A MAJOR-PROJECT REPORT

ON
“Life cycle of a deal with Account Based Marketing”

Submitted
to
KIIT DEEMED TO BE UNIVERSITY

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Award

of
BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
BY
PRATIK GHOSH 1603219

UNDER THE GUIDANCE

OF
PROF. SUBRAT BEHERA
SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
KALINGA INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY
DEEMED TO BE UNIVERSITY
BHUBANESWAR, ODISHA - 751024
 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the project entitled “Life cycle of a deal with Account Based Marketing” submitted by
PRATIK GHOSH 1603219 is a record of bonafide work carried out by them, in the partial fulfillment of the
requirement for the award of Degree of Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical Engineering) at KIIT Deemed to-be
UNIVERSITY, Bhubaneswar. This work is done during year