Reshaping a $3.6M Chase Into a $2.4M Win
Reshaping a $3.6M Chase Into a $2.4M Win
Reshaping a $3.6M Chase Into a $2.4M Win
Deal Win Sprint
$3.6M
transformation pursuit with no budget owner
$650K
first phase signed within eight weeks
$2.4M
in contracted platform and services revenue
The RFP was real. The deal was not ready.
A cloud data platform and services provider was pursuing a $3.6M data modernization opportunity with a national insurance company. The provider had reached the final stage of the RFP, completed several technical workshops, and received positive feedback from the client’s data leadership team.
Internally, the pursuit was treated as a must-win deal. Senior executives were attending calls. Solution architects were designing migration plans. Sales, product, security, and delivery teams had already invested more than 400 hours.
But after 11 weeks, the buyer had not confirmed who owned the business case, where the budget would come from, or how the final decision would be made.
The provider had access to the process. It did not yet have a credible path to the decision.
What the Deal Win Sprint exposed.
In 10 days, Kevin tested the buyer’s reason to change, competitive situation, internal support, decision risk, and path to commercial commitment. The sprint exposed three issues.
1. The provider had a technical sponsor, not a commercial sponsor.
The Vice President of Data supported the platform and had helped the provider reach the final stage. But the transformation required funding from operations and finance. Neither function had been involved in defining the opportunity or validating its value.
2. The proposal was solving a technology problem the buyer could postpone.
The provider was leading with platform consolidation, migration speed, and technical scalability. Those benefits were credible, but they did not create enough urgency. The fundable problem was different: inconsistent claims data was slowing regulatory reporting, increasing manual work, and limiting the company’s ability to identify claims leakage.
3. The original pursuit structure favoured the incumbent.
The buyer was being asked to approve a large transformation before it had confidence in the migration path, operating impact, or financial return. The incumbent consultancy could defend the status quo more easily than the provider could defend a full replacement.
Pursuit Decision
Reshape the opportunity.
The provider stopped pursuing the original all-or-nothing transformation. It narrowed the first commitment to one high-cost claims process, built the commercial case around measurable operating impact, and created a staged path to the broader platform decision.
What changed.
The provider stopped leading with the full platform transformation. Instead, it engaged the client’s Head of Claims Operations around the financial and regulatory cost of fragmented claims data.
The first phase was redesigned as a focused claims data foundation with defined operating outcomes, a fixed implementation scope, and clear conditions for expansion. Finance validated the business case. Security and procurement were involved earlier. The Vice President of Data remained the technical sponsor, but the Head of Claims Operations became the business owner.
The pursuit plan changed from “win the platform replacement” to “prove value in one business-critical process.”
The team now knew who needed to support the decision, what problem could secure funding, what risks had to be reduced, and what commercial commitment was realistic.
The result.
Before the sprint, the provider was pursuing a $3.6M transformation without a confirmed economic buyer or agreed business case.
Within eight weeks, the client approved a $650K first phase focused on claims data and regulatory reporting. The initial work produced the evidence needed to expand the relationship into additional platform, migration, and managed service requirements.
Year-one contracted revenue reached $2.4M.
The provider also removed three speculative workstreams from the pursuit, avoiding more than 300 hours of senior sales, technical, and delivery effort.
The RFP was real. The deal was not ready.
A cloud data platform and services provider was pursuing a $3.6M data modernization opportunity with a national insurance company. The provider had reached the final stage of the RFP, completed several technical workshops, and received positive feedback from the client’s data leadership team.
Internally, the pursuit was treated as a must-win deal. Senior executives were attending calls. Solution architects were designing migration plans. Sales, product, security, and delivery teams had already invested more than 400 hours.
But after 11 weeks, the buyer had not confirmed who owned the business case, where the budget would come from, or how the final decision would be made.
The provider had access to the process. It did not yet have a credible path to the decision.
What the Deal Win Sprint exposed.
In 10 days, Kevin tested the buyer’s reason to change, competitive situation, internal support, decision risk, and path to commercial commitment. The sprint exposed three issues.
1. The provider had a technical sponsor, not a commercial sponsor.
The Vice President of Data supported the platform and had helped the provider reach the final stage. But the transformation required funding from operations and finance. Neither function had been involved in defining the opportunity or validating its value.
2. The proposal was solving a technology problem the buyer could postpone.
The provider was leading with platform consolidation, migration speed, and technical scalability. Those benefits were credible, but they did not create enough urgency. The fundable problem was different: inconsistent claims data was slowing regulatory reporting, increasing manual work, and limiting the company’s ability to identify claims leakage.
3. The original pursuit structure favoured the incumbent.
The buyer was being asked to approve a large transformation before it had confidence in the migration path, operating impact, or financial return. The incumbent consultancy could defend the status quo more easily than the provider could defend a full replacement.
Pursuit Decision
Reshape the opportunity.
The provider stopped pursuing the original all-or-nothing transformation. It narrowed the first commitment to one high-cost claims process, built the commercial case around measurable operating impact, and created a staged path to the broader platform decision.
What changed.
The provider stopped leading with the full platform transformation. Instead, it engaged the client’s Head of Claims Operations around the financial and regulatory cost of fragmented claims data.
The first phase was redesigned as a focused claims data foundation with defined operating outcomes, a fixed implementation scope, and clear conditions for expansion. Finance validated the business case. Security and procurement were involved earlier. The Vice President of Data remained the technical sponsor, but the Head of Claims Operations became the business owner.
The pursuit plan changed from “win the platform replacement” to “prove value in one business-critical process.”
The team now knew who needed to support the decision, what problem could secure funding, what risks had to be reduced, and what commercial commitment was realistic.
The result.
Before the sprint, the provider was pursuing a $3.6M transformation without a confirmed economic buyer or agreed business case.
Within eight weeks, the client approved a $650K first phase focused on claims data and regulatory reporting. The initial work produced the evidence needed to expand the relationship into additional platform, migration, and managed service requirements.
Year-one contracted revenue reached $2.4M.
The provider also removed three speculative workstreams from the pursuit, avoiding more than 300 hours of senior sales, technical, and delivery effort.
“We had mistaken a place in the RFP for a real chance of winning. Kevin exposed the missing business owner, the risk the buyer could not defend, and the work we were doing without evidence it would move the decision. Reshaping the pursuit gave the client a safer first step and gave us a deal we could actually win.”
Chief Revenue Officer, Cloud Data Platform and Services Provider
“We had mistaken a place in the RFP for a real chance of winning. Kevin exposed the missing business owner, the risk the buyer could not defend, and the work we were doing without evidence it would move the decision. Reshaping the pursuit gave the client a safer first step and gave us a deal we could actually win.”
Chief Revenue Officer, Cloud Data Platform and Services Provider
