, United's b-to-b sales organization was highly ineffective. "Reps sold on price and friendship, fueling commoditization," explains Jeff Foland, United's senior vice president, worldwide sales. "The airline owned barely half its home market's 50 largest accounts. Its U.S. customer share averaged far below expectations—and trending down."
While United's marketing and sales problems were familiar, Moorman says the airline faced some unique challenges. "[The airline] was in bankruptcy at the time, so its insight and willingness to make a big investment in their sales and marketing was counterintuitive. But it believed they had to exit this as a different company, not as a scaled-down version of the company."
What's more, the process would require big changes among United's 300 sales, service and support staff. "I think they had not invested in sales and marketing in some time. They aspired to go from a low level of capabilities and performance to a high level, as well as benchmarking outside of the airline industry and doing it in a 24-month timeframe."
Moorman designed and advised 35 inter-related strategy, implementation and continuous improvement workstreams that transformed United's business capabilities. "Throughout, he personally coached our execs, managers and sales teams to transfer expertise," Foland says. By the end of 2006, United captured 80 percent of Chicago's top 50 accounts—winning more than $100 million from competitors.
Today, Moorman helps other companies like United overcome the two biggest challenges facing sales executives today—moving away from the old paradigm of product, features, price and more friendship-based relationships, to a more sophisticated model of understanding the comprehensive needs of the customers and managing multiple sales channels and products.
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