Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Batch: 2015-2017
Date: 13th July, 2016
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The project has been a great learning experience for us. We take this opportunity to
thank our mentor Mr Atul Bhat for his valuable guidance and constant support.
Despite his busy schedule and hectic work load he always managed to address our
concerns and provide timely guidance. We would like to express our gratitude to
Gartner India Research & Advisory Services Pvt Ltd for giving us this opportunity and
showing the confidence in us to achieve the desired results.
We owe profound gratitude to the entire Gartner team for their valued co-operation
and assistance.
We would also like to thank the TAPMI faculty for their continuous support and
counsel throughout the course of the project.
During the project we interacted with various Industry corporates. We would like to
thank each and every one of them for their time and giving the required
information.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pathway to gold
Gartner
DATE: 20th June, 2016
Company Background
Gartner is the world's leading information technology research and advisory
company. They deliver technology-related insight necessary for their clients to make
the right decisions, every day. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner
Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, they work with every
client to research, analyse and interpret the business of IT within the context of their
individual role.
Objective
The main objective of the project was to understand the wide range of services that
Gartner provides to its clients and align these services to the mission critical priorities
of the prospective clients.
To comprehend the plethora of services, we had received training for a week,
attended Gartner analyst one on one, participated in webinars and were a part of the
knowledge sharing sessions. Eventually we were incorporated into the sales team,
where we were placed as Business development coordinators.
Procedure
The first phase of the project was to discover contacts corresponding to a particular
location or a vertical through various sites example: Zoominfo.com, linkedin.com,
company website and orgbase (Gartner website) and acquire complete information
about them. Then the project required us to make a sales pitch to these contacts and
generate warm leads for Gartner. The sales pitch involved a 5 touch standardised
process called Five Touch Campaign which includes (initial mail, follow up mail, cold
call, connecting with the client on LinkedIn) in order to set up telephonic conversation
with the CEO to understand the mission critical priority of the client. Accordingly a
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value proposition was sent to the client to explain the benefits of a partnership with
Gartner. The next steps of the sales process is outlined by The Pathway to gold
The Pathway to gold was sales process that McKinsey designed for Gartner. This
process involved 8 steps:
These steps had to be followed meticulously over the period of the internship.
Key Understanding
We need to collect data about a prospective client in a very vast and efficient
way.
The initial mail that we sent to the CXOs should be appealing.
We should be very confident and innovative in reaching the CXOs in order to
Conclusion
Sales in Gartner is one of the best sales that one can do since it allows you to
business.
Five touch campaign is not necessarily to be followed in the same sequence.
Working with the clients which are working in niche technology domains, one
gets the hang of all the new technologies which are in the market.
LIST OF ABBREVATIONS
MCP
TBVA
CV
NCVI
VMD
SMB
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................ 1
1.1 Introduction of Gartner.........................................................................1
1.2 Business Model.................................................................................... 1
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them to perceive their business landscape more clearly. They get the information
they need, in the context necessary to make both large-scale and everyday decisions
with confidence for their enterprise.
A truly global (and local) perspective, with employee strength of above 7600
Fig 1.2a
Main competitors of Gartner are Forrester, Yankee Group, International Data Group
(IDG). This is a very competitive landscape since the CEOs around the world are
now realising the importance of IT in their business hence there is lot of demand for
consulting.
Organization
Revenue
Gartner Inc.
Forrester
IDC
Clearly Gartner is the market leader in IT consulting, advisory domain. This is mainly
possible because of the high credibility of Gartner analysts.
80% of the Fortune 500 use Gartner for their key technology initiatives. Gartner is in
steady contact with 60,000 clients, representing 10,000 distinct organizations
worldwide.
Fig1.3a
Gartner has divided its client base into two broad categories: End Users
(technology users) and High Tech Telecom Providers (HTTP) are the
technology providers.
Gartners 70% business is drawn from End Users and 25% business is drawn
from the HTTP.
For EU IT Orgs put CIO at top
For HT Orgs put CEO at top.
