IN ASSOCIATION WITH AMDOCS
Introduction
Converting an enterprise sales lead into a solid order is not an easy process. Obviously, the calibre of the sales person is an important factor but the tools with which they are equipped can make the difference between closing the sale and losing it. For most enterprises, this process is still largely manual with a heavy reliance on spreadsheets, leading to unacceptable long sales cycle times and a consequent increase in the potential for order fallout. Indeed, research conducted by Amdocs in the last 12 months found that 62% of businesses experienced order fallout in this phase of the sales cycle. While this figure is in itself astonishing, it does not reveal the true scale of loss to the business in terms of the time and resources spent on following up quotes, almost two thirds of which will not come to fruition. Essentially, this figure represents a lot of effort for very little return and implies that sales people spend as little as a third of their time actually selling.
A big part of the problem is that most businesses don’t have real-time visibility into the sales process at this stage or for that matter at any other stage. Indeed, the same survey found that 76% of companies said real-time visibility was something they needed over the whole sales process. Not knowing what stage between quote and order the process has reached at any given time, is a serious handicap and companies are beginning to realise this.
In addition, it is vital that the sales person has real-time access to the availability of resources when putting a quote together. For example, if a CSP (communications service provider) sales representative can see the bandwidth available in a particular location or the status of a particular service when constructing a quote, customer dissatisfaction when SLAs (service level agreements) are not met or a service is not available is avoided. The alternative is more often than not the customer will churn with the consequent loss of a potentially long-term relationship between the CSP and the customer. Indeed, Amdocs found that 57% of CSPs could not meet the SLAs that had been offered to customers in the initial stages of the sales process, a problem that is largely attributable to a lack of access to the CSPs capabilities in any given location at any point in time.
There are a number of sales process solutions currently on the market which go some way towards addressing these issues, but all are multi-vertical in their focus and are therefore by definition generic. For CSPs looking to expand their offerings in the B2B market, these solutions represent little more than a compromise when in fact they require something far more tailored to their needs.
Amdocs is a company which has been providing IT solutions to the telecoms industry for upwards of 35 years and has considerable experience in developing systems which enable CSPs to quickly roll out and sell new services in the B2C market. It has gained a deep insight into the challenges faced by CSPs, such as the need for fast service rollout and streamlined, transparent sales cycles. In order to support CSPs in their expansion into the B2B market, Amdocs has developed its Digital B2B solution, which is part of the company’s overall customer engagement platform.
The solution is comprised of a number of key elements which are seamlessly integrated. These include the Master Enterprise Catalog and Ordering, as well as services such as Order Gateway, Order to Activation and others. Amdocs’ Configure Price Quote (CPQ) and other products which interface with any SalesForce Automation system enables the CSP’s sales representative to understand the resources required, as well as being provided with accurate profit and loss information, which is key to generating a good quote.
Understanding the need to reduce order fallout, Amdocs has essentially reduced the timescales for a number of processes which in themselves can have a negative impact on the sales process. For example, building a new B2B offer which involves bundling network connectivity, smartphones, security and Office 365 and which requires bringing together elements of the order management system, the catalog and back office applications, will take several months to roll out. The problem is that CSPs could have as much as eight different catalogs containing sales data which needs to be tied in when making a new offering. This is in contrast to the B2C market where the offerings are very simple and include no more than three or four service offerings. With the Amdocs Digital B2B solutions however, the time to offer is reduced from anything up to eight months down to a matter of days by taking this single catalog-driven approach, along with serviceability checks and accurate quoting. In addition, Amdocs has greatly reduced the complexity of the sales process by simplifying the process which usually involves a number of different personas such as IT, Sales, customer entities, etc.
Amdocs has also developed the B2B portal which is an application exclusive to Amdocs that can be downloaded to an iPad or a smartphone which shows the sales representative the entire sales process and the stage each quote has reached. This information is also available to the IT person at the customer’s end, meaning that the customer can see clearly what they are signing up to and the service levels they can expect. From the sales representative’s point of view however, the app gives complete control over the ability to amend an order, change any aspect of the order, whether it be to the overall quote or to a specific item requested by the customer, it is doable in real-time, on the spot, without having to contact the CSP.
The development of the Amdocs Digital B2B solution and indeed the company’s complete end-to-end customer engagement solution marks something of a step change in the sales management process for CSPs looking to enter the B2B market. It renders the traditional quote to order process, which more often than not involves spreadsheets being passed from person to person usually over a period of months, to one which takes a matter of a few days and offers complete transparency to both CSPs and their enterprise and SMB customers.
B2B customer engagement: What every CSP needs
Amdocs Digital – Create more meaningful relationship
Optimising the hybrid cloud – Amdocs and Microsoft Cloud-Fusion Collaboration
