IT Software Giants: Are they keeping up with modern-day innovation?

Author:

Dan Seabrook

IT Software Giants: Are they keeping up with modern-day innovation?

Author:

Reading Time: 3 minutes

IT Software Giants: Are they keeping up with modern-day innovation?

Dan Seabrook

VP of Sales at Operatix

Operatix’s Dan Seabrook provides fresh insight on a trend that sees the larger, more established companies facing similar trials and tribulations to that of a startup.

The tech market today is full of start-ups coming up with great, innovative solutions that are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in funding — and rightly so. What this appears to have led to, is the idea of innovation becoming somewhat synonymous with start-ups. The bigger, more established companies have begun to sit up and take notice of this.

Think about Microsoft announcing at the start of the year that it would continue to invest $1bn per annum in cybersecurity, or Cisco investing $1.4bn into Internet of Things last year. The heavyweights are beginning to take up a start-up-like mentality to try to push forward in areas of emerging technology, in an effort to challenge the innovation that we’re now so used to seeing from start-ups. The trend that has become apparent is that these larger companies are beginning to play catch-up in areas that they’re not particularly well known for — and that is one of the biggest problems for them.

How Are Software Giants Innovating their Business Models?

In attempting to keep pace with the innovative start-ups in the tech market, we’re seeing lots of small divisions and departments sprout within the larger companies. Working on emerging technology for their solutions, these smaller departments are very much like start-ups in the way they operate and the difficulties that they face. They have expected results that they need to deliver on, with somewhat limited support from marketing and sales departments that are often preoccupied with the revenue streams that make up for the lion’s share of the company’s profits.

Continuing with the examples of Microsoft and Cisco, cybersecurity and internet of things are not areas of the market that you’d immediately associate with these two companies. With Microsoft, you think Office 365 or Windows. With Cisco, you think networking. The nature of these companies is that they do not have a particularly burgeoning reputation as innovators within these emerging technology sectors, and as such, it’s difficult for these departments to thrive within an environment so heavily geared towards getting the most out of the core business. Marketing and sales have a much easier job in selling Office 365 as opposed to cybersecurity, or selling networking hardware as opposed to internet of things, and this is the reason that the emerging technology departments can find life tough within these bigger companies. To a certain degree, this is understandable: Cisco’s networking services and products make up for 66.1% of its total revenue, and Microsoft’s Office software is comfortably its biggest earner accounting for $23.6bn over the 2016 fiscal year.

How To Sell Innovation

What these larger companies are doing well is using their existing portfolio of clients, and cross-selling or up-selling their new solutions to them. And whilst this is a perfectly good option to exercise, it is not one that can be solely relied upon. At some point, these options are exhausted, and new prospects are needed. It’s at this point that they will need a solid strategy and go-to-market — which is further in line with how a start-up operates.

Of course, not all emerging tech departments in large companies struggle to make an impact. Some do just fine. But we’ve seen some of these challenges first-hand here at Operatix, having worked with smaller organizations within large companies such as TippingPoint, ProCurve, and Documentum. To varying degrees these organizations were experiencing some of the issues we mentioned above: a lack of support from the core business, a lack of experience selling to new persona, and a market perception that needed to be changed.

How Operatix Have Helped Technology Companies Accelerate Sales

The solution that we offered revolved around allowing these companies to take charge of their own destiny. With ProCurve and TippingPoint being a part of the wider HP organization, and Documentum being a part of EMC (at the time), their focus was initially set on inbound, reactive activity. This was to be expected, of course. With all the inbound interest that large organizations such as HP and EMC generate, their sales teams were somewhat rusty with the outbound skills needed to push their emerging technologies. This is where we stepped in. Changing their tactics from a reactive, inbound marketing reliant approach to a proactive, account-based sales approach worked wonders. We also helped these organizations to go out and make critical engagements with personas that weren’t aware of the emerging tech on offer.

We understand that innovation is a necessity nowadays, and large companies are increasingly doing their fair share — regardless of the difficulties. When all is said and done however, there is no magical, blanket solution applicable to struggling new departments in large companies. As we’ve previously outlined in this article, there are remarkable similarities between emerging tech departments in large companies and innovative start-ups.

These start-ups often find great success outsourcing their sales activities  and this is where emerging tech departments in large companies could also see similar results.

