Partnering on the Web for sales channel success
Using Web conferencing, three top vendors got together and created a new innovative way to educate their sales forces about a new co-marketed product.
The need: educate sales and marketing staffs for Lawson Software, IBM and Lotus -- all of whom will jointly develop and market Lawson's new Insight 2.0, a transaction-based ERP system tightly integrated with IBM and Lotus products, primarily Domino databases.
"We needed something that could almost replace face-to-face conversation," said Randy Washington, Lotus strategic alliance manager representing Lawson, but do so more efficiently and with a consistent message.
Rather than going one on one to the many sales offices, the three vendors decided to coach their sales teams using Web-based conferencing. Since the beginning of the year, the three vendors have been conducting bi-weekly training sessions using Web conferencing software from Envoy Global Inc., the host of the live Web event at the KM Leadership Summit this past July.
Envoy acts as the host of the training sessions for Lawson's Insight, which became available at the end of last month. These sessions will run monthly from May through the end of the year; starting in August, customers and potential customers will be invited to participate. Once established, the monthly seminars will continue to offer product updates, tips, and support.
Aside from saving time and money from transporting "experts" to coach sales teams on the new product, the three vendors have eliminated the need to create and distribute materials like CDs and hard copy, according to Washington.
Additionally, Envoy's Web-conferencing system allows people to electronically ask questions in real-time, which can be recorded and reviewed for evaluating each presentation's effectiveness.
More importantly, the vendors can send a single consistent message to as many people as they need -- 150-200 per call, all from different locations, is average so far -- allowing all sales personnel to hear from the same experts.
One potential problem was that being able to meet face to face would have allowed sales staff from the different groups to get to know one another. "We anticipated that and rented rooms across North America in our biggest sales force centers so that groups could log on to the seminar together in order to foster collaboration," said Sheila Zinck, IBM e-business marketing representative.
Even though Lotus has used similar approaches to some internal training, the vendors are excited by this collaborative event because it goes beyond corporate walls and incorporates the people and culture of three companies.
"It's a real-time solution where you can interact and talk with people who are really doing this," said Zinck. "I don't think we could have done this any other way.