Operating in a bubble
Collection of information
Customer and partner needs
Competitor movements
Sales process feedback
Sales and marketing analytics
Strategy formulation
Corporate and product positioning
Sales campaign development
Traps and avoidance strategies
Execution process development
Marketing collateral development
Sales process execution
Continual refinement
All too often we see technology organizations that are so focused on executing sales and marketing programs and meeting quantitative objectives that research and strategy formulation take an undeserved back seat. One can liken the process to setting off on a road trip without researching road maps, choosing the most desirable route, selecting attractions to visit, and checking the car’s vitals – something very few individuals would do.
Business research and strategic planning is an area of the company’s operations most executives believe their efforts are sufficient, but frontline sales and marketing staff are always asking for more. Ultimately, the investment in quality research and strategic planning always has a significant impact on the overall business. Strategic research and planning benefit product development, sales, marketing and highlight current and future opportunities and threats. Every organization has different systems and methodologies in place to gather market-level information, capture company-specific data, and apply those to future business initiatives. But to simplify and generalize the process, we group activities into 3 segments:
Information Collection
Strategy Formulation
Execution Process Development
Information Collection
Harnessing information to make it actionable, the goal of many technology vendors’ products, remains a major deficiency for many sales and marketing organizations within those vendors. Customers, partners, internal/external analysts, prospects, and employees all are tremendous information sources, yet point solutions such as a single 3rd party commission are used as a foundation for strategic decisions. Few companies have realized the knowledge-driven sales and marketing process by tapping these available resources, aggregating, and filtering information. Imagine the strength of an organization that is able to collect and utilize applicable market information with a self-sustaining, continuous cycle.
Understanding the current and future needs of customers and partners is the foundation for a successful organization. The amount of information collected from customers varies greatly across organizations, with some customer-driven organizations using both formal and informal methods to do so. Every organization wants to believe that their solution is the greatest and that all of their customers are satisfied with the company and the product. This leads to efforts being focused on happy customers and ignoring problems accounts. When the choice to formally collect customer perception data is made, organizations must then evaluate the benefits of an in-house project vs. an outsourced service. Specific methodologies and tools are then mapped out to ensure efficient execution and achievement of defined goals. Companies often find that 3rd party providers offer a more compelling option because of process expertise, cost-effective resources, and the unbiased perspective.
Assessing competing solutions and continually tracking the movements of those products and companies often requires more resources than a sales and marketing organization wants to devote. Product marketing managers are increasingly default competitive and market analysts tasked with collecting secondary research and generating internal materials. Unfortunately, time and resource constraints force these managers to rely heavily on basic public sources and hearsay, leaving many sales staff members unsatisfied. Alternatively, some organizations are complementing internal efforts with 3rd party providers that bring a network of resources, best practice methodologies, and an outside perspective to the table.
A common challenge companies are facing with competitive intelligence is striking a balance between technical details and actionable sales materials. Technical managers believe that the most value is provided when they deliver a feature by feature comparison with a series of checkmarks highlighting the weaknesses of the competing product. On the other hand, sales staff often find the most value in a handful of “silver bullets” and blocking strategies that are proven in the field. Where and how competitive information will be used ultimately determines the most efficient channels for collecting that intelligence. For instance, most technology organizations are looking to arm their sales and marketing staff with actionable material, which leaves public sources and hearsay as very peripheral channels. A truly innovative and strategic organization is able to combine these sources with information collected from across the sales and product ecosystems such as customers, partners, industry analysts, press, sales representatives, and competitors. Then the organization has the ability to aggregate, cleanse, and validate competitive information and provide a much clearer picture on a strategic as well as tactical level.
Larger enterprises also have the ability to collect and analyze vast amounts of customer data with sophisticated software systems. Traditional Customer Relationship Management vendors now specialize in extracting value from customer data with strong customer analytics packages. These systems may allow organizations to spot trends before competitors, target specific markets more quickly, and see what would happen if certain variables were modified in future plans.
Strategy Formulation
Once a base level of information has been collected and the process put in place for continual replenishment, organizations can build short and long-term strategies based on the data. A systematic plan of action allows organizations to map steps required to achieve predefined goals. Ranging from simple to highly elaborate, strategic planning brings actionable information and subject matter experts together to determine the best courses of action. Corporate and product positioning obviously requires analysis of current data and future trends and the success of the organization is closely tied to this high-level planning. On a more tactical level, sales campaign and process development also requires data-driven strategies often overlooked by impatient and results-oriented sales organizations. Salesmanship, or the strategies for selling goods or services in any industry, is a clear need at any organization. But additional areas of focus for strategic sales organizations include:
Sales approach – Value-based, solution-selling, ROI-based, reference approaches, feature-based, etc.
Sales stages and progression strategy – Process steps that increase probability of the sale
Setting and avoiding competitive landmines
Highlighting strengths, steering away from weaknesses
Execution Process Development
Another issue is the continual maintenance of this competitive information and the efforts that may be required to do so. Stale competitive information can be a debilitating factor in any sales deal, but a side-effect often dismissed is the loss of trust a sales representative may feel after using stale information that did not help his/her position and actually discredited their industry knowledge.