Common Problems of End Users
o Concerned about making the wrong vendor or technology selection
o Lacking objective/fact-based best practices around
o creating IT strategic plans
o negotiating pricing & terms with vendors
o implementing technology
o Unsure how their IT organization's structure, operations and
o
o
o
Extend Resource: Gartner Analysts work closely with the End Users to
o
o
target/prioritize
Don't fully understand their competitors' strategies
Lack of insight around customers' and prospects' perceptions, which
Banking
and
Investment
Services
Education
Energy and
utilities
Governmen
t and public
sector
Healthcare
Insurance
Media
Retail
Manufacturi
ng
Fig1.5.1a
Gartner Critical Capabilities
Gain deeper insight and a broader perspective into vendor products and services.
Fig1.5.1b
Fig1.5.1c
Gartner IT Market Clock
A Gartner IT Market Clock is a decision framework that helps you evaluate and
prioritize IT investments.
Fig1.5.1d
Gartner Toolkits
Actionable research that clients customize for their individual business needs
Save time, improve your execution, and make better decisions through a set of
tactical resources and frameworks.
Fig1.5.1e
Fig1.5.1f
Gartner ITScore
Gartner ITScore helps you quantify the maturity of both the IT organization (as a
provider of technology) and the enterprise (as a consumer of technology).
Fig1.5.1g
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Fig1.5.1h
Gartner Key Metrics Data
Gartner IT Key Metrics Data series provides insight into the latest industry trends to
help enterprises change, make fact-based decisions and help answer key questions.
Fig1.5.1i
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The pool of 1100 plus analysts with an average experience of 1th helps the business
leaders to understand the technology and market landscape, the GOTO market
strategy and how the Gartner reports can be leveraged upon.
1.5.2 Gartner Events
This is one of the most productive ways of bringing new business and maintaining
good reputation with the repeat customers. Clients and prospective clients come to
these event to understand the new technology and market landscape, network with
their prospective clients and understand what their peers are up to. They also get to
have one on one interaction with one of the analysts of their choice. Plenty of
technology related case studies and sessions are also held during these events.
These events equips CIOs and senior technology executives with the tools and
insights they need to deliver exceptional business results for their organizations and
develop themselves as successful business leaders.
1.5.3 Gartner Consulting
The pool of 1100 plus analysts with an average experience of 1th helps the business
leaders to understand the technology and market landscape, the GOTO market
strategy and how the Gartner reports can be leveraged upon.
Fig1.4a
Engage Seatholders
Ask at 90
Gaining trust with C-level people to be able to grow account and maintain
relationships
Resources: Activity Prep Calls and Vertical excellence Communities.
Conviction: a strong belief in what Gartner does, can affect the client and give
them the confidence to trust us.
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State from the top down (C-level down) to align the way out clients work with
Prospecting, leading and adding; spending time to prospect the client, leading
to more to meetings with the clients and in the end you will add more
Make sure the client understand and follows the rules (terms and
conditions).This builds trust with communication and make sure that the
growth isn't lost.
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2. PROJECT OBJECTIVES
Demonstrate the proper use of Value Selling in qualifying, managing, and closing
opportunities.
Act as the link between CXO's/ Executives and our analyst community and help
our clients understand their agenda, competitive landscape, technology roadmap
and the future of their marketplace.
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3. SCOPE
We were a part of Team Gladiator which catered to HTTP clients. The target
enterprise segment for this team was Small and Medium Business (SMBs). The
revenue of these organizations was anything less than $50 million USD with
employee strength of less than 2000. My team worked with clients from Hyderabad,
Pune, Mumbai and Chennai.
Sales at Gartner consists of the following functions:-
Fig 3a
Our scope was limited to Sales support where we worked on Territory white spacing,
cold calling, discovery calls and working on value proposition.
In the principles of Pathway to Gold we had to work on Drive High Activity
Framework.
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Fig3b
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4. PROCEDURE
Fig 4.1a
Fig 4.1a shows the pre calling part of Gartner Sales.
Understanding Territory is the approach to understand and prioritize the territory.
There was a set procedure to be followed while Territory white spacing.
We were given the task to find out prospective clients from Hyderabad, Pune,
Mumbai and Ahmedabad. We created a list of companies by searching or
companies on Web which are based out of cities which are assigned to us
Address.
Through OrgBase we checked whether the company is already a Gartner
client or not.
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ZoomInfo: This website contains high quality company and contact database.
