Using Segmentation to Drive Growth

GGB is a leading manufacturer of plain bearings based in Annecy, France.

The company is a unit of EnPro Industries which provides engineered industrial products for critical applications across a wide range of businesses.

The company’s bearings are used by a broad range of industry verticals including global automotive, industrial manufacturing, and aerospace markets.

As part of a 2009 strategic growth planning initiative Ascension was engaged to provide an objective assessment of the company’s current strategic position and marketing/sales approach.

To address the growth concerns of the company Ascension performed historical invoice and customer size and profitability analysis.  This work was augmented by custom internal associate and Voice of the Customer research.

An innovative new “life stage” segmentation strategy recommendation was born for the GGB business worldwide.  Life stage segmentation clusters industries into groups that can be micro-targeted with specific marketing and sales strategies that recognize the inherent needs/wants of each industry vertical.

Parent company EnPro President/CEO called the Ascension life stage segmentation strategy for GGB “game changing” and encouraged other EnPro companies to consider engaging Ascension in similar strategic initiatives.

Over the next few years Ascension began strategic analytics, research, marketing, or sales enablement engagements with all 8 EnPro companies around the world.

The life stage segmentation strategy helped align GGB resources and propelled the company to consecutive year-on-year revenue and market share growth.