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Firm Keytree Taps Senior Sales Leader for North America Expansion

Keytree Office

Keytree Partners with Peak to Strengthen SAP Toronto Partnership & Drive Sales

For award-winning SAP consultancy firm Keytree, successfully implementing market-leading SAP solutions doesn’t always happen overnight. Sales cycles can be long with the work required to help enterprises simplify and transform complex business processes. It also demands strategy, innovation, and expert client and project management. Yet Keytree, renowned for its SAP innovation, makes the process look easy. 

With headquarters in London and offices in Australia, Spain, Wales, and India, Keytree is the largest independently-owned SAP partner in the UK. Its team of SAP experts around the globe has driven business and digital transformation across a range of SAP solutions for clients that include BP, Barclaycard, Jaguar Land Rover, Heineken, and more.

As Keytree’s Operations Director Carl Walsh explains, the company is now setting its sights on North America to expand its SAP partnerships and drive new business.

“Our immediate focus is maximizing our presence in Canada.” Carl explains. “We see a lot of potential working with SAP Toronto to identify new business and expand our reach across the SAP product stack through successful implementation projects. Our challenge is we don’t have the established SAP relationships in Canada that we have in other parts of EMEA and APAC. We need an experienced SAP sales professional on the ground in Toronto where conversations about new SAP software and re-licensing are happening.”

Partners with Peak to build SAP network in Canada

Without a track record recruiting in Canada, Keytree partnered with Peak Sales Recruiting to hire a Toronto-based sales leader for Keytree’s North America operations.  Says Carl, “We needed a sales leader who not only understands the complexities of the SAP selling environment but can showcase our capabilities across the SAP product stack and drive business in new markets.”

Peak Sales Recruiting got started right away, meeting with the Keytree team to understand the selling environment and the criteria for a successful candidate. To identify top sales leaders, Peak began screening and evaluating candidates through its 4-step sales recruiting methodology – a process that includes behavior-based interviews and role playing, psychometric profiling, and benchmarking.

 In just a few weeks, Carl had top candidates to choose from. “The speed and quality of Peak’s process were very good. Deadlines were always met,” says Carl. “I wasn’t sure if I had provided the right information to the team and in the right way, but I soon realized, Peak understood and delivered exactly what we needed.”

“The key success working with Peak was the team’s fast delivery of thoroughly screened, excellent candidates – each of the top three candidates could have exceled at the job. We had some difficult choices to make,” Carl adds.

After reviewing and discussing Peak’s analysis and evaluating all candidates, Nadim Shamoun was hired as Vice President of Sales.

Canada sales pipeline grows

According to Carl, Nadim was engaged in the business from day one, leading the operations, pre-sales, and sales elements of Keytree’s expansion effort with his sights on building a pipeline of activity to capitalize on.

“We made the right decision, Nadim is the right man for us,” says Carl. “With the nature of our business, it is a long pipeline build and we don’t sell overnight, but Nadim is already actively managing the first phase of our plan. He is on the ground at SAP Toronto, identifying the opportunities, and ensuring the SAP team and the Canadian market are aware of our business and why we are unique.”

Once client conversations progress to deals, Nadim will add a pre-sales role and then business development roles after that. Keytree also has plans to open an office near Union Square, close to SAP Toronto and client prospects.

“We are in the early stages but are making significant progress,” he shares. “We are projecting up to three significant projects this year and will build a team in Toronto of 6-7 people. It always depends on the nature of the project and what we sell – if we sell one big project, it may require 30 people and we would need to ramp up quickly.”

Keytree will turn to Peak again later this year to help hire business development roles. Says Carl, “Through our partnership with Peak, we can execute our business development plans smoothly in Canada and continue to expand across the board in all areas of the SAP business. With Nadim’s hire, we can bring SAP software to life in Canada and the U.S.” 

Are you ready to take your talent acquisition to the next level?  Learn more about Peak’s services or contact us today to recruit top sales talent.

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Eliot Burdett
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CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting

Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless. Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner. He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.