Microsoft | LinkedIn: Why competitors are still having sleepless nights.

Microsoft | LinkedIn – Why competitors are still having sleepless nights.

It’s been three short months. Satya Nadella, Jeff Weiner and Reid Hoffman stood outside the LinkedIn Headquarters in Mountain View, California and announced the third biggest tech acquisition of all time.

Since then we’ve learnt 3 fascinating facts about the deal:

LinkedIn went with Microsoft over Facebook, Google and Salesforce.com (Say what!?)
LinkedIn went with Microsoft even though Microsoft wasn’t the highest bid. (Say what!?!?)
The battle was fierce and went down to the wire. (Understandable)

And the deal is still making waves!

Last week Salesforce.com’s stock crashed on less-than-expected projected earnings for the third quarter (one wonders why!) Meanwhile, Microsoft quietly overtook them as the world’s biggest enterprise SaaS provider. And that’s without counting LinkedIn’s contribution!

Salesforce’s CEO, Marc Benioff, is obviously rattled. After a period of collaboration and partnership, he has now declared the rivalry with Microsoft is back on. His words are defiant, but it doesn’t look great for the CRM-focused company. Microsoft’s new combined cloud CRM/ERP offering, Dynamics 365, with LinkedIn’s mighty Sales Navigator is going to be a potent combination and a big worry for them. This was a big win for Microsoft and LinkedIn. Salesforce.com lost out – big time.

Much more than CRM

But it would be unfair to make this a deal about Dynamics CRM vs Salesforce.com. It was much bigger than that. And both Microsoft and LinkedIn know this. You can’t box the 10,000 strong, 433 million member, professional network megalith as a simple CRM add-on. Jeff Weiner, who remains as LinkedIn CEO, said that Microsoft gives LinkedIn “advantages most companies can only dream of leveraging”. That’s got to hurt, Marc.

Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, was also very excited about the deal:

‘[it] brings together the world’s leading professional cloud with the world’s leading professional network’

We agree. With a combined reach of 1.5 billion+ people (Microsoft’s customer base and LinkedIn’s membership), the possibilities are staggering.

Nadella told his 114,000 employees:

“Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world.”

Microsoft already helps over 1.2 billion people become more productive through the Microsoft Office suite. Imagine integrating LinkedIn with this. LinkedIn’s reach increases dramatically, and Office’s usefulness gets better and better. Nadella has stated that Microsoft wants to integrate the LinkedIn data with their artificial intelligent assistant Cortana. As Nadella said, “Imagine walking into a meeting and Cortana tells you about people you are meeting and what you need to know about them”.

But it won’t just be Microsoft Office that benefits from LinkedIn. Microsoft wants to integrate their powerful machine learning capabilities with the professional network. And being part of the world’s biggest software company will have also have its benefits. Not only can LinkedIn now get input from the best engineers from Microsoft’s 114,000-strong workforce, but partnering with Microsoft also brings a healthy financial stability. Jeff Weiner said we are now,

‘not pressured to compromise on long-term investment… or hamstrung in the way we can reward and acquire new talent due to stock price concerns’.

Weiner predicts that through combining with Microsoft they’ll now be able to innovate and disrupt in some of the following areas:

“the corporate directory, company news dissemination, collaboration, productivity tools, distribution of business intelligence and employee voice…”

Prepare for more creativity and innovation from LinkedIn.

And the timing is great.

Digital Transformation is going to be a huge thing for companies in 2017 and much of this will result in big growth for cloud computing (read: Saas, PaaS and Iaas).

The SaaS (Software as a Service) market is growing rapidly (33% growth last quarter) and there is plenty of scope for Microsoft | LinkedIn to dominate here.

LinkedIn: Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn has been extremely successful at SaaS. On its own, it’s been in the top SaaS providers in the world for years. Last year it’s recruitment suite, Talent Solutions, brought in $2 billion (!) in revenue alone. Combined with its sales tool, Sales Navigator, it already has a healthy subscriber base of 2 million people. This will grow rapidly through the access to Microsoft’s 1 billion plus customer base.

Microsoft: Microsoft has already had a successful transition over to SaaS. Its launch of Office 365 five years ago saw it move its famous desktop brand into the cloud. (Recently, even Facebook announced its adoption of Office 365). It also offers SharePoint Online and now, this Fall, their ERP/CRM clouds solutions will be relaunched as Dynamics 365. We at The CRM Team, have already stated our belief about how seismic a shift this will be. Integrate this with LinkedIn and it becomes even more powerful.

