Leading Through Experience to Create $77M in Enterprise Value

As Vice President of Experience for a strategic B2B partnership with a Fortune 10 pharmaceutical distributor, I helped establish and led a Customer Experience Center of Excellence (CX CoE) that transformed multiple business units through evidence-driven design and systematic problem-solving. Our flagship achievement, uncovering $200M in pharmacy ordering revenue opportunities, was part of a comprehensive enterprise transformation.

The Challenge

Product portfolio owners knew they had problems. Customer satisfaction scores were dropping and customers were leaving. Fixing it wasn't straightforward.

Surface Problems

Decreasing satisfaction scores across products

Increasing customer churn rates

No structured approach to embed experience design.

The real challenges were more complex.

Trust Barriers

  • Customer relationships were managed carefully.

  • Teams resisted contact with external customers

  • Research data faced ongoing skepticism.

Process Gaps

  • No structured feedback loops beyond NPS.

  • Missing customer contact database.

  • No clear data governance for research.

  • Inconsistencies in approaches, measure of success, tools, and ways of working

Cultural Resistance

  • Teams that are protective of their initiatives and roadmaps.

  • Skepticism toward "another new initiative".

  • Fear of radical change disrupting operations.

We needed more than research.
We needed to transform team workflows without disrupting what worked.

The Approach

We built our approach around creating value without disruption. This balanced approach let us transform the organization without breaking it. We moved fast enough to create change but slow enough to bring everyone along.

Partner with strength

  • Built joint center of excellence with executive stakeholders.

  • Connected service leaders with product teams.

  • Created clear lines of communication and authority.

Create adaptable expertise

  • Deployed industry advisors in adaptable groups.

  • Embedded teams within business units.

  • Maintained flexible resource model.

Focus on value

Created a two-stage Value Scoring system for evaluating initiatives.

Stage 1

Benefits assessment covering strategic alignment, customer experience, revenue impact, cost savings, regulatory compliance, and competitive advantage

Stage 2

Complexity evaluation including technical requirements, implementation costs, and platform dependencies.

Linked everything to business metrics.

Establish Customer Voice Infrastructure

  • Built a customer recruitment database and processes.

  • Created tools for managing participation.

  • Developed clear data collection policies.

  • Developed secure storage protocols.

  • Established sharing guidelines.

  • Developed deletion workflows.

Change Management

Build Trust

  • Started with small, noticeable wins.

  • Visualized behavioral paths revealing gaps in ordering journeys.

  • Identified over 20 design opportunities to increase feature adoption.

  • Demonstrated value before scaling.

  • Valued existing relationships.

  • Participated in steering committees.

Align with Reality

  • Mapped current initiatives.

  • Identified integration points.

  • Avoided conflict with significant programs.

Pace the Change

  • Matched the pace of the organization.

  • Built momentum.

  • Created opportunities for experiments

Impact and Outcomes

This partnership proves a simple truth. When customer experience a core business strategy, you get happier users and powerful financial results. These weren't isolated wins, they proved our approach worked.

Pharmacy Operations Breakthrough

  • Uncovered $200M in revenue opportunities through journey mapping

  • Recovered $32M through targeted improvements

  • Rebuilt five critical ordering pathways

  • Transformed system usability scores

Enterprise-Wide Transformation

  • Medical-Surgical

    Reduced supplier onboarding time by 50% and generated $13M in revenue.

  • HR Operations

    10x support center awareness, $1.5M cost savings

  • Healthcare Provider Services

    Mapped 500+ pain points, $31M improvement roadmap.

Strategic Partnership Value

  • Established sustainable transformation models

  • Created lasting operational and executive partnerships

  • Embedded experience design into organizational problem-solving

The Path Forward

The $200M opportunity we uncovered represents just the beginning. True enterprise transformation requires a careful balance between bold vision and pragmatic execution.

We must evolve functioning systems systematically through cross-functional collaboration and evidence-driven discovery rather than disrupting what works.

The future belongs to enterprises that view transformation as continuous evolution rather than isolated revolution.

Leaders who empower cross-functional teams with both the autonomy to innovate and the structure to execute will uncover the most valuable opportunities.

By combining deep customer understanding with organizational alignment, these organizations transform beyond systems and processes to reshape the culture of how teams work together to create value.

Related Work

How Cross-Functional Teams Uncovered $200M in Opportunities

While leading a Customer Experience Center of Excellence (CX CoE) for a strategic B2B partnership with a Fortune 10 pharmaceutical distributor to reimagine enterprise transformation through research-led discovery, our work uncovering $200M in pharmacy ordering revenue opportunities demonstrated the impact of our mission. Through deep customer understanding, we unlocked value across multiple business units.

Let's Build What Comes Next.

If you're facing a complex business challenge or want to transform your customer experience from a cost center into a competitive advantage, I can help. Let's start a conversation.