Does Process Matter?

  According to a Gartner survey more than 40 percent of CIOs placed business process improvement among their Top 5 priorities for 2005, making it the top trend.

Whether you’re an internal provider of IT services – or an external vendor – think about how your solutions turbo-charge the business processes that fuel your customer's comeptitve strength.

Do some homework – or simply ask your target buyers:  “Which knobs and levers in your business model do you believe IT can enable – to help you surpass the competition?  Where is the Achilles heel in your competitor’s offering? How are your industry's latest up-and-comers using time-to-market or service quality to compete?”

Once you're armed with information, map into your prospect’s processes for garnering competitive edge.

But, hold everything. Before you position yourself as the competitive genius,  IT sales expert, Nigel Edelshain prepares us for two disctinct scenarios we can expect to encounter:

Scenario #1: Your customer is performing well in the solution area you are proposing.
Says Edelshain, “We all know customers guard their competitive assets with their lives. There’s no way a company like JetBlue for example, is going to you mess with the customer interaction model that is already delivering high loyalty. Companies like BMW aren’t letting any unproven vendors mess with their engineering any more than Sony is with their design.”

“If your proposed solution enhances your prospect’s ability to compete in an area where they are performing well (such as service) – your sales communications should acknowledge and respect this. Show how you can improve it – but not risk it. Propose a pilot, proof of concept or other model that will prove your case without disrupting a business process that is working well. Put lots of thought into risk mitigation in your post-pilot implementation planning.”   

Scenario #2: Your customer is competing poorly in the solution area you are proposing.
In this example, your prospect’s customer satisfaction ratings are also well-documented – and they aren’t good. According to Edelshain: “In this scenario, your prospect’s appetite for risk will be higher. Buyers will be looking for aggressive solutions and accelerated schedules to fix a broken process. And while pilots and proofs of concepts might still be a good way to go – your prospect will expect you to propose ideas that are innovative, perhaps even radical."

Helping your customer compete is always good sales strategy.  And even if your client or prospect is the competitive leader, they will always be open to new ideas for improvement.  One's chief competitor rarely sits still. 

But before you prescribe a solution, get a good temperature reading.

Tell it like it is
Business process involves the business user. Be mindful of technically led conversations when talking to business buyers.

Denis Papathanasiou of Banrai, a technology firm in New York City shares his experience: "When we started marketing an RSS publising service we resisted the temptation to use technical acronyms like 'RSS' and 'XML' in our presentations, even though RSS is a term currently in vogue. Explaining our RSS service in the language of business takes us further than a slew of technical acronyms. We prefer to focus on how we relate to our prospects' processes."

Banrai's new product helps marketers get higher response rates from electronic marketing campaigns. Denis speaks English with messages like "We assure that fewer email newsletters get marked as spam."  Or messages like, "We'll help you identify prospects you're not reaching today."

Simple?  Yes.  Smart?  You tell me.

Contact Denis Papathanasiou, Managing director of Banrai LLS at denis@banrai.com or  visit his company at www.b-talk.com 

Get other good IT selling advice from Nigel Edelshain at www.itsalesideas.com