We used it to know the company revenue (round about) and employee
strength. Most importantly this website contains contact information of
Director/Managers/CXOs of an organization. The disadvantage of ZoomInfo
is- most of the times the contact information is not available or if available, the
information isnt full proof.
Fig 4.1b
LinkedIn: Professional social networking site. Searchable database of selfmaintained Senior IT Leaders and Business Executives. This is used to
validate information which is available on ZoomInfo. This is an excellent tool
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
notch of an organization.
Information collected from all these sources were captured in an excel sheet
in a specific format.
Fig 4.1c
4.2 Understand Gartner Offerings
Next step in the sales cycle was to align Gartner offerings to the priorities of
prospective clients.
While going through the prospective clients company website, we always
looked for the core business of that enterprise and tried to align Gartner
Fig 4.2a
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4.3 BASHO
After collecting information about the organizations and aligning Gartners offerings to
the company we were all set to draft an email to the concerned person in the
organization.
The top executives of any organization do not have a lot of time to go through each
email in their inbox. They generally go through the email if they find the subject of the
email is relevant to them. For that matter the subject line should be crisp, informative
and compelling at the same time. We personally followed my own template which
was based on Sandwich approach. This was particularly done in order to grab
attention of the top executives in the company and increase the probability of
receiving a reply. We went through the social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn and saw what my prospective clients are talking about predominantly in the
field of Information Technology. We did this to understand their outlook towards
technology and what new things they are talking about, so that we can align Gartner
resources to them as per their liking.
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Fig 4.3a
Following observations were made while working on creating BASHOs.
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Fig 4,3b
Fig 4.3c shows a sample mail on which we used to build upon depending upon our
customers. It also shows the touch points that we need to concentrate.
Fig 4.3c
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In a sales and marketing environment, usually you are asking for attention, time,
a response, information, etc. from people who don't owe you anything. Usually,
they are more senior than you, busier, and better paid. This is where reminder
mails come into picture.
Reminder mail comes with a problem. No matter how much you sugar-coated it
with niceties, you are pointing out that your recipient didn't do what he/she was
supposed to do. So the first thing they feel after opening your email is a strong
negative emotion. Now you, your product, and your company are in the same
mental emotional box. You don't want to be in that box.
Jump straight to the point: Without playing with the words, we should
come straight to the business by giving reference of the mail which was
sent earlier.
Watch the wording carefully because e-mail has no tone and words can be
Hi XYZ,
Couple of weeks ago <<time when the last mail was sent>> I had sent you an email
asking for a discussion with Gartner. You may not have had a chance to look at it yet,
so I apologize if my timing isn't right, but it would be great if you could find some time
to review my note and schedule a time where we could come on a call and discuss it
further.
Thanks and Regards
Ashish
Fig 4.4.a
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Fig 4.5a
reach a decision.
Connecting with the prospect makes him realise that We belong to
Gartner. Gartner being extremely strong on social media will leave an
indelible and an optimistic mark in the minds of the prospect.
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Cold
Calling
L1:
Discover
y Call
L2:
Solution
Call
Fig 4.6a
Cold calling typically refers to the first telephone call made to a prospective
customer. Cold calling is an important stage and technique in the selling
process.
Cold calling is traditionally the most challenging part of the selling process.
Moreover, for most sales people cold calling is becoming increasingly difficult
- because the prospective customer's time is increasingly pressurised and
therefore increasingly protected, and so cold calling sales people are
increasingly resisted.
Consequently the sales person feels extra pressures, not helped by scripted
or contrived language, or an over-zealous sales management or system,
which understandably creates a feeling in the prospect of being pushed or
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Make them the power: We asked them could you help me out-who should be
the right person who can connect me to Mr XYZ. At times we asked them to
connect me to somebody from the HR department or the Marketing
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Pitch to the right person. The person who can decide about using your
product or service is the person who should hear your pitch. Knowing the role
of the person whom we am talking to We can find out who makes the
decisions in the company.
Making a strong introduction: Our audience receive a lot of sales call every
day. We need to make that our call should not sound like a normal sales
pitch. For that we need to make a cheerful and confident introduction which
involves greeting our audience and telling about you. For example: Hello MR
XYZ, thank you for taking my call. How are you doing? Instead of Is it a good
time to talk.
