Enterprise Software Executive

Webconferencing's Impact on Enterprise Software Sales in 2009

In a recent article from Selling Power Magazine's website, there is an interesting observation on the impact of web conferencing on general sales across all industries.  However, there has not been an industry more impacted from web conferencing than the enterprise software industry.  To take things a step further, I will review some of the common benefits and pitfalls that this generally accepted sales tool has created in the enterprise software industry. 

Business Travel

Web conferencing has created the biggest impact on business travel since the adoption of airplane travel.  While the majority of strategic business meetings (and less strategic in many cases) have historically required air travel, web conferencing has created the ability to second guess common reasons for face to face meetings.  Specifically, enterprise software can leverage web conferencing to deliver the all to important "software demo" without physically being in the same room.  The cost and time savings are massive for both the buyer and seller, but the opportunity to connect and form relationships that are critical to project success are often lost.  So, where is the balance? 

Resources

In most sales presentations, there are a variety of resources required to effectively present a given solution.  In the case of enterprise software sales, supporting resources are even more critical as unique technical and industry knowledge is often required from resources within the organization.  It is obvious that a web conference allows greater participation as conflicts are easily addressed with a 1 - 2 hr commitment.

Bottom Line

Web conferencing is not a one size fits all solution for all enterprise software sales meetings, but it is a viable option for at least 25 - 40% of meetings.  I would suggest looking into this medium and potentially leveraging wherever possible without losing the human touch when it comes to customer/client management.

On Demand - Analytics Too?

After a few months off from the blog, I have New Year's goal to post at least once a week so please keep checking back in for new posts and feel free to submit topics.  I have the pleasure and good fortune to be a board member for the Technology Association of Georgia.  Last week, we had an excellent panel of speakers which I'll recap in my next post.  After the event, I met Amit Kesarwani of Decipher Tech (www.deciphertech.com).  Amit described his new start-up and their ability to integrate into Salesforce.com, Microsoft CRM, and several other large players in the industry.   More importantly, Amit described his company as a SaaS analytics company.  I have heard of most of the players in the market such as LucidEra and other similar companies, but I didn't know that Atlanta had its very own on-demand analytics vendor. 

So, how does Decipher Tech stack up against the other players in the industry.  Stay tuned, and I'll have a review of them all next week!