See how Operatix can accelerate your company’s sales pipeline – request a call back to discuss your options here.

About Operatix

Operatix is a Sales Acceleration company specialized in supporting B2B Software vendors to identify new revenue streams, increase qualified sales pipeline, and accelerate channel development across Europe and North America. Operatix has a wealth of experience in working with the biggest tech players worldwide as well as a multitude of emerging software vendors.

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Channel Transformation

Digital transformation is changing how companies buy and use business solutions, making vendors re-assess the capabilities of their channel ecosystem. With channel dynamics in constant flux, vendors need to be ready to cut ties with partners that don’t share their vision or have connections with the right B2B buyers.

 

Operatix has supported numerous vendors in their path to Channel transformation by assessing current partners and recruiting new partners that are more aligned with their new channel strategy. Once the right partners have been identified, Operatix built scalable outbound sales development programs that accelerated their routes to market.

Inbound Response Management

In a competitive industry like technology every lead counts. Operatix can help you maximize conversion from MQL to SQL and from lead to pipeline, increasing both your revenue and ROI on marketing activities.

Account Identification

Identifying the accounts that are more likely to buy from you is part of our expertise. We will research the market, identify verticals and industries that can benefit from your solution and set up qualified sales engagements for your teams to kick-off the sales process. 

Cold Prospecting

Our team will identify new sales opportunities within the strategic accounts that you haven’t been successful in penetrating through your sales & marketing efforts. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, multitouch approach to connect with prospects, generating qualified sales engagements for your team and ultimately increasing your pipeline.

Outbound Sales Development

Using a proactive outbound sales approach has been proven to be one of the most effective methods to engage with prospective customers. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, human approach to getting in touch with prospects to increase your qualified sales engagements and ultimately generate more pipeline.

Outbound Sales Development

Using a proactive outbound sales approach has been proven to be one of the most effective methods to engage with prospective customers. By applying the ‘Challenger Sale’ methodology we use a tailored, human approach to getting in touch with prospects to increase your qualified sales engagements and ultimately generate more pipeline.

Partner Concierge Service

Our Partner Concierge Service helps vendors accelerate their channel programs, by engaging and nurturing channel partners and supporting them to get to revenue quicker.

Demand Generation

Whether you need to implement a demand generation strategy or get more results out of your existing demand gen engine, Operatix can work alongside your marketing team to yield better results out of your demand generation programs.

Account-based Marketing

An Account-based Marketing strategy is only as successful as the revenue it generates. At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Lead Qualification

If your marketing leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help sieve through leads that need further qualification, so they are ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with.

Account-based Selling

At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Pipeline Generation

Generating Pipeline for our clients is our key-objective. And we do that by using a multi-touch, multi-channel approach to generate qualified sales engagements for our customers’ sales teams.   

Account Intelligence / Deep Dive

Understanding buying centres, hierarchies and relevant personas in strategic accounts is a fundamental step to increase conversion rates. By leveraging account intelligence in a sales conversation your team can tailor their message and provide value to their prospective customer. But sales & marketing teams often struggle to dedicate time and resources to do the deep research and this is where Operatix can help.

DMID – Decision Maker Identification

Finding quality data is an on-going challenge for B2B Tech vendors. The accuracy of data platforms is questionable and that is why Operatix developed a manual process to identify & verify contact details for decision makers within strategic target accounts.

Playbook design

Operatix can develop Sales Playbooks that enable teams to sell more effectively. Your Playbook will be fundamental to get your messaging right, accurately position your solution against competitors, and adapt the communication of your value proposition to different buyer personas.

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Sales Playbook Development

Operatix can develop Sales Playbooks that enable teams to sell more effectively. Your Playbook will be fundamental to implementing the correct messaging, accurately position your solution against competitors, and adapting the communication of your value proposition to different buyer personas.

Lead Qualification

If your leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help filter through leads that need further qualification, ensuring that they’re ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with and progress through the funnel. 

Partner Portal / Marketing Concierge Service

Vendors often spend thousands of dollars building multifunctional Partner Portals to help channel partners educate their teams, manage opportunities, and create marketing programs. Still, these portals are often underutilized due to lack of bandwidth and capacity from vendors to offer support in enabling their partner community. Operatix, through their Partner Development team, can support your partners to make the best use out of your partner portal, managing the relationship with your partners and helping them set up co-marketing campaigns to drive more revenue for both businesses. 

