Case Studies in Cross-Functional Success

I have been building teams that save accounts for almost 13 years inside of B2B SaaS. Most “save plays” fail because Customer Success is left project-managing siloed teams. Here’s a play that I used in 2023 for my customer success team to turn a $5M (ARR) at-risk account into an $8M expansion. No secret-- The only way to win this game is for every team to put ego in a box, take collective ownership + accept accountability for renewing that at risk account (works best with shared OKRs) Try this framework: ⚠️Detect & Escalate - Shared Ownership: Ops Team (automated alerts in CRM/CSP..healthscore) + CSM(context/adoption/tactical) + Sales (account intel) - Metrics: Health score (<50), pipeline stall (>60 days), executive disengagement/turnover or M&A activity - Example: Sales flagged CTO ghosting latest luncheon meeting while Product spotted 40% usage drop. Combined alerts triggered Tier 1 escalation to Gainsight and customer success manager alerted to action-->triggers CTA and start of "get account healthy" playbook 🔍 Root Cause War Rooms - Squad: CSM, Product Engineer, Solutions Architect, Sales, Support/TAC Lead, Project/Onboarding Leader, Executive Team - Process: - An hour collaborative session mapping pain points to org functions - Shared doc with Product bugs (Engineering), ROI gaps (Finance), adoption blockers (CSM + Enablement) - Output: Ranked list of fire drills vs. strategic rebuilds ⚡️ Execution: The 3-Layer Accountability Stack 1. Tactical (Daily): Engineering standups on bug resolution + CSM/Sales shared Slack channel for client comms 2. Strategic (Weekly): CRO/CPO/CSO review of MAP progress against revenue guardrails 3. Executive (Bi-Weekly): Joint customer-facing roadmap reviews with our CEO/CRO ↔ their CIO Case Study: $5M → $8M The Crisis: - Health score red, Support tickets up 300%, Sales pipeline frozen, no client engagement The Save: 1. Week 1: Engineering deployed hotfixes (critical bugs) while CSM team rebuilt training docs 2. Week 3: Finance team recalculated ROI using NPV model + identified $1.2M expansion opp. 3. Week 6: Sales + CSM co-pitched new use case to CTO with Product Lead The Win: - 91% critical bugs resolved in 30 days (Eng) - $2M expansion closed in 90 days (Sales) - 68% adoption rebound (CS) - 20% TCV uplift locked pre-renewal (Sales) Truth 💣: At-risk accounts expose organizational silos. Your playbook needs named owners in: - Product (fix velocity) - Finance(ROI storytelling) - Customer Success (adoption surgery) - Sales(expansion threading) Teams that align around customer P&L impact (not just their metrics) turn churn risks into growth engines = NRR 💸 🏃♂️ 🏃♀️ to comments for Full RACI Matrix Template Like & Follow to Rebel 💪 🔥www.rebelsofSaaS.com 🎧Rebels of SaaS

The Tiger Team: When Uncharted Territory Demands a Different Approach I received a lot of questions about the Tiger Team concept from my last post, so here's a deeper dive. The Origin Tiger Teams emerged from military and aerospace operations: small, cross functional groups assembled to solve critical problems that had no playbook. The concept is simple: when you're facing ambiguity, bring together diverse expertise, give them a clear mission, and empower them to find the answer. The Reality At Nalu Medical, the biggest benefit of our peripheral nerve stimulation technology was that it could be used for multiple conditions and nerve targets. It was also our biggest challenge. We didn't know what was working and what wasn't. The corporate instinct? Mandate a strategy from above. The field instinct? Let a thousand flowers bloom. Both paths lead to the same place: chaos without clarity, effort without impact. So we formed a Tiger Team. Five people: an engineer, a clinical specialist, a sales rep, a marketer, and myself. Different skillsets. Different perspectives. One focused goal: figure out what's working, feed it back rapidly, and build a repeatable strategy. The Breakthrough Six months in, we hit the insight that changed everything. Our field team was drowning in support requests. Instead of trying to solve every problem, we asked: "What are the three most common requests?" The answer came immediately. Everyone agreed on the same three targets. We focused there, then added one more element: the "elephant nerve." We taught the team our approach for handling targets we'd never encountered before. The result: mastery of three core applications plus the confidence to tackle the unknown. The shift was immediate. Every time we focused, growth inflected upward. Not everyone bought in at first. Corporate worried we'd miss opportunities, the field felt mandated to. But the proof was in the outcomes. Champions emerged. Momentum built. The organization aligned. When to Deploy a Tiger Team Use this approach when: • There's no clear precedent and expert opinions diverge • Top down mandates will fail without frontline insight • Bottom up experimentation needs focus to become strategy • You need diverse perspectives unified by a single, urgent goal Remember: Tiger Teams are temporary by design. Define the mission clearly. Assemble different minds. Let them find the pattern in the noise. Then scale what works. The best leaders know when to stop debating and start discovering. What's been your experience navigating uncharted territory in your organization? Have you used cross-functional teams to cut through ambiguity? #Leadership #MedTech #ProductMarketFit #CommercialStrategy #ScalingStartups #TigerTeam

