Smart sales
Those that can use this kind of research as leverage in sales discussions to help organisations get better business outcomes out of IT will, in the long term, arguably be more successful in this rebounding economy.
“Our customers consistently tell us that the ability to gather insights into their business including profitability, customer understanding and their suppliers makes the biggest difference to their business,” Microsoft director of information worker, Oscar Trimboli, said. “Business intelligence helps Microsoft customers grow revenues profitability, understand how to expand into an adjacent market or expand geographically.” Trimboli agreed the Australian economy was experiencing strong employment growth, especially in the services sector. He said the software giant’s customers are tending to have conversations about improving efficiency rather than cost cutting.
“As the economy strengthens, we expect this trend to continue,” he said. “Making the right decisions about the right investments in order to capture growth and efficiency means our customers want to make more use of the software they have purchased.
“Technology, which helps staff be more productive when they are on the road, or increases their reach and the ability to share information with their customers and suppliers through extranet-enabled technology, further maximises their efficiencies.”
Fujitsu’s Foster takes a similar and logical line – get to know your customer and how you can help them, not just what you can sell to them.
“I generally thinking the best way for anyone to work with a client is to understand their true business problem and the pressures they are under, whether that is growth, cost management or efficiencies you need to understand it,” he said.
Doubly diligent
While most of this message is familiar – taking time to understand your customer and trying to open their eyes to the potential business benefits of IT solutions is far from ground breaking advice after all – there are some differences in the prevailing economic climate from the past that should be factored into sales strategies.
“One of the big things to come up is your pre-sales costs,” Foster noted. “From our perspective, we would have to qualify them so much harder internally. We undergo even more rigorous reviews. In the old days, you would go off chasing rainbows because there might have been business in it. Then all of a sudden you are going, ‘is this core to us and can we deliver on it? Can we make a margin?’ So there are two things: One is understanding your client; the other is making sure it was something we could do and deliver profitably.”
It’s fairly certain many organisations will retain the lean and cautious business practices they picked up during the height of the economic downturn. One of the lessons learnt is don’t stray too far from your core.
“Even though there is more and we are looking at where there are new business opportunities, it doesn’t mean we go running off and doing something that is completely at odds with what we have been doing in the past year or two,” Foster said.
Comprehensive coverage
But when you do decide to chase that pot of gold, who should you be talking to? The IT manager? The CIO? The CFO? The CEO? The C-whatever-letter-you-like?
Ever since the hatches were battened down, IT departments have become more and more accountable to senior management, in particular the CFO, for their expenses. As the beans were counted and recounted, final approval for any kind of spend was more often than not left to those holding the purse strings the tightest.
As a result, many argued it was the CFO that should be hit up for a meeting to discuss why any one particular solution was in the organisation’s best interests. Yet people make decisions in different ways and if you don’t spread your coverage, the resulting message of how your IT solution can help the business will be diluted.
In other words, you have to cover the financial side with the CFO, the architecture and infrastructure with IT or the CIO, and then negotiate with other key stakeholders, which could be a CEO or a board, committee or others.
“We’ve looked at where we haven’t won business and in the majority of cases we have been single point sensitive; the decision maker in a large organisation usually isn’t one individual,” Foster said.
All in all, there is little dispute the ongoing influence of the economic downturn on business leaders’ thinking will continue to be felt. It may mean sales staff have to articulate the IT proposition in much clearer and compelling business language to more people, but if it’s aligned to achieving productivity, boosting optimisation and encouraging risk management the chances of success will be that much higher. And as time goes by the hatches will start to open and the wine raised in celebration more frequently.