Marketing & Sales Alignment

The sales development function is often seen as the “glue” that brings sales & marketing teams together. By working as an extension of your teams, Operatix will be your predictable source of pipeline, sales & revenue.

Optimization of MDF

Market Development Funds are an important component of any channel ecosystem, though vendors believe they are not maximizing the return on investment they should be getting from their MDF programs. At Operatix, we build scalable outbound sales development programs that will give you the visibility of return over the invested spend and will provide clear value for your channel partners.

Increase Partner Productivity

The 80/20 rule is still very applicable to the channel, which means that investing in partner productivity should be a priority for vendors looking to grow their businesses. Operatix can increase partner productivity and shorten sales cycles, by identifying ready to engage sales opportunities for your most valued channel partners.

Virtual Channel Account managers

Our VCAM team is responsible for building, maintaining, and managing sound relationships with current and prospective channel partners. They can get involved in opening up new sales conversations as well as closing small businesses up to $ 10k.

Tier 1 & Tier 2 Activation

Whether your business decided for a Tier 1 or Tier 2 distribution model, Operatix can help your channel partners get to revenue quicker. By providing qualified sales engagements to your channel partners we can accelerate your route to market with tangible and easily measurable results.

Solution Selling Training

Far too often vendors insist on enabling their channel partners to talk about features and technical details of their solutions. Customers don’t buy features; they buy the benefits your solution can bring. Operatix will work with your partner community to train them in articulating your message from a high-level business perspective, enabling them to talk to prospects about the value your solution can bring to their company from a board-level perspective.

Channel Enablement

Enabling your channel partners have measurable wins for your business when done right. Operatix has a proven track record in enabling channel partners from a sales & marketing perspective, providing them the knowledge and tools to successfully pitch your solution and sell the value & benefits of it. 

Partner Recruitment

Recruiting the right Channel Partners is the first step for a successful channel program. Operatix has helped over 350 B2B Software vendors recruit suitable channel partners across EMEA and North America, supporting them to scale and expand their presence in different geographies and verticals. 

Risk/Reward Business Model

To truly work as an extension of our client’s sales & marketing teams, we have also adapted our business models to show how our clients operate, and how their success is measured. With our risk/reward business model your investment is proportional to the results our team delivers.

Sales Qualified Leads

On average, 52.5% of the sales engagements set up by our team progress into a next step in the sale process. That means that 5 out of 10 meetings will progress either into a POC, a Demo or a pipeline opportunity.

Geographical Scale

Trading in different geographical markets not only requires a knowledge of the native language, local rules & policies, but a deeper understanding of the local culture and habits. We have the ability to deliver campaigns in multiple countries with flexible resource allocation. This is through our team of international speakers, who have the ability to sell in 17 different languages across the globe.

Increase Revenue & Decrease Cost

Building an internal sales development team comes with many additional costs and challenges that aren’t always taken into account: recruiting resources, training and enabling them etc. You also need to take into account the need for having the data and tools to make them successful, which in turn requires time, capital and effort. By outsourcing your sales development to Operatix you will see your revenue increasing, while decreasing costs and business risk.

Predictable Pipeline Generation

On average, our clients see a 26X ROI on the programs we deliver. By understanding your revenue targets and sales pipeline gap, we will work on a sales & marketing plan that will deliver tangible results.

Vertical Growth

Entering new industries or launching new product lines? Operatix can accelerate your growth by supporting your go-to-market strategy, and getting your sales teams in front of decision makers in key target accounts.

Reduce Headcount

By outsourcing your sales development and partner programs to Operatix; we reduce headcount and the challenges that come with managing people, technologies, and processes. We take care of your sales development, so you can focus on what matters the most: growing your business.

Revenue Acceleration

Operatix helps your business get to revenue quicker. By providing qualified sales engagements for your direct sales team (to kick-off new sales cycles), or by accelerating the growth of your channel partners, our focus remains on delivering tangible results for your business. 

Persona-based Selling

Operatix team will design specifically tailored messages to influence the different levels of decision makers in the sales process, tailoring the communication according to each job function. Our focus is to sell the value of your solution from a business perspective, not its features.    

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