When it comes to IaaS and PaaS (Infrastructure/Platform as a service), Microsoft are already positioned well here, second behind Amazon, but ahead of Google and IBM. If, as predicted, LinkedIn moves its hosting to Microsoft’s Cloud (Azure) then that will bolster Azure even further.

But the Microsoft | LinkedIn deal is not just a strategic move to stop Amazon getting LinkedIn’s business. What Microsoft and LinkedIn realise is that currently their offerings and customer base are quite different. Place them all on one platform and the combined graph is eye-watering for developers:

Who can compete with that?

This deal is a great move for both Microsoft and LinkedIn and it’s going to shake up many industries. There should be lots of companies having sleepless nights – for a good while to come.

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Users are Key | CRM Implemenation

Thought Leadership

Users are Key

150 billion dollars. Wasted. In one year.

That’s how much companies around the world threw away on IT projects. We’re talking ZERO return on their hefty investments.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

There’s a secret that all successful companies know: Early User Testing.

The old model of ‘Collect – Build – Test’ is dead. No matter how good you are at business strategy, if only let your users in at the end you’re carrying huge risk.

Michael McWatters, UX architect at TED, puts it this way:

“Even the best teams can’t predict every possible pitfall.”

Companies like Uber and AirBnB get this. They ship early and often. By doing this they get crucial feedback from their end-users. The product is shaped so that it genuinely meets a need, mitigating their risk.

It costs 30-100 times more to fix a problem after a project has finished than during it. So this approach makes financial sense as well.

Dr. Susan Weinschenk, Chief of UX Strategy at Human Factors International, said business applications need to do three things well:

Be easy to use
Satisfy user expectations and
Meet business goals

The only way of being sure about the first two is to get real user feedback.

But doesn’t Quality Assurance testing do this?

“You might think you’ve addressed every flaw in your design, but until you get user feedback, you won’t know how people really use and perceive what you’ve created.”

Spencer Lanoue

Without involving end-users, a business app can pass QA testing but fail on the following:

Incorrect assumptions about user behavior
Unnecessary features
Confusing navigation

Fixing these problems after deployment has happened is a frustrating and costly exercise. The cost-effective solution is to get the end users in early.

But how do you do that when the solution isn’t fully deployed?

The way to do get end users in early is to use an iterative deployment process. You produce a working version early (called a minimal viable product) and then run cycles of test and improve, test and improve etc. Depending on the project, it should take days to just a few weeks to get an MVP going. As soon as this is ready you get the end users in to test it and using their feedback you run the next iteration cycle and present again.

Over a three-month deployment, if the iteration cycle is three weeks, the end users would have experienced a version of the application at least four times. With their input, it would have gotten better and better each time.

This process is becoming the standard way to do deployments. Because it gives the customer such flexibility it is aptly named Agile.

We love it and can’t imagine doing deployments any other way.

Our customers get what they want and we get the satisfaction of adding genuine business value to the companies we serve.

Don’t waste money deploying an IT solution that doesn’t suit your users – get them in early. Your users are key.

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Sales Managers: Do these 6 things in 2018

Thought Leadership

Sales Managers: Do these 6 things in 2018

Staying ahead of the competition is a must. Here’s six things you need to be doing as a sales manager in 2018:

1. Get real-time data to make better decisions

Gut-feel and experience are essential guiders of decisions in sales teams, but these shouldn’t be used alone. Accessing relevant data to get feedback and forecast is now standard in today’s technology age. Modern sales apps allow pro-active tracking of customers and competitors. This reduces guesswork and enables metrics to be developed that are useful predictors of buying behaviour. Accessing real-time feedback also revolutionises sales meetings. Instead of spending time getting status updates, more time can be spent on coaching and training. Easy-to-see overviews tailored to your requirements make forecasting a pleasure. With a full sales solution, sales processes can also be standardised and streamlined. This leads to greater efficiencies and quicker onboarding of new sales reps.

Syntel Case Study

Syntel is a US $825m IT and outsourcing company. Recently, they were growing rapidly and needed a system to revamp their sales processes. They needed something that could manage leads and opportunities right through to closure. The ability to integrate marketing campaigns was important to drive impact and growth. By deploying a Microsoft Sales and Marketing solution, they were able to see their sales pipeline at multiple levels in real-time. Global account teams were able to see the progress of their colleagues in different territories. This spurred teams on to better performance. Revenue forecasting became much more reliable and sales processes were tracked and improved upon. This allowed growth to continue. Management of sales teams became so much easier. You can read the full case study here.