In 1995, I was the Head of Product Development at Adidas International headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Here's the delegation process I built that's still serving me 30 years later: Picture this scenario. Your company's about to go public. The brand is red-hot. Orders are flooding in. You need to deliver more products than ever before. But there's a catch. You can't hire anyone new. Classic chicken-and-egg problem. You need PEOPLE to execute the business, but you need the business first to get the BUDGET for the people. What do you do? Many would panic, work 80-hour weeks, or let quality slip. None of which would work for us. So here's what we did: I sat down with each team member and identified their superpower (beyond their CORE role). Bill? Technical genius. From now on, he'd handle all technical queries for the entire team. Sue? Fashion guru with incredible design instincts. She'd provide color analysis and trend monitoring for everyone. Each person got 2 roles: their category leadership AND a team contribution. Everyone contributed something special to the group effort. No one felt singled out or overburdened. Now we had the bandwidth of a much larger team. Here’s why it worked so well: 1. It Maximized Resources: Bill's technical expertise served 5 categories instead of one. Sue's fashion sense elevated every product line. 2. It Created Genuine Buy-In: When you ask someone to contribute their strongest skill, they feel valued. 3. It Built Cross-Functional Knowledge: Team members started understanding challenges beyond their own areas. My Time Was Freed Up for Strategy: Instead of being the bottleneck for every decision, I had specialists handling their areas of expertise. 30 years later, I still use this approach. When resources are tight, look inward first. Your team has more capability than you're using. The key isn't finding MORE people. It's finding more ways to leverage the brilliant people you ALREADY have. Don’t think of delegation as dumping tasks. Think of it as unlocking superpowers.

We assume our managers know everything we’re doing and the value we’re creating. They don’t. Years ago, I faced a challenge with a department that consistently missed deliverables. The frustration was building on both sides—they felt overwhelmed by competing priorities, and we felt let down by promises unfulfilled. That’s when I developed what I call “Three-Point Landings” - a simple but powerful approach to cross-functional collaboration: 1. WHAT are you going to deliver? 2. HOW are you going to deliver it? 3. WHEN will it be delivered? It sounds basic, but I’ve found that most breakdowns in trust happen not because people don’t want to deliver, but because expectations were assumed rather than explicitly stated. With one particularly challenged IT department, we got to the point where we would actually write these three points on paper and have their leader sign it. When deliverables were met, we’d celebrate by posting them above their office door with a “Way to Go” sign. When expectations weren’t met, the rule was simple: come back and renegotiate before the deadline. This approach transformed our working relationship, created accountability, and built trust between departments—which is really important when navigating matrix environments. I’ve since used it with finance teams, marketing partners, and even in conversations with my own leaders. The next time you’re collaborating across departments, try this approach. You might be surprised how something so simple can be so transformative. #Leadership #CrossFunctionalTeams #ExpectationSetting #TransformativeLeadership

When Safety Meets Security: The Hidden Battle Inside Your Car's ECU Last year, a Tier 1 supplier faced a chilling scenario: their ADAS system passed ISO 26262 audits but failed to detect a cybersecurity vulnerability. Hackers exploited this gap, disabling airbags remotely. This isn’t just theoretical—it’s a wake-up call for the automotive industry. ISO 26262 ensures functional safety, but it doesn’t account for malicious attacks. On the other hand, ISO/SAE 21434 addresses cybersecurity threats but often operates in isolation. The result? Vehicles are left vulnerable at the intersection of safety and security. Imagine a brake system designed for ISO 26262 compliance—flawless under normal conditions but hackable without security measures like encryption or authentication. This disconnect can have catastrophic consequences. The solution? Co-engineering safety and security from the ground up: 1. Lifecycle Synchronization: Align safety’s HARA with security’s TARA to identify overlapping risks. 2. Integrated Risk Assessments: Combine ASIL and SecRL ratings to prioritize critical components. 3. Pattern-Based Co-Design: Use reusable architectural patterns that address both safety and security concerns simultaneously. 4. Unified Toolchains: Link safety requirements with security controls for seamless traceability and validation. 5. Cross-Functional Testing: Adopt “Red-Blue Team” models where safety engineers simulate failures while security experts test vulnerabilities. 6. Post-Deployment Monitoring: Fuse real-time telemetry from both domains to detect and mitigate risks proactively. The good news? Automakers are waking up to this challenge, adopting co-engineering strategies that cut validation time by 37% while achieving higher safety and security ratings. Safety and security are two sides of the same coin—and together, they form the foundation of trust in tomorrow’s mobility. Let’s build that trust, one integrated system at a time! Engineers: Are your safety and security teams speaking the same language? Follow Sony Andrews for more insights on Functional Safety, Cybersecurity and System Engineering. #Functionalsafety #cybersecurity #ISO26262 #ISO21434