Fig 4.6a
Know your product or service well: Before you even start crafting your pitch,
make sure you know all the facets of your product or service and how it can
be useful to a range of customers. What are the common problems that your
clients encounter, and how do you resolve these problems?
I prepared a document which is based on my understanding about Gartner.
We used this document to make our clients understand about Gartner.
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Fig 4.6b
Avoid giving a canned pitch: A canned pitch is one that is generic and does
not take into account the customer. Instead, make your conversation unique
and tailored to your audience.
Same principle was also used while writing BASHO. An enterprise which
expertise in Business Intelligence will not be interested in knowing about
semiconductors. That is why our pitch has to be very specific to the area of
their expertise.
Use simple language. Strive to be clear and easy to understand. Take out
jargon from your conversation, unless its standard in your industry to use
certain terminology. Dont assume that your buyer will automatically know
what youre talking about, so using simple language is best.
Know how much time youve got for the pitch. We usually told customers It
will hardly take few moments of your time and then you can get back to your
busy schedule. Normally these people dont have a lot of time on their hands
so making it certain to them that you wont take a lot of time will also keep
them interested.
Keep it short. Be able to get the most important points across in the first
minute. After this point, buyers might start to lose interest if they have already
decided against your product. Your pitch will likely last much longer than 60
seconds. Make sure you build in the most important points
immediately. These include:
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The name of your company (or your name if you are working as an
individual)
The Whats In It For Me aspect: tell your buyer what they will gain by
buying your product.
Describe how your customer will benefit. Sometimes during cold calling
customers can ask what is in it for them. For these situations we need to keep
answer ready which cater to his critical priorities. This is one of the key factors
in a good sales pitch. Your customer isnt always interested in how big your
firm is or what sort of customer base it has. They want to know how your
product or service will improve their business and make their life easier.
Question
Answer
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connect.
interested in me.
Make an appointment with your customer. Once youve identified the most
appropriate person to listen to your pitch, schedule an appointment with them.
Find out when it is most convenient for them. Check your calendar for your
availability at a particular time and ask your audience if he is available at the
same time.
Send them a meeting invite and the agenda of the meeting: Once you have
identified the time slot tell your audience that you will be sending the meeting
invite and the agenda of the meeting right away. This will ensure that you
have your time booked.
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Oh Great, We surely think we have things in common, We would like to know more
about your business, strategies, and challenges. What can be the best 30min to talk
to you?
Will Thursday 2:00 PM work for you.
Template for Calendar Invite
<<Mention the time of the meeting>>
Hi <<Name>>,
It was a pleasure speaking with you today. Further to our discussion please
find below the agenda for our meeting.
Agenda:
Do let me know if there is anything you would like to add or change in the
agenda.
To join the conference please dial in on our toll free number <<Toll Free
Number>>. Following this use the conference code: <<Conference Code>>.
We will also be joined on the call by my colleague, <<Name of your
Colleague>>.
Looking forward to connecting with you.
Regards
Maintaining a Tracker
Fig 4.6c shows a tracker shows the Company Name, the account executive who is
tagged to this company, BASHO, L1 status, date on which they were set up, Any
Information about the present status of the sales pipeline with respect to the
company.
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Fig 4.6c
Research the people you will be calling ahead of time. You need to know
more than just how the company works learn who the decision-makers are,
how long they have been with the company and what they like to do. This will
help you create a bond with them and understand how to better help them.
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Introduce yourself to the client. Although you have already spoken to this
client before, but that way only during the cold call. They do not know a lot
about you. Tell them about your role in the organization and the kind of
cliental you have. This will make him feel comfortable and it is obviously a
good ice breaker.
Listen more than you talk. Your prospects will give you many of the
answers you are looking for if you let them do the talking.
Evaluate the MCP they have rather than selling features. The prospect is
interested in a solution, not a product. Identify a problem or pain that is
plaguing them and show, in detail, how your product/ services can solve it.
Schedule the next meeting with your prospect. Once you have sparked their
interest, dont let them get away. Stay focused and move them down your
sales funnel into the next selling stage start planning for the next step as
soon as you can.
Value Selling
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Value added selling is one of several sales techniques that rely on building on the
inherent value of a product or service. By its nature the value add technique is a
more flexible and customized selling approach that requires input from a defined
range of average customers.