2. Improve your customer information

When a sales rep moves on, valuable customer information may go with them. This is always a risk if reps keep their own prospect and customer data in spreadsheets. The solution is to bring it all into the cloud in one system. That way everyone on the team can see the data and add to it, giving a richer understanding of the customer. Your customer and prospect data is a key asset for your sales team. Centralising this allows the information to grow and mature.

Trek Case Study

Trek sells bikes through a network of independently owned retailers. They rely on a close, supportive relationship between the local sales reps and the store owner. In the past, when a rep left or retired it would take years to rebuild the rapport and customer knowledge. By installing a Microsoft Sales solution, Trek were able to see account histories, financial data and inventory all in one place. New reps had all the info they needed to connect meaningfully with store owners. Event reports and weekly updates were sent out using the sales solution. This ensured sales reps had detailed records on customers, making the customers feel known and cared for. You can read the full case study here

3. Reduce your team’s admin burden.

Reps spend 75% of their time on non-selling activities. But with modern sales apps, this can be dramatically reduced. Empower your sales reps to have all the customer info they need on their phones. Allow them to update deal info as soon as the meeting is over and so give you accurate forecasting information. There are a number of comprehensive systems on the market. At The CRM Team, we use the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales (compatible with iOS, Android and Windows). It has seamless integration with Office 365.You can track all your customers and prospects without ever leaving Outlook.

CSX Transportation Case Study

CSX Transportation has 32,000 employees. Previously, customer information was spread over multiple systems. There was no way of seeing customer touch points across different business groups. Frustratingly, sales information wasn’t held centrally. By bringing all this information into one system, sales teams were able to save on their admin time. Consequently, they spend more time building customer relationships. It was only a matter of time before revenue increased. Read the full case study here

4. Increase cross-selling through smarter collaboration.

Nowadays, the best sales teams collaborate regularly on accounts. Learnings are shared across teams, and cross-selling opportunities are identified more easily. This is the case whether you run an inbound sales team or have reps on the road. With greater collaboration, teams can respond quicker to new sales opportunities.

Nat West Bank Case Study

natwest
Recently, UK Bank Nat West installed a Microsoft CRM solution, going live to 3000 users. Now, when a customer contacts the bank, sales staff have all the relevant information at their fingertips. It doesn’t matter which team the customer made their initial contact with. This smart pooling of customer data has led to increased cross-selling. The increased revenue from this alone will provide a return on investment by 2018. Read the full case study here.

5. Respond to customer’s needs on-the-go.

In a world of smart phones, it’s only natural that sales and customer data should be accessible via mobile devices. This sort of access not only increases productivity but also keeps sales teams connected and aware of what each other is doing. Mobile sales solutions allow for flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs. A good system will be able to work whether there is web access or not. It should also provide a cloud backup so that data is never at risk.

Grant Thornton Case Study

Grant Thornton LLP is one of the world’s largest professional services providers. Recently, they installed a new CRM solution with mobile sales capacity. Rick Stow, their Head of Client Relationship Management, said: “One of the most appealing aspects… is the ability to deliver the same experience across multiple platforms. Whether you’re opening a form from within Outlook, from a browser, or on a mobile device, you have full functionality.” Stow says this has resulted in their workforce being more connected and more productive. Ultimately, enabling them to service their clients better. Since upgrading to a CRM system with a mobile sales capability Grant Thornton LLP has experienced:

– a 450% jump in the number of sales opportunities,

– a 36% increase in average win value, and –

– a 700% rise in the number of contacts in the system.

Read the full case study here.

6. Get better marketing insight

Not knowing when prospects interact with you is a hinderance to your sales process. By adopting a combined marketing and sales solution you can get quick insight when prospects browse your website, read an article or download a white paper. It also helps marketing and sales team align better, ensuring that marketing hands over only quality leads.

Crowe Horwath Case Study

Crowe Horwath LLP is a performance consulting firm. They decided to bring all sales records and customer information under one sales solution. Dave Keever, Principal at Crowe explains the impact:

“We now have full visibility of our marketing efforts around a contact or account. We can see, for example, if a customer or prospect opts in on an email or has downloaded any of our white papers, and we can then discuss that with them in a meeting. Before, it could take a day or two to find out about an account and the surrounding marketing activities. Now, it takes seconds.” Keever says that the adoption has been very cost effective: “Both the greater visibility into our sales pipeline and the increase in the number of users are contributing to our return on investment. We expect the payback period to be between nine and 15 months.”

