Turning scattered pilots into enterprise adoption.
A risky starting point
When I was hired to open Latin America for a SaaS company, there was only one major customer in the region. The contract was mid six figures annually, and renewal was coming up fast.
Most people assumed it would renew without issue, and finance was counting on a multi-million dollar expansion. Our CEO had a strong personal relationship with the client’s global head of digital operations, and that team was supportive and constantly opening doors for us. From the outside, it looked like a secure account with big expansion potential.
But as I dug deeper, I realized the account was at real risk of churn. If we lost it, the entire LATAM team would likely be shut down.
What I discovered
We were running dozens of small pilots with middle managers across different business units. People were curious, but adoption never stuck. The global digital innovation team could open doors, but they didn’t have the authority to enforce rollout. And the people running tests on the ground didn’t have the influence to make lasting change.
It looked like we were very busy, but we weren’t building anything sustainable.
A different approach
I reframed the problem: instead of chasing small demos everywhere, we needed to prove value at scale. Working with our CEO, I aligned with the client’s global head of digital operations on a new plan: run a concentrated pilot in one flagship factory and prove that our platform could deliver measurable results across the whole site, not just a single department.
Covering the ground
We split responsibilities. I focused on senior stakeholders at the regional and country level, while our implementation lead partnered directly with the plant manager and department heads. Because of everything we’d learned from earlier pilots, we already understood the client’s recurring pain points. That let us quickly digitize procedures in quality, safety, maintenance, inventory, and operations.
The no-code platform made it easy for frontline experts to create and adjust procedures themselves. That speed drove adoption in a way no top-down rollout ever could.
Standing out in a crowded test
Two other platforms were being tested in the same factory at the same time, which turned the project into a head-to-head competition. What set us apart was our ability to integrate:
- Dashboards in their existing analytics platform gave leaders visibility into adoption and results.
- System triggers from factory equipment automatically dispatched tasks when thresholds were crossed, and every response was timestamped. This dramatically improved accountability and cut response times.
What happened in three months
By the end of the pilot, the difference was clear. We had multiple live use cases running across departments, and supervisors became strong champions. They spoke openly about how much easier it was to use, how much time it saved, and how compliance improved.
Even conservative ROI calculations, just the paper, toner, and admin hours saved, showed returns many times greater than the cost. The bigger value came from increased uptime and reduced downtime risk. When production lines run longer because maintenance is done right and on time, the productivity gains are measured in millions.
The outcome
The renewal turned into a multi-year, multi-million dollar expansion that became one of the company’s largest global contracts. The LATAM team was not only retained but grew in size, and I was promoted from leading the region to managing global enterprise accounts.
Looking back
What made this work wasn’t just the technology. It was diagnosing the real issue: engaging at the wrong level, and reshaping the strategy to prove value where it mattered. That’s the same approach I take today as a Fractional CRO: cut through the noise, focus on the real levers of value, and turn risky situations into growth stories.
Want to explore how I can help your business crack tough expansions in traditional industries? Let’s talk or connect with me on LinkedIn or check delasotta.com/insights.