Value
Power
Understanding of and access to the actual decision maker person who can
say yes or no to the decision.
Plan
The steps necessary to evaluate, close the sale, and implement the Solution
in order to resolve the Business Issue.
Value Prompter
Sales organizations have come to rely on the ValuePrompter as an integral tool for
sales professionals to qualify prospects, manage the details of their opportunities,
accurately forecast and close more deals. It synchronizes the overall vision and
methodology on how to conduct a successful sale. Fig 4.7a shows a value prompter.
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Fig 4.7a
Corporate Objective
Business Issue
objective(s)
A high level impediment to contributing to top or bottom line; often stated in
financial terms
Often the most important metric for individuals success
Needs to have a struggle associated with it
Four most common Business Issues:
o Increased revenue or market share
o Increased efficiencies, productivity or cost management
o Quality/reliability
o Security/government/regulatory compliance
Anxiety Question
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Aimed at getting buyer to momentarily experience what their world will be like
product or service
Should create an emotional impact or an emotional response buyer: tune into
their motivation, their Whats In It-For Me!
Problem
Solution
The buyers view of the capabilities that will enable them to resolve their
Business Issue
Need, want, what were looking for
Value
Power
Plan
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Fig 4.7b shows the pathway to be followed during the discovery call. We start with
identifying the business issue then the problems and then give our solutions which
are aligned with both the problem and the business issue.
Fig 4.7b
Type of Questions:
Open-ended Questions:
Probing Questions
Raise issues that did not surface on their own. Used to differentiate and
create need for your products and services. Used to grow prospects/clients
perception of the value they will receive with our solution. Almost always
Confirming Questions
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Table 4.7a
Concerned about innovating new products to meet market needs and drive
target/prioritize
Don't fully understand their competitors' strategies.
Lack of insight around customers' and prospects' perceptions, which hampers
Uncovering Value
Components of Value
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Busine
ss
Value
Valu
e
Person
al
Value
Fig 4.7b
BV = Business Value (ROI and cost justification)
PV = Personal Value (WII-FM)
You can make a sale if you:
Satisfy PV and BV or
Satisfy PV and BV is not fully defined.
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43
5. ANALYSIS
During the course of six weeks of on the floor working, we have worked on 52
organizations.
Number of BASHOs sent: 24
Number of L1 Setup: 17
Success Ratio: 70.83%
Fig 5a shows the activities done in the sales cycle.
Fig 5a
LinkedIn Mail
Cold Calling
29%
13%
Reminder Mails
No Result
8% 4%
46%
Fig 5b
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Based on L1s setup for 24 organizations, Fig 5.3 shows the number of companies
working in the following technologies.
#Organizations
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Fig 5.3
Based on prospecting of 52 organizations, Fig 5.4 shows the number of companies
belonging to the following regions.
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10
8
6
4
2
0
Hyderabad
Pune
Chennai
Mumbai
Indore
Bhopal
Fig 5.4
Since our target segment was SMB, Fig 5.5 clearly suggests the employee strength
in these SMBs is predominantly between 50 to 250 employees.
Employee Strength
Fig 5.5
Fig 5.6 shows the years in which these organizations were founded.
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#Organizations founded
in the following years
2
1
0
Fig 5.6
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6. LIMITATIONS
The training period was 50 days because of which we couldnt touch base the
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7. CONCLUSION
Sales in Gartner allows you to pitch to the top notch of the company. For the
HTTP side we had to pitch to the CEO of IT vendors and for the end user side
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8. APPENDIX
E mail snapshot in fig is an example of TBVA build with Cheryl Dcosta (Assistant) to
Mr Sanjiv Tandon (MD Melstar Information Technology) of one the prospective client.
Fig 8.1
Fig 8.2 shows the reminder mail sent to Mr SenthilKumar Kandasamy (CFO,
Excelacom) and Fig8.3 shows the reply from Mr SenthilKumar on the reminder mail.
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Fig 8.2
Fig 8.3
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9. REFERENCES
http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp
http://www.gartner.com/technology/consulting/
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research.jsp
http://www.gartner.com/technology/analysts.jsp
https://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/intranet/
https://quizlet.com/41075708/pathway-to-gold-flash-cards/
http://www.zoominfo.com/
http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/knowledge-base/
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