The Secret to Selling Technology: Don't Talk About Technology?

Technology doesn’t evoke emotion

When we need to explain the technology, remember : we will have people in front you. It is really important to consider the different people , jobs , objectives…

To avoid the risk of not delivering the right messaging/Change management

?Adapt you speech to the person you talk to (e.g. CIO, CTO, CFO…)

Even for a CIO, that could too much… that is why even it is your job to

to know the technical stuff, you need to adapt your talk

What is the difference between ERP A that use RESTful Web services and ERP B that use Restful Webservices.

Good Question, your customer won’t ne able to establish a difference. For him, it is the same.

To be different Understand the business of your customer as well as you understand your solution

Understand their business as well as you understand your solution

Companies want to solve real, well-defined problems in areas like security, workflows,?processes automation, and Big Data analytics.

To be honest they don’t really care about the HOW… they are just cared about we solve their concerns

Most of companies classify their concerns in 2 categories:

First line: key requirements/focus known for a long-time

Second line: new requirements growing fast

-Integration: API, including GraphQL

-Traceability: blockchain (e.g. keynote presentation about Jupiter Marketing for food product provenance)

-Anticipation: AI

Each of those items are contextual: requirements will defer according the business processes of a market/customer

Data security isn’t a worry when you have an enterprise resource planning solution in place. A new system will improve the accuracy, consistency, and security of data, all through built-in resources and firewalls. Restrictions to data can also be enhanced by managers of the solution, so you can make your own software as secure as you’d like.

Talk benefits could be a solution to talk technology, but today all software companies are using benefits. We need to be different!

Our customer prefer when we talk about outcomes, why because it is for them real! Outcomes are the benefits your customers receive from using our stuff.

As a result, customers have changed their expectations of sales people and organizations who want to be their business partners. Simply explaining the details of your product and technology?is no longer of value.?

Customers, instead, expect you to develop a point of view based on your expertise and understanding of their industry, market, and specific business. And even more, they expect you to present a specific hypothesis about how your offerings and technology can improve their business results

Once the technological outcome is placed in situation, your customers will be able to quantify outcomes. Your customers most likely believe that small changes in reducing things like unplanned downtime, increasing velocity, or improving capital productivity make a big difference to their bottom line, so the notion of providing service solutions like “predictivity” and “wing-to-wing” offerings are not only making software and ecosystem plays valuable, they are truly meeting the needs and goals of your customers.

Give tangible examples of what are the outcomes, with different example?for different markets

Benefits versus outcomes Responsiveness

Being both available and reachable for customers is critical for all businesses, big and small.

these qualities, or lack thereof, can make or break your business. There are many businesses consumers can choose from, and they are more willing to go with the company that is attentive, and giving them the best service.?

Thankfully, for all the extra work technology has given us as business owners, it is refreshing to know that there are also some tech-based solutions to help lessen the human workload.

Some business processes can be easily automated with the right software solution, and luckily there are a few on the market that helps with the exact customer service responsiveness issues many small businesses suffer from.

Because the reality for many small business owners is the lack of employees, certain things like customer service can be difficult to maintain.

The technology as business uses could be the determining factor between being reactive or proactive. Disparate and specialty systems, spreadsheets and paper-based processes all make it difficult to enter and access key data. For example, you may not know you’ve run out of inventory or exceeded budgets until you find out after-the-fact when an employee or manager is able to catch up on paperwork. Reacting to situations, instead of getting ahead of them, can cost time, money and lead to strained customer relationships. Sage X3 can Help us to monitor and control your business throught the Workflows technology and the user portal.

Integration with other system is not an optional need for our customer, this is a neccessity and reallity,

Communicate with other system is a key factor for companies who want to developp their business,

Discuss with a web shop, Item Services?e-proc, ,,,

Dashboard visualizations in Business Intelligence (BI)

Interface for E-commerce ordering and shipping

Connectivity to mobile applications

Because APIs exist “behind the scenes” in ERP, it’s easy to overlook their broad range of process capabilities:

what does it mean to ERP?

First, APIs are not a new invention. No matter what computing device you use, APIs make it possible to move information between programs.?

APIs are utilized by a customer’s chosen third party vendors to provide expanded features using ERP data. Some examples of these types of API include:

?Dashboard visualizations in Business Intelligence (BI)

?Interface for E-commerce ordering and shipping

?Connectivity to mobile applications

?