Read the full case study here.

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Microsoft | LinkedIn: Sleepless nights have arrived for Microsoft’s competitors!

Digital Transformation

Microsoft | LinkedIn – Sleepless nights have arrived for Microsoft’s competitors!

Last year we wrote about Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn and why competitors will be having sleepless nights.

Now those sleepless nights have arrived!

On Monday, Microsoft and LinkedIn threw out their first challenge to Salesforce.com. In an article released by Reuters, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella shared the companies plan to integrate LinkedIn data with their Dynamics 365 offering.

According to Microsoft, the upgrade will help salespeople become more efficient. With new insights from LinkedIn’s 500 million professionals, this solution will help salespeople improve their pipeline by,

Recommending ways to save an at-risk deal.

Displaying LinkedIn personal and company information on every lead, contact, account, and opportunity page in Dynamics 365.

Daily updates between systems, which automatically save accounts and contacts in Dynamics 365 to Sales Navigator.

The new solution will comb through a salesperson’s emails, CRM, and LinkedIn to gain insight into their relationship with a potential customer. And ultimately give recommendations on the next best action to take.

“We’re introducing a single offer that brings together LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 for Sales… at about half the cost of competitive solutions.” Said Microsoft on Monday.

Nadella also said that artificial intelligence (A.I.) will be central to this software.

“I want to be able to democratise A.I. so that any customer using these products is able to take their own data and load it into A.I.”

As the first major product initiative built off the Microsoft, LinkedIn deal, this will be a turning point for Microsoft. In an interview last year, Business Insider asked Nadella why they bought LinkedIn. His response was simple.

“This is really all about expanding the opportunity we have, going beyond productivity and collaboration tools, to having a professional network.”

We all know LinkedIn is the business social hub and is a fantastic source of data for salespeople. So, we’re excited to see the first updates to Dynamics 365 that will include LinkedIn.

Read the full article here: Microsoft’s Nadella banks on LinkedIn data to challenge Salesforce

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Avoiding the Dire Consequences of a Missed Sales Target

Dynamics and Power Platform

How to Avoid the Dire Consequences of a Missed Sales Target

The day has arrived.

You’re about to report your numbers to the board. And you know you’ve missed your sales target.

You’ve either over committed and under delivered. Or under committed and over delivered. Either way, the consequences are dire – you’ll lose your customers.

Imagine this…

You weren’t able to close that final deal in time. Now you’ve missed your target by R1 000 000. The company was therefore, unable to procure enough stock to meet orders. One of your customers was left waiting longer for delivery than agreed. As a result, that customer cancelled further deals with you.

Or this…

You brought a deal forward. And the business wasn’t able to make provision for the stock required to actually deliver on the deal. This ended up with a delay in delivery to the customer. As a result, the customer was unhappy and swore to never use your company again.

But worst of all… YOU lose your credibility!

Now you’re thinking, “How did this happen?”

Where did things go wrong?

A survey done by Talk Business showed that 70% of Salespeople regularly miss targets.

That’s a scary number, and one that’s probably making you question the effectiveness of your Sales team. But have you really dug into the root of the problem? Let’s look at where things might be going wrong.

1. Lack of alignment with Marketing.

The first hurdle to making your target is getting leads. Right? Wrong! The first hurdle to making your target is getting the RIGHT leads. And those leads come from Marketing.

Does this sound familiar?

Sales:

‘I need local leads! But all these leads are from an internet cafe in Bangalore!’

Marketing:

‘But you never said that when you briefed us! You just said you needed 150 leads by Friday. And we delivered!’

2. Salespeople don’t speak the same language

Salespeople are optimistic by nature. Some will walk in after the first meeting with a new client bragging, “that deal is going to close. It’s going to close tomorrow. And it’s going to be huge!” But it never happens like that. Companies don’t spend millions of Rands at the drop of a hat. There are steps that must take place before a customer will spend money with you.

That’s why your sales process is vital to the success of your Sales team. If each sales opportunity is handled differently, the results are hit or miss. And if you’re not making your targets, we’re guessing it’s a miss.

