Selling IT

The Science of Selling, Buying, and Deal-Making

Sandip Mukhopadhyay, Srinivas Pingali, Amitabh Satyam

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000452587
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Digital Marketing
• Index: Business

Information technology (IT) is an essential core of the economy today. Corporations and governments worldwide rely on it to drive their core strategy and develop and execute business models. Amounting to over 3.7 trillion US dollars of worldwide spending, the growing significance of the IT industry in the global economy is now well established. Hence, it is crucial to understand the marketplace within which it exists, and this book presents a systematic analysis of the processes, techniques, and methods involved in IT sales and marketing.

In Selling IT, the book:

• Integrates a large IT provider's selling process with the enterprise user's IT buying process to highlight the nuances of selling, marketing, and developing IT solutions that create value for customers
• Discusses various key concepts such as value-based IT selling, business case for IT acquisition, vendor evaluation and management, account and customer relationship management, customer segmentation, and techniques for customer acquisition and retention
• Analyses the challenges and opportunities involved in selling digital IT and examines the evolution of jobs and careers based on the changed IT landscape
• Includes lesson plans, case studies, and chapter-wise practice questions to support teaching and learning

The book boasts a robust theoretical foundation supported by a clear exposition of concepts and management theories. It will be of benefit to professionals using organisation-mandated selling processes. Young executives with a technology background looking for a sales and marketing career in the IT industry can also effectively use this book. It will also be an essential read for scholars and researchers in B2B marketing, IT consulting, technology sales, and digital transformation.

1
Understanding the IT market

DOI: 10.4324/9781003155270-2

1.1 Learning objectives

This chapter provides an overview of the information technology (IT) industry within the framework of a larger B2B sales concept. The reader will learn the following:

• The unique features of business-to-business (B2B) markets and its contrast to business-to-consumer (B2C) markets
• The IT industry landscape and the players in the industry
• Engagement models of the players prevalent in the industry
• An introduction to the concept of IT selling
• The roles of key actors involved in buying and selling of IT.

1.2 Introduction

IT is critical for running today’s businesses. Most companies use IT to drive their core strategy, develop and execute business models, and run business processes. For these companies, information technology is much more than a backend activity. One cannot imagine Walmart, Reliance Jio, and Amazon’s businesses without appreciating their technology infrastructure. In addition, corporations, governments, and social organisations effectively use IT to provide services to citizens, provide assistance to the under-privileged, and create an enabling environment for businesses and entrepreneurs. Many macroeconomic studies have shown that countries that lead the global race for technology innovations enjoy a competitive edge over other nations. The United States, China, and India are some examples. We have discussed the importance of IT in business, economy, and government in more details in Chapter 2.

With the growing significance of the IT industry in the global economy, it is essential to understand the marketplace within which it exists.

The IT services industry mainly falls within the context of B2B markets. We therefore begin the book and this chapter by defining B2B markets and how they are both similar and different from B2C markets.

The second part of the chapter introduces the IT industry landscape, the types of IT products and services, and the prevailing and emerging engagement models in the IT industry. The chapter provides an overview of the IT services sales process, the competencies required for successful selling, and profiles of typical customers and vendors.

1.3 B2B markets

If a business sells a product or service directly to another business, government entity, or a social organisation rather than to an individual customer, the transaction is referred to as B2B (Anderson, Narus, Narayandas, and Seshadri, 2011). Businesses acquire these goods or services either for their own use, or to incorporate into their products and services, or for selling to their customers (Anderson et al., 2011). Sales of input material for manufacturing an automobile or steel for constructing a factory are all examples of B2B markets. Most IT sales fall under B2B transactions, with IT vendors selling services and products to IT customers. Table 1.1 provides an overview of the significant differences between B2C and B2B markets.

From Table 1.1, it can be inferred that customers in B2B markets focus on the impact of the solution that they purchase on their businesses. The impact could be in the form of increase in sales, profitability, and customer satisfaction. In contrast, in the consumer market, the focus remains on aesthetics, usability, and price.

Table 1.1 B2B vs. B2C markets

Attribute	Business-to-Consumer (B2C)	Business-to-Business (B2B)
No. of buyers	Large numbers; highly fragmented	Relatively fewer
No. of sellers	Relatively larger	Relatively fewer
Products	Mass-produced	Customised
Pricing	Fixed price	Negotiated
Transaction value	Relatively lower and one-time	High-value and likelihood of repeat purchase
Pre-sales process	Unaided and impacted by advertisement	Detailed evaluation
Sales process	Brief and focussed on one transaction	Lengthy and complex
Decision-makers	Individual or family	Multiple decision-makers
Influencers	Media, family, friends	Company internal personnel, consultants, reference customers
Value	Price, perception, usability, experience	Business impact
Demand	Derived	Direct/media-stimulated

In B2B markets, sellers develop solutions that provide business value, effectively communicate it to customers, measure the value created, and gain an adequate return (Anderson et al., 2011). The concept of value and its application in IT sales is explained further in Chapters 2 and 4.

Customer–supplier relationships in IT, like other B2B markets, operate at two levels; they are organisation-to-organisation relationships and people-to-people relationships. We discuss organisation-to-organisation partnerships in greater detail in later chapters.

Other than the business relationship between two or multiple organisations, people-to-people relationships down to the level of the salesforce handling the transaction play an important role in B2B transactions. Some of the concepts that have been studied in the academic literature on this subject include customer-oriented selling and adaptive selling. Customer-oriented selling is putting the customer at the centre of the sales process. In this paradigm, salespersons empathise with their customer by putting themselves in the shoes of the customer and working closely with them to develop a solution. This is against selling pre-packaged or standardised solutions. Adaptive selling is about a salesperson altering the sales behaviour and process based on new information received during the sales process. Another approach to selling is value-based selling. This approach has three key dimensions (Terho, Haas, Eggert, and Ulaga, 2012). The first step is for a salesperson to get a better understanding of a customer’s business context. Once this is understood, the second step is to craft a value proposition. Value for the customer is derived from the benefits of consuming the service or product characteristics, both tangible and intangible. The final step is communicating the value to the customer. We have described this in detail in Chapter 4.

Another construct used to describe the selling process is consultative selling. In consultative selling, salespersons are “value advisors”, where they provide information to customers to help them take actions that will add value to their business (Liu and Leach, 2001). In value advising, rather than promoting specific products or services, salespersons focus on working with their clients to understand the specific issues they are trying to solve and advise them on solutions leveraging their own market information and knowledge. As an example, in traditional IT sales, a supplier responds to a request for proposals (RFP). RFPs are structured documents that state the challenge being faced by a customer and the specific solutions they are seeking. Suppliers responding to RFPs do not have much flexibility in crafting creative solutions. Even the process of asking questions is highly structured and time bound. As against this approach, in consultative selling, suppliers have the opportunity to present industry and market trends and suggest solutions on how a customer can manage or cope with these trends. The next step is to develop specific solutions in conjunction with customers. This form of selling also enhances the trust and interpersonal bonds between the client and supplier personnel. A client is happy that a supplier is tracking the customer’s business and proactively providing solution...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Introduction
• 1 Understanding the IT market
• 2 Business value of IT
• 3 IT project management essentials
• 4 Sales and bid management process
• 5 Buying IT
• 6 Client and account management
• 7 Marketing and sales enablement
• 8 Leading with digital
• 9 Selling cloud to enterprises
• 10 Careers in IT: today and tomorrow
• Razorpay: providing payment convenience to disruptors
• Index