Business System Consultation Center - Our Business System ColumnVol.22 2012.07.01 Takahashi Minoru

The hidden lies behind 'Yes, we can do that' in system proposals

Thank you for your interest and continued support.
This is Takahashi from the Marketing Plan Research Laboratory.


This is a story from when I attended a system planning meeting at a certain company.


The participants were
・The President
・The sales representative proposing the system to that company
・Me
—just the three of us.


I attended the meeting in the role of “the company’s in-house systems engineer,”
and attended the meeting.


In reality, I am not an in-house SE,
I attended at the president’s request to introduce myself as such.


(Actually, I get a lot of requests like this.
This time, they were even kind enough to prepare a business card for me. Haha.)


Why did the president and I team up to do this? The reason is
"When an SE is present, salespeople find it harder to casually say, 'We can do it.'"
.


"If you implement XX, you can do △△!"


If a salesperson were to say something like that,


・What do you consider to be the definition of “possible” or “impossible”?
・Should we assume that we haven’t been able to do this until now? What is your basis for that?
・On a scale of 0 to 100, what score would you give the current situation, and what score do you expect after implementation?
・The process should be: Implementation of XX → "Operation" → Achievement of goals,
What exactly does that “operation” entail?
*Note: Since the specific details of the “implementation” are often presented by the other party without being asked, I usually don’t ask about them.
・Is “implementing XX” the only way to achieve the goal? Do you have any alternative proposals?


…and so on—I bombard the salesperson with a barrage of probing questions.
This drastically reduces the number of meetings required,
and the system selection process becomes much smoother.
You’ll also be able to obtain more competitive quotes within the same evaluation period,
which is also advantageous in terms of implementation costs.


Above all, we’ve received positive feedback that the president’s “hesitation about whether to buy the system or not, and which one to choose” has diminished,
which makes us very happy.


If you’re a business owner who doesn’t have an in-house systems engineer,
why not give us a try?


That's all, Thank you for reading.

------------------------------

■ Previous / Next Column ■

＜＜＜ Next Column Vol.23 - Presidents dismissed by staff with 'The boss doesn't understand PCs' 2012.11.01

＞＞＞ Previous Column Vol.21 - Loss-making companies don't need system investment 2012.06.01

Back to Column List