Most companies fail at Lean before they even start. The reason is simple: they begin with tools instead of the customer and the problem. After leading manufacturing transformations across global automotive operations, I keep seeing the same pattern. But Lean does not start with tools. It starts with the customer need and what is the problem.? Lean is fundamentally a way of thinking about work, people, and waste. Some lessons learned along the way: • Real quality improvement is systemic. When quality improves the right way, financial performance, safety, and morale improve together. • Copy-paste Lean rarely works. Trying to replicate Toyota or any “best practice” without understanding your own culture usually fails. • Understanding the problem is already half the solution. • Lean tools are countermeasures to minimize specific waste. • Culture and leadership matter more than tools. ⸻ A real example. At one of the largest assembly complexes in the world, the plant was competing to secure a new powertrain program. Failure would put thousands of jobs at risk. The challenge seemed impossible: • Highest operating cost in the network • Supposedly no space available But when we went to the Gemba, we discovered something surprising. Almost 40% of the plant was used to store only a few hours of inventory — in what was considered one of the leanest operations in North America. The problem wasn’t space. It was material flow design. A cross-functional team developed a progressive Electronic Kanban system to visualize several days of customer demand based on the vehicle assembly sequence — something not previously used in powertrain operations. This enabled: • Continuous small-lot deliveries • Direct flow to line racks • Synchronization between production and deliveries The supply chain became an extension of the assembly line, freeing massive space. ⸻ Another example: Operators were spending nearly 20% of their time walking just to pick up small parts. Using the Kowake principle, small-part containers were attached directly to the conveyor system, bringing parts directly to operators. The impact: • No walking for parts • Higher assembly focus → better quality • Less fatigue → better ergonomics • Less line-side inventory Combined with tools such as kitting, Minomi, Kowake, Electronic Kanban, Kamishibai, and direct delivery, the operation achieved: • ~50% space reduction • Significant cost improvement • High double-digit inventory savings Most importantly, thousands of jobs were preserved, and the plant secured the new engine program. ⸻ The lesson Lean does not start with tools. It starts with understanding the problem, the people, and the customer. Go to the Gemba. Listen. Understand. Then act. ⸻ Where do Lean transformations fail most often in your experience? • Tools • Culture • Leadership ⸻ #LeanLeadership #OperationalExcellence #Manufacturing #ContinuousImprovement #Gemba #Leadership © 2026 Yuri Rodrigues

We had $2.3 million tied up in receivables and were debating whether to borrow. In a business review meeting, we were debating whether we could afford to hire three people in Q2. Our VP of Sales mentioned we were waiting on about $800K in receivables. “Normal for our industry,” he said. I pulled up the AR aging report. It wasn’t $800K. It was $2.3 million sitting unpaid. Some of it over 90 days old and we were about to take on expensive debt to fund operations while our own customers were using us as their free line of credit. Everyone had a reason why it wasn't their problem and assumed it was someone else’s responsibility. • Sales said it wasn't their job once the deal closed. • Customer success said they didn't want to damage relationships by asking about payment. • Finance said they sent reminders but nobody responded. • Operations said they didn't even see the aging report. For 6 weeks, we held a 30 minute weekly cross functional meeting where sales, customer success, finance, and operations met and went through every invoice over 45 days old together. And that's all it needed to bring our days sales outstanding from 75+ to 41 days. Easily able to fund those 3 headcount requests. No debt required. Working capital is not just a finance metric. It is a cross-functional behavior. #WorkingCapital #DSO #Cashflow #Financeleadership

Throughout my career, one pattern has been crystal clear: action-oriented teams and individuals consistently deliver more impact than those who operate in silos. The “I’ve done my part, now it’s someone else’s problem” mindset may protect roles, but it rarely drives outcomes. Let me be clear—being action-oriented doesn’t mean doing it all by yourself. It means taking full ownership of outcomes, even if that means stepping outside your functional comfort zone. Back when I led data and analytics for a top beverage brand, I remember us analyzing declining sales for a top product line in select metro markets. The initial assumption was that it was a local marketing issue—or maybe even a distributor challenge. But the data was telling a different story. Someone on my commercial analytics team noticed a pattern: sales dropped most sharply not after campaign changes, but after specific out-of-stock events. That was odd—inventory reports showed “green” across the board. Instead of letting it go, the team collaborated with supply chain to audit the situation. What we found was eye-opening: product was sitting in the warehouse, but delayed transfers and low visibility in distributor systems meant shelves were staying empty for days. No one team “owned” the issue, but by taking action and working cross-functionally, we identified the gap and fixed the process. The result? A 12% sales lift in the affected regions in just one quarter. No flashy campaigns. Just operational clarity and teamwork. That didn’t happen because everyone stayed in their lane. It happened because people cared enough to follow the thread, bring others in, and own the outcome. The secret wasn’t more hours. It was shared ownership. Let’s normalize that. Let’s celebrate not just execution—but initiative. The people who ask “What else needs to happen?” instead of “Is this my job?” That’s where real impact lives. #Leadership #Accountability #CommercialExcellence #AnalyticsInAction #ExecutionMindset #CrossFunctionalTeams #OwnershipCulture

