Mémoire-projet

Abstract

This master’s thesis focuses on the development and optimization of a unified sales strategy within John Cockerill Services Energy in the context of the mutualization of commercial activities between two historically distinct Business Units : Services Energy South, based in Seraing and Services Energy North, based in Willebroek. The objective is to understand how a common commercial framework can support customer portfolio development, revenue growth and stronger cooperation between both entities.

The research is based on a qualitative exploratory case study. Thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with operational, support and managerial profiles. These data were combined with internal documents and academic literature following an Evidence-Based Management approach.

The analysis shows that, before the mutualization process, commercial practices were mainly local, reactive and strongly dependent on historical customers and individual relationships. While this model allowed proximity and responsiveness, it also limited proactive prospecting, information sharing and the construction of a shared commercial vision. The findings also reveal that the pooling process is strategically relevant but remains incomplete in practice. Several obstacles still hinder its effectiveness, including historical silos, weakened trust between sites, linguistic and cultural differences, heterogeneous working methods, limited resources for prospecting and insufficient use of shared tools.

Based on these findings, the thesis proposes four main recommendations: clarifying Services Energy’s commercial positioning and customer portfolio, formalizing a common but flexible sales process, developing performance indicators that measure not only results but also prospecting efforts and learning and supporting implementation through local management, training and progressive team ownership.

Overall, this thesis concludes that a unified sales strategy can only become a real growth lever if it is translated into concrete routines, clear responsibilities, reliable data and sustained managerial support.