Accelerating Growth in Renewable Energy: From Local to Global

Challenge

A midsized, privately owned, manufacturer of renewable energy equipment headquartered in South Asia needed to diversity and expand upon a market-leading position in India and take the company global by quadrupling the country coverage (from 4 to 20 countries) in three years. The client’s internal efforts to expand sales channels had not been successful.

Clients Contribution to the SDGs

Approach

DFI’s approach was aimed at addressing two challenges, market expansion and operational implementation. DFI delivered a carefully structure, replicable process to successfully establish client presence and distributor network in markets with the highest potential for revenue growth and installing and operational structure that ensured programmatic sales pursuit efforts.

Identify Target Markets: DFI identified the set of priority countries by tracking countries where investments in the related renewable energy segment were on the rise, which had abundant natural resources, a suitable regulatory framework, an attractive energy market and investors looking for cost-effective solutions.
Market Assessment and DFI Deep-Dive: DFI undertook a global assessment to map out key stakeholders, potential customers, market trends, business potential, and successful sales models in the priority countries. Joint in-country visits introduced the client to stakeholders, potential customers, and previously vetted distributor candidates. Post visit follow ups helped close the loop in the partner engagement and start of sales pursuit in these markets.
New Partner Qualification Process: Through the assessment and deep-dive process, DFI also established and disseminated processes and discipline for partner qualification, management and sales pursuit. These measures have significantly improved field capability in managing expanded demands and market network.

At the end of three years, DFI had exceeded its brief – channel partners were in place covering 24 export markets in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Central Europe. DFI also facilitated the opening of the client’s two international regional offices for improved partner oversight and access to key export markets.

Partners

IFIs, Ministries in key countries, trade associations

Outcomes

Established 2 Regional Offices bringing the client closer to key markets
Opened 19 new markets by establishing distributors and mapping business leads
Introduced client to more than 500 project stakeholders
Delivered substantial sales by mapping a 5-year pipeline of nearly $1 B, of which $200 M was prioritized and transitioned to pursuit
Established business processes and structures to manage growth in new markets