Following on from my earlier post on the mission-critical UK gas transmission transformation, I wanted to share another career-defining program, an Enterprise Work & Asset Management transformation for a major US utility during the 2008–2011 timeframe. The utility operated through two separate entities, each with its own mainframe based work and asset management systems. The goal was ambitious: harmonize processes and create a unified operating model on IBM Maximo, with Click for Scheduling and Ventyx enabling field mobility. Within weeks of starting the program, it became clear to all of us, this was never just about replacing systems. We were trying to standardize the end-to-end work execution lifecycle, and what looked structured on paper proved incredibly complex. Every team believed their processes were unique, and every change sparked debate, and standardization felt deeply personal. I can't write about the challenges in one post but a few big ones: ▪️Compatible Units (CUs): a major cross-functional alignment effort across engineering, operations, and finance. Standardization only works when everyone agrees on what “standard” truly means. ▪️ Maximo PeopleSoft Integration: Aligning work management with financial processes (cost tracking, capitalization, and reconciliation), required rigor and governance. ▪️ Data Migration: Consolidating and cleansing data from multiple legacy systems was a massive undertaking. Differences in data quality, structures, and definitions required significant effort to ensure accuracy, consistency, and trust in the new system. ▪️Reporting Rationalization: One of the most debated areas. Every business user wanted their existing reports carried forward, whether actively used or not!! Ultimately, success depended far more on people alignment than technology. This program taught me (and probably many others in program) how to navigate complexity while enabling transformation. A special callout to Sridhar Krishnan Krishna Ram Anjan Lahiri and Suchitra Raguraman, whose leadership and perseverance were instrumental. Anjan can speak volumes about the number of architecture decisions we had to make across the application landscape, while Krishna could write volumes on what it takes to manage a big complex program. I still remember Anjan’s document on “Demystifying Customizations” 🙂 Also, to the incredible team - Anurag Singhal Rohit Wazir, Anand Pichumani, Simla Subramanian, Anirvan Mukherjee, Mercy Paul, Naval Subbarayan Jim Maliakal, Srikar Ande, Madhushekar M C Mohammed Yousuf Kunal Turakhia many more I know I’m missing, who played a critical role in this journey. This program also created an incredible pool of Maximo and WAM experts, many of whom continue to shape the industry even today. #Grateful #TransformationJourney #Utilities #Maximo

Alignment isn’t consensus. And if you treat it that way, your initiatives will stall. Case Study Wednesday! I was leading an enterprise-wide digital transformation. I built a cross-functional SteerCo to co-create a standardized solution that could scale across the organization. But there was a problem: One stakeholder strongly disagreed with the direction. And even after decisions were made: - He interrupted working sessions - Escalated concerns to leadership - Repeatedly pushed for his own approach Leadership supported the path forward. But the resistance kept showing up. And it was starting to slow everything down... WHAT I DID I didn’t fight the resistance. - I contained it. - I stabilized the conflict - I made a conscious decision not to engage publicly or let it derail team discussions. - I protected the room. - I reinforced decision clarity and principles - I anchored decisions to the co-creation process, and made it clear that once a decision was made, we would move forward. - I adapted to the individual (this changed everything) - I met with him 1:1 ahead of key sessions - I walked through decisions and rationale in advance - I addressed concerns outside of group forums → The disruption stopped showing up in meetings I maintained control of the room And when conversations became circular, I redirected to outcomes and decisions. I kept execution moving While managing the resistance, I continued driving adoption across the organization. THE RESULT We successfully rolled out a standardized operating model across the organization. - Improved consistency across teams - Stronger cross-functional alignment - Increased adoption over time And just as important: I built continuous feedback loops, so as teams started using the system, we could refine and adapt it to actually work for them. THE LESSON The mistake most people make? They try to win the argument. Or they escalate the conflict. That’s how initiatives stall. Alignment doesn’t mean everyone agrees. It means: - Decisions are clear - Forums are protected - Execution continues Because the moment one voice controls the room… You don’t have alignment. You’ve lost control of the outcome. Agree? ___ ♻️ Repost 🔔 Follow Elizabeth Dworkin for more Case Study Wednesdays