December 14, 2018

Helping Your Customer Capitalize Cloud-Based Spend

In the course of working with our technology clients and their enterprise sales teams, we’ve noticed an interesting trend in the last six to twelve months.  Increasingly, I.T. buyers are expressing a preference (or sometimes a need) to be able to acquire cloud-based technology as a capital expenditure event rather than as operating spend.  That’s right, the buyer is asking for a CapEx offer vs OpEx.

CalculatorThis is contrary to the pattern of I.T. buyer behavior we’ve seen over the last several years, which has been toward buying technology with operating budget dollars rather than CapEx.  However, a recent pivot toward a desire for spending CapEx dollars shouldn’t be entirely surprising for a number of reasons.

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October 23, 2018

Helping Your Customer Back Into Software License Compliance

We live in a world of increasing complexity. In their quest to create value, enterprise customers continuously test and embrace new technologies, which come with many labels–-digital, analytics, automation, the Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and so on.  Software deployments now involve public clouds, private clouds, hydrid set ups, managed service providers, and/or customers’ premises.  Software licensing metrics may involve users, seats, names servers, geographies, limited timeframes, sublicensing…

As a consequence, use-rights being applied to modern IT environments have some times evolved into complex (and potentially baffling) licensing terms which has made entitlement tracking more difficult.  The risk is now higher that even simple technology refreshes will cause an enterprise to fall out of compliance.

Lock and contract (more…)

October 10, 2018

How to Use Technology ROI to Get Your Piece of the Corporate Tax Break Pie

Not too long ago I bristled when I overheard a colleague tell a salesperson that it’s never a good sign when a company buys back their own stock.  Upon reflection, I was more likely stuck on the use of the word “never” (a trigger word that “always” gets to me) than the negative ramifications of buybacks.  In addition, after several months of doing business alignment reviews, I’ve observed company after company report in their 10-Ks that they are taking a substantive portion of the US corporate tax gain as fuel for share repurchases.  Needless to say, I’ve come around to my colleague’s point of view.

Have these corporations lost their collective vision for strategic growth initiatives and innovation?  Or are we, the enterprise sales community, failing to develop compelling business cases that point to technology ROI and long-term shareholder value that justifies such investments?  (more…)

September 21, 2018

Vendor Financing 2.0 For Energy Efficiency

Simple is better—Best Practices from the Software Industry

 

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”  Leonardo da Vinci

“Making the complex simple” is a promise built into the ethos of companies in just about every industry and business imaginable.   What are these companies trying to tell us?

Oracle taught me the benefit of making the complex simple some 20 years ago through their successful vendor financing program.  Oracle Financing had many Fortune 500 clients, who absolutely did not need “financing” from Oracle, however, these clients routinely used Oracle payment plans to enable their transactions. Why?  Because they were simple. (more…)

August 20, 2018

“Have I Got a Deal for You!”

We’ve all heard or even say in jest “Have I got a deal for you” with a wink and a smirk.  In today’s commoditized and competitive environment, most of us are conditioned to compare raw product prices instantaneously on the internet, from high-end technology products, to designer clothing and shoes, to toothpaste and tissue paper.

We often default to focusing on discounts right off the bat when we talk to our clients about our product and services because it seems to be the key priority for the customer and a short cut to a quick close.

How many times have you thought you had nabbed the deal of the day, complete with the lowest price and 5-star ratings, only to find that what you got when you open the box does not resemble anything you saw in the little picture, the pieces don’t fit together, or the product does not work as advertised.

Ultimately, as intelligent buyers, we should be looking for “value,” of which price is only one of the components.  (more…)

July 30, 2018

Breaking down the Silo Mentality

In retrospect, as a result of working in tandem with many enterprise software vendors (large & small, private & public) across a tenure of more than twenty years, I have found certain unmissable similarities among my clients.  These trends, whether intentional or unintentional, can have a direct effect on bottom line results and specifically on an organization’s ability to be effective.  Often it takes the perspective of an outsider or third party consultant to point out such trends that sometimes become corporate culture.  I find that a company’s ability to quickly identify which trends are accretive to corporate goals as well as trending activities that can break down effectiveness often can be the difference between success and complacency.

For example, how does a silo mentality affect an organization’s ability to execute in a sales capacity? (more…)

June 1, 2018

What? You’re Not Giving Me Your Business After All I’ve Done for You?

How many of us have lost a deal and felt this way? You spent months working on the deal and didn’t get it. You felt like the time you poured into the negotiation should account for something, right? WRONG!

I recently was on a business trip. I was traveling with two women who also work in financial sales.

One of our group members, we will call her Mary, was knee deep in a transaction. She still needed several items from her client including a statement from his accountant and a credit card number for the bank appraisal fee. Mary thought the deal was in the bag. She was already counting her commission dollars. Thursday, Friday and Saturday she spoke to the customer reminding him repeatedly of the documents she needed; however, he was dragging his feet.

On Sunday night Mary received a call from her client. While on speakerphone, she rattled off the information she needed to submit his application. By this time, we all knew what he needed to send. The client interrupted her and said “STOP.” Now, Felicia and I knew from experience what was about to happen. Mary’s client told her he was going with another lender who already approved him. (more…)

May 16, 2018

Blockchain Technology and the Equipment Finance Industry

Oh, the stuff you don’t know….

The son of a close family friend graduated from college this past weekend.  I was fortunate to be part of their celebration which included a smorgasbord, liquid refreshments, tears of joy, and lots of laughs.  It was a great time. When walking by the table of the congratulatory gifts, cards and stuff, I noticed that one of the gifts was a book called “Oh, the S*** You Don’t Know!” by Antonio Carter.

I picked up the book and started to read it and giggled along with all the words of wisdom. It covered a few of the more typical daily life lessons like taxes, work and relationships.  After a good laugh, I put the book down and went back to mingling and catching up with old friends.  As the day went on my mind kept drifting back to the title of the book, “Oh, the S*** You Don’t Know!” The book ended as expected with the life lesson that you are not done learning as long as you are open to it.

The next day was a wet and rainy day.  A good day to stay inside and get caught up on work.  I started to going through some of my unread work emails and got caught up on reading some of the trade magazines that have been piling up on my desk.  One of the articles that caught my eye was in the Funding Source Issue of the Monitor Daily, a trade magazine focused on the equipment finance industry. The article was called “Blockchain:  The Next Big Thing For Equipment Finance?” by Keith B. Letourneau and Stephen T. Whelan.  I had never of heard blockchain or maybe it just wasn’t registering.   I quickly realized that I was a couple years behind the learning curve.  Oh, the stuff I don’t know…. (more…)

April 30, 2018

Don’t “Black Box” Your ROI

In the course of our performing ROI work on behalf of our clients, we often run across financial models produced by other analysts.  Sometimes they are done by our competitors who previously delivered value selling support for our clients.  Sometimes they are done by internal value analysts employed by our clients or by reps who produce cost justifications on their own.

The quality of these ROI deliverables can really vary—occasionally they are pretty good: clear, clean and persuasive. And often they are less successful—they lack credibility or are visually distressing.  Yes, we are triggered by ugly financial models.

We can spend hours talking about best practices in producing and delivering effective ROI analyses to support sales opportunities (and sometimes we do!).  But today I want to focus on one ROI best practice that value selling deliverables like “black box” online calculators lack: transparency.

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