Industrial equipment · Physical product
Two years of India “exploration” became a signed order in 19 weeks
A pump maker with three failed India attempts reset the ICP from EPC contractors to captive-power plant operators, cleared a purchase-order path through one distributor, and collected first revenue before any entity spend.
Vogt Fluidtechnik - German industrial pump maker, €140M revenue
- Entry mode
- Distributor-led, no entity in phase 1
- Price metric
- Per skid + commissioning fee
- Stage at start
- Pre 0→1 (no repeat demand)
- Stage at exit
- 1→2 gate passed, month 11
19 wks
to first signed order
Before
Before: activity without a buyer
Two India visits a year, a distributor list built from trade-fair badges, and a pipeline made of EPC tenders the company could never win on landed cost. Nothing had been tested against a buyer who could actually sign.
- 26 months of India effort, zero collected revenue
- Pipeline built on EPC tenders lost on landed cost every time
- Quote-to-order cycle unmeasured; no owner for India numbers
- Board asked for a subsidiary before a single buyer was validated
Intervention
What we changed
We stopped selling to the market that never bought and re-pointed the same product at operators who pay for uptime, not for the lowest capex.
0→1
ICP reset from EPC contractors to captive-power and process plants with in-house maintenance budgets.
0→1
Willingness to pay tested at three price points on a documented uptime claim, not a spec sheet.
0→1
One distributor appointed with a written purchase-order path: quote template, inspection terms, payment date.
1→2
Second seller added and a commissioning SOP written so wins stopped depending on one champion.
After
After: a repeatable order motion
First order in week 19 from the reset ICP. By month 11 wins came from two sellers and three plant groups, with contribution margin positive after freight, duty and commissioning.
- Order 1 signed in week 19, paid on the agreed date
- 9 orders across 3 plant groups by month 11
- Quote-to-order cycle cut from unmeasured to a measured 41 days
- Entity decision deferred to month 14 — after revenue, not before
The numbers
Before and after, measured on the same definitions
Every line below was measured the same way before and after the engagement. Where a number did not exist before, we say so rather than back-filling an estimate.
- Weeks to first signed order
112 wks before19 wks after
Lower is better. Before figure is elapsed India effort with no order.
- Quote-to-order cycle
96 days before41 days after
Lower is better.
- Qualified-to-order win rate
4 % before22 % after
Higher is better.
- Orders in first 12 months
0 before9 after
Higher is better.
- Contribution margin on India orders
-8 % before17 % after
Higher is better.
Collected India revenue by month
Cumulative collected revenue, ₹ lakh. Nothing before month 5; the curve starts at the first paid order.
Where the pipeline came from
Share of qualified opportunities by buyer type, before the reset and at month 12.
Before
At month 12
- EPC contractors
- 71% → 12%
- Captive-power plants
- 9% → 46%
- Process plants
- 6% → 31%
- Unclassified
- 14% → 11%
Value ledger
What the engagement was worth
- Collected revenue, months 1–12
- ₹4.02 Cr
- Avoided entity and compliance spend in phase 1
- ₹68 L
- Programme fees
- ₹82 L
- Value-per-fee multiple
- 5.7×
“The uncomfortable part was being shown that our India pipeline had never contained a buyer who could sign. Once that changed, the first order took nineteen weeks.”
Henrik Vogt
Managing Director, Vogt Fluidtechnik
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