3. Your Salespeople are misleading you

Salespeople are naturally intuitive. That’s what makes them good at their jobs. But it also means they can get away with a lot. It’s not hard for them to buck the system. To move deals in the pipeline, or shift them out. They’ll do whatever it takes to get out of a difficult conversation.

4. You don’t have actionable insights

Actionable insights are crucial to meeting your targets. For example, knowing how fast deals move through the sales pipeline allows you to accurately forecast when it’ll close.

According to CSO Insights, the average sales forecast accuracy is below 50%.

How to make sure this never happens to you again.

1. Align Marketing and Sales Teams

Getting your Sales and Marketing teams working as one unit will ensure you’re handed the RIGHT leads. Giving your Salespeople a better chance at conversion. In our company, we align our Marketing and Sales teams by adopting a specific methodology. We put this into a free eBook that you can download here.

2. Build a structured sales process

You want to ensure all your Salespeople are speaking the same language. So, you need a structured sales process.

Start by creating a step-by-step structure, with defined gates and stages. This will ensure your Salespeople know exactly where their deals are in the sales process. And because it’s so clear, it’s obvious what the next action is and how the deal will progress to the next stage.

Plus, now that everyone is speaking the same language (and entering data the same way) your reporting becomes accurate!

3. Refine your sales process

An important thing to remember is that the sales process isn’t static.

Keep evaluating and refining the process. This will guarantee you always have the most effective way to win new customers.

Many sales leaders fail because they don’t question. Asking simple questions like, “are we missing a stage?” or “do we have too many stages?” or “what else do we need at a certain stage?” gives you the insight needed to keep your sales process working for you.

These kinds of questions also allow you to refine your process. You never want to rush your sales process, but you want to condense it where possible.

For example, a CRM system allows you to send a quote right away. Reducing the time it takes to get the right information to your customer. Allowing them to decide sooner. Condensing the process, helping you reach your targets.

4. Encourage Salespeople to adopt the sales process

It’s your job as the sales leader to get buy-in and prove to your team that the sales process is going to serve them as well as the business.

Ensure your team are clear on each stage of the process and why it’s there. Show them (as simply as possible) how each stage affects their deal.

Try reinforcing the importance of the process. Tie rewards and recognition to implementing the sales process (rather than strictly to wins).

We also recommend employing a method of coaching. It’s easy for Salespeople to fall back into old habits. So, effective sales coaching is an important element of sales success. Evaluate each Salesperson’s needs and set coaching sessions accordingly. And remember to ensure they schedule customer meetings around their coaching sessions.

“You have to ensure that the learning is reinforced so Salespeople don’t forget what they learned.” – Mike Schultz (President of RAIN Group)

5. Embrace technology and Machine Learning

Technology is all about simplifying our lives. Take CRM systems for example. They’re designed to help you meet your targets. How? By giving you an easy way to track your pipeline, apply your process, and sell more! Yet many companies are still relying on spreadsheets to store important sales data.

Did you know? 82% of top-performing Salespeople said, sales software is “critical” to their ability to close deals.

Machine learning is the evolution of customer experience. Machines are now learning how people interact and communicate. Opening the door for Sales to take advantage of “engagement recommendations”. Enabling them to provide the most relevant information to the customer. Which will help them close deals.

How it works:

Machine learning uses data based on a customer’s preferences and social activity. With this data, Salespeople can get real insights into the best time and channel to call or visit a customer. And get suggestions on the most relevant content or offer to send to a customer.

The best part is, this isn’t some futuristic idea. Recently, Microsoft announced their plan to integrate LinkedIn data into Dynamics 365. According to Microsoft, the upgrade will help Salespeople become more efficient. Using data and insights from LinkedIn’s 500 million professionals.

Remember it’s all about the customer! So, the more you know about what your customer wants and needs, the easier it’ll be to sell to them.

Missed targets have dire consequences for the entire business. Whether you under delivered or over delivered, missing your target is never good.

Remember, sale targets influence forecasts. And each team in the business works off your forecast. That means that problems run downhill, and might affect customer experience.

And as the sales leader, YOU’RE the one who loses credibility!

So, look at the reasons why you’re missing your target. Where did things go wrong? The moment your sales process started? Is your process structured enough? Did you have the insights you needed?

Once you’ve unpacked the problem, use the steps discussed in this article to fix them:

Start by aligning your Sales and Marketing teams.
Build a structured process and keep refining it.
Encourage and coach your people to adopt the process.
And embrace technology and machine learning.

Make this a reality!

Get started

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