Improving Growth and Margins in a Global SaaS Business

The Client

Ascential plc is a global B2B information, data and analytics company. Santosh was Finance Director for WARC, a SaaS division within the group.
(Ascential was later acquired by Informa.)

The Challenge

When Santosh joined WARC in November 2023, the business was underperforming:

• Revenue growth had stalled at 0.5% year-on-year
• Contribution margins were declining
• Employee turnover was high
• Sales productivity needed improvement
• Leadership lacked clear visibility over cost and demand drivers

The division needed stronger financial insight and tighter commercial control to stabilise performance and support future growth.

The Solution

Working closely with the Head of the business, Santosh acted as a hands-on Finance Director and commercial partner.

Key areas of focus included:

• Analysing cost and demand drivers to identify opportunities for margin improvement
• Building financial models to forecast new revenue streams and quantify the impact of cost-saving initiatives
• Supporting the restructuring of the UK sales team to improve effectiveness
• Helping refocus growth efforts on expansion in the US market
• Improving sales productivity through better forecasting, accountability and performance management
• Introducing tighter control of staff and non-staff costs while supporting growth initiatives

This combination of financial modelling, commercial insight and operational discipline enabled better decision-making across the leadership team.

The Outcome

The changes delivered clear, measurable results:

• Revenue growth increased to 6% year-on-year, compared with 0.5% the previous year
• Contribution margin improved by 10%
• Sales productivity increased, supported by improved forecasting and accountability
• On the strength of this performance, Ascential merged additional SaaS service lines into WARC, creating a larger division, building on the improved performance

What the Client Said

“Santosh worked with me as my FD while I was the Global CRO at Ascential. In that time, he not only offered excellent financial modelling and cost management but also key insights which helped drive and improve the performance of the business.

His commercial acumen was very useful across key initiatives like international team expansion, sales productivity and our go-to-market commercial strategy, all of which enabled strong double-digit revenue growth.

His understanding of commercial requirements and practices was important to me and this improved forecasting, accountability and individual sales performance.”

- Errol Baran, Chief Revenue Officer, WARC

Commercial Insight and Impact

This engagement highlights how Finance Directors can help SaaS and complex group businesses improve performance by combining financial rigour with commercial understanding - enabling growth, margin improvement and strategic transformation.