I’ve seen my fair share of sales pitches
for the outsourcing industry, and currently every aspiring service provider
touts their “As A Service” offerings. I can’t resist sharing some observations
on how these companies can best connect with the needs of enterprise buyers.
In the spirit of “context matters,” let’s
start with the audience. Today’s buyer of commercial services is better
prepared than ever before. Indeed, they are forewarned about the pitfalls experienced
via prior generations of outsourced services. Most are working from a well-informed
basis of knowledge.
The majority of buying executives are adept
at networking; they are connected to their peers and they share experiences
readily. The best way for a service provider to position itself favorably is to
have a strong reference base from which to work. In the age of social networks,
reputation really matters.
The buyer generally organizes a process
around securing some form of value. The measure of value can take various methods,
and may even evolve over the course of the evaluation, but make no mistake –
value is the ultimate determinant of a decision to source services with a third
party.
That may seem like an obvious and
well-understood tenet, but in the heat of a commercial transaction both buyers
and prospective service providers often lose sight of the core value
definition. To be a bit more contentious
… in a competitive market, the lowest price is seldom a broad enough definition
of value.
Beyond the fee-for-service dimension, common
elements of value for “As A Service” offerings include:
·
Client confidence that they
will receive the promises being made
·
Strong market position of the
provider
·
Demonstrated commitment to the
service category
·
Candor and transparency in the
resilience of the services
·
Informed perspective on risks and
high confidence in the vendor’s ability to mitigate them
·
Cultural alignment with regards
to unknown future events
·
Growth potential for the
relationship to evolve towards new sources of value
For a prospective service provider to win
the right to serve one of today’s discriminating buyers, they must meet a high
standard of proof that is evidenced across a broad set of hurdles. Pretenders
are easily smoked out.
I would urge any service provider to fully
commit to all of these five elements:
1. We are clear on the value we provide for our clients.
·
We create tangible value easy
for others to recognize and measure.
·
We understand our competition,
and are comfortable with our relative positioning.
2. We are committed to be a leader in this service
category.
·
We are investing in the
provision of defined and scalable services.
·
We have earned the right to
serve discriminating clients, and they are satisfied.
·
We manage our offerings through
a services lifecycle that provides confidence in future relevancy.
3. We are prepared to do business on terms that represent the
state of the market.
·
We offer commercial terms and
pricing that aligns with the needs of our market, and which conveys value to
our customers.
·
We are prepared with standard
scope of service that reflects our investment in proven, scalable offerings.
·
We provide an engagement
interface that makes it easy to do business with us.
4. We provide transparency in the future direction of our
services.
·
We publish roadmaps for our
offerings that reflect the perceived needs of our market, and the feedback of
our customers.
·
We anticipate changes to our
offerings and communicate those candidly.
·
We readily engage with others
in our industry to integrate our offerings seamlessly into the operations of
our clients.
5. We manage the inherent risks within our business.
·
We know where we have
vulnerabilities, and we mitigate those appropriately.
·
We are prepared to assume the
liabilities inherent to being a market-leading service provider.
If you are a service provider offering “As
A Service” solutions, I suggest that this outline should be your agenda for
your next sales call. Beyond the sales conversation, this outline needs to form
the basis for your company’s go-to-market platform.
In this way, your targeted customers will
see your offerings as being organized and integrated towards an expression of
value that they will more easily recognize and be able to evaluate. “As A
Service” means an end to the islands of misfit toys.
Peter Allen
has many years of operating experience as a top executive and
strategic advisor for companies of all shapes and sizes, with focus on
technology-enabled business services. He is now a Boston-based Managing
Director at Alvarez & Marsal.
Image:
kafka4prez/Flickr
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