It’s obvious that companies depend on their chosen ERP software for daily operations.?For features not handled by ERP, it is sometimes necessary to expand functionality using third party software. Furthermore,?APIs are one way for companies to squeeze further value out of their ERP investment.?Of course, successful API development depends entirely on the third party vendor you choose.

if I need to explain GraphQl. I can say

A GraphQL query is a string that is sent to a server to be interpreted and fulfilled, which then returns JSON back to the client. This is the technology we will use to build API. GraphQL is?a syntax that describes how to ask for data, and is generally used to load data from a server to a client.?

Helpful for your customer? Maybe no.

Or

We can say

APIs are the connective tissue in today’s ecosystems. For companies that know how to implement them, they can cut costs, improve efficiency, and help the bottom line. That is why we use an efficient technology to simplify the design of APIs. With?GraphQL, you will be able to make a single call to fetch the required information rather than to construct several requests to fetch the same.

Focus on transition instead potential and technical word

Structured ERP systems allow the addition of new users and functions to grow the initially implemented solution over time. When your business is ready to grow or needs more resources, Sage EM will be able to facilitate that growth

Sage X3 is robust, flexible, and configurable. They are not a one-size-fits-all proposition but can be tailored to the unique needs of a business. Sage x3?can adapt to the ever-changing needs of a growing business, ensuring you won’t have to buy a new solution once your needs change or your business grows.

According to the requirements, that could be:

?Infrastructure, be free! It is not new but important select the system as you want,,, (windows server, linux, oracle sql server)??expand it when you need,,,

?Expending the scope within the product, develop and growth , your business change we can change, new needs , new features, new setups, You have a new activity, use our technology to consider the new information you need

?Expending the scope with partner/ISV solutions, Use ou API technology

?Geographical expansion?

?Focus on other metrics besides ROI

I would argue the following are key factors of the ERP Return on Investment:

User Adoption and Staff cost (if your staff is more efficient, if you need less people to do the same job)

Order to cash –?Sage X3 help you expedite the order to cash journey? The quicker you can get ORDERs to customers, deliver goods and get your invoices paid, the more cash you will have in the bank for your next investment.

Enablement of new lines of business, quickly and easily

Other benefits include;

?Growth without the growing pains;

?Growing without the associated people cost;

?Customer goodwill;

?Inventory holding.

Help your customers make the leap

Explain how technology will securely help customers to deliver their job easily

When customer change their systems, it is to fix their issues, to change their scopes, and simplify the life of their user (traduction reduce the cost of their staff)

Understand their business as well as you understand your solution

Speed has not just become a business differentiator it is also key for customers.

If a system is hard to use?and if it’s prone to errors because of manual data entry it slows everything down.

Robust API, interconnections, data analytics are essential. That will transform ERP to an?Intelligent ERP as a system of integration

– connecting with other applications for advanced end-to-end business process automation

BUT for the end USER it is just normal, they just need to know we are able to move forward and manage those needs.

When creating an ERP investment strategy, companies have a choice about how much to focus on technology, and how much to invest .?

The matrix which considers how much a potential technology fits with a company's existing rules and technical capabilities.

When you explain the technology consider you have to balance your talk to make customers confident. So we have an Up to date technology but not so difficult to use and masterize.

Which department do you believe will find implementation of this solution the most difficult and why?

Where have past technology solution implementations run into trouble and why?

Is there a horror story of technology in your company that is often used as the example why something should not be bought? If so, can you tell me about it?

Sage X3 has enabled business across the world to innovate by automating and integrating their core business so that they can focus on being more effective and successful. It helps to manage risk, by automating the customer order process, scheduling operations, keeping a watchful eye on inventory records, and the company’s financial data.

An?ERP system?can drive huge improvements by defining business processes, protecting business data, enabling work plans, providing customer service tools, and translating data into easy-to-understand information that allows for better product development, and driving down costs and wastage.

Increased innovation?– In this modern world, cloud technology is leading the market. Customers are extensively leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Business Intelligence, Internet of Things, Power BI, collaboration tools and mobile applications. If you invest in a cloud ERP solution that encompasses all these standard innovative functions, it will undoubtedly automate processes such as data collection, remote working and more.

Bring an equilibrium between market demand and supply?– Modern ERP systems are flexible and less complicated. It lets you manage everything from purchase orders, inventory, sales, account receivables and more. An ERP system helps plan and control various aspects of the extended enterprise.

Tracking becomes easy and less complicated?– When we talk about MRP, this software hardly allows you to boost your day to day business operations. On the other hand, ERP embraces a wide variety of functionalities for carrying out almost every operation in an organization. Detail of every department can be seen on a single software and this enables improved decision making and easy tracking of record.

Wrap up

?Adapt your speech

?Present the technical solutions in the customer context

?Convert risks into opportunities

?That can modify the organisations

?That can create fears!

?Convert those fears into opportunities

if you want to learn more, contact us

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