Mémoire-projet

Abstract

This thesis investigates how the contact-to-lead process can be optimised to improve B2B prospect conversion at EVS Broadcast Equipment, a global live video production technology company headquartered in Liège, Belgium. As EVS pursues an ambitious growth target of over €350 million in revenue by 2030, expanding beyond its traditional core markets into new segments where its brand recognition is limited, the absence of a structured commercial acquisition process has become a strategic liability. The research combines a literature review covering lead management, marketing automation, sales-marketing alignment, and the B2B customer journey, with a mixed-methods empirical study. Eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted across the four departments involved in the process, Market & Solutions, Marketing, Sales Enablement, and Sales, and analysed through a matrix-based inductive thematic approach. This qualitative study was complemented by a quantitative pre-post analysis of LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads, and CRM data from Microsoft Dynamics 365, covering the period from 2021 to April 2026. The findings reveal a process characterised by structural fragmentation: no shared lead definition, silo-based campaign briefing, manual lead management without nurturing capability, and a feedback loop that breaks down at the handoff between Sales Enablement and Sales. Despite these gaps, the data shows measurable progress over the internship period. The lead qualification rate grew from 0.54% to 3.53%, digital sources emerged as structured pipeline inputs, and the proportion of leads feeding existing opportunities rose from 6.8% to 20.4%, signalling the emergence of a marketing contribution logic. The discussion proposes six operational axes for continued optimisation: process mapping, lead definition, marketing automation, touchpoint management, nurturing, and shared reporting. Together, these axes form a roadmap for transforming the contact-to-lead process from an informal set of practices into a structured, automated, and data-driven commercial workflow.