Showcase Project: RFP Central
Situation:
Vignette’s sales process depended heavily on answering software RFPs (Requests for Proposals) from large enterprise customers. Similar to many companies, the lengthy questionnaires were answered through a tribal email blitz quarterbacked by the Sales Exec repetitively asking each question through emails instead of leveraging a consolidated information source. A packaged RFP repository software implementation had recently failed to address the challenge.
Opportunity:
Conservative estimates of impact by field sales management: 2 additional deals per quarter at $250K per deal. With its shoestring budget, the project projected a 3,300% ROI.
Action:
- Mobilize and charter a cross functional team and analyze the RFP process current state
- Evaluate technology options (Vignette Collaboration fit perfectly)
- Partner with internal field sales Vignette Collaboration experts to configure and code the solution
- Secure 17 representatives to steward function-specific “content franchises”
- Design RFP tracking and management reporting
- Execute rollout and communication plan with just-in-time online training
- Launch application with financial awards for early adoption in order to establish critical mass
RFP Central Launch Email from the Senior Vice President - Worldwide Sales and Distribution:
“Team; earlier in Q3 we launched RFP Central with a single goal in mind: to more efficiently respond to proposals. Every day sales teams were creating new responses to old questions. Excellent work was locked away on individual laptops. We had no way to measure whether or not our efforts were successful. And we had no way to give the Products team anything more than anecdotal data on market trends. RFP Central has been a significant step in the right direction. In the last quarter we captured 60 RFPs; 26 were completed; 13 declined or referred to partners; and the rest are still in play. There are over 500 stock answers to common questions and numerous hand-picked reference proposals. Our CEO himself is taking ownership of producing a high quality Company Overview. We now have a strong initial knowledge base managed by Vignette’s own Collaboration product that will continue to grow in value as we use it.”
Sales Engineering Manager:
“I’d kiss you. So here I am, with a rather complex RFP we got at the last minute. I’m looking at an all-nighter, or at least I thought. But using RFP Central, I’ve already shaved 4 hours off the time this thing is going to take me. If this is any indication of how this thing is going to work, you’ve just driven the most useful project I’ve seen in my Vignette-life. Thank you!”
Sales Account Executives:
“Great tool. Great roll out.”
“Thank you for RFP Central. Want to package it up and sell it?”
“Thanks for putting up the best, most helpful tool in the AE’s toolkit within all of Vignette.”
Field Sales Manager:
“Thanks, ...especially from a Sales Engineer perspective, RFP central has certainly made our lives much easier. The response turnaround times are less and the collection of knowledge available within the RFP central provides a good springboard for learning about our solutions. Also, a big thanks to Mike Leamon for keeping this on course to completion with bulldog persistence.”
Project Example: Global Maintenance Renewals Process
Situation:
Vignette Software’s customers could elect to pay a yearly “Software Maintenance” fee for software upgrades and technical support. The renewals process was reactionary and lacked metrics or global coordination. Multiple projects, including a “Big 6” consulting engagement with a best-of-breed software package had failed to turn the situation around when the “Global Renewals Improvement Project” (GRIP) was mobilized.
Opportunity:
Customers in the “we may or may not renew” category conservatively amounted to a $10 Million annual revenue opportunity. Identifying these "on the fence" renewals early and addressing their concerns would proactively drive maintenance revenues.
Action:
Mike Leamon led the 3000-hour “Global Renewals Improvement Project.” Instead of starting with a software package, the renewals process was studied by observing customer interactions, the way that data was recorded in systems and how transactions were processed. The battle cry which emerged: Notify customers 90 days prior to renewals and design tools which maximize value added contact with customers. A “War Room” was created which revealed the end-to-end design including metrics and reporting which would allow the global renewals landscape to be viewed, managed and rewarded. The war room was taken around the world to gain input from initially resistant regional teams. In the end, it was the hard earned international relationships which helped corporate understand regional requirements, solidified intelligent designs and enabled a successful implementation.
Results:
In 2003, GRIP enabled 4 employees to bring in a $76M revenue stream outperforming the core $73M software license revenue stream supported by over 250 sales staff. Executives testified that the maintenance renewals business kept the company afloat during a slow market for new software sales.
Program Example: Customer Centric Culture
Situation:
AMD’s culture served it well when it was out-maneuvering its much larger competitor Intel. What got AMD "here" (surviving decades of battles with Intel) would not get them "there" (a disciplined change competent customer-centric organization).
Opportunity:
Becoming an operationally excellent organization capable of efficiently extending its business to the multi-billion dollar strategic computing channel (HP and Dell).
Action:
Set a 5 year strategy to “Evolve from a product centric culture to a customer centric culture.” Assign Mike Leamon as a program manager. Mobilize a “Lean Team” of 30+ Change Agent Program Managers to implement Lean. Mike’s Lean Team roles included Engagement Partner for Marketing and Sales as well as coordinating communications and shared services support for the entire program. Mike also managed the development of a workmap-based experiential training workshop to translate customer centricity and Lean Thinking for the average employee.
Results:
The extended team trained thousands of employees, developed a fully documented Lean change management methodology, and the program continues to this day.
Program Example: Business Process Development Methodology
Situation:
Vignette was once the fastest growing software company of all time. It needed to move from a start up to having enough people, process and technology infrastructure to satisfy expectations of large enterprise software customers.
Opportunity:
Turn a discipline adverse young company into process development advocates in order to navigate the consolidation of the software industry.
Action:
Author a process development methodology which fit Vignette’s passion-based culture and 100 mile-an-hour attention span.
Results:
I was able to document an 85% project success rate over 5 years of internal consulting employment with Vignette leveraging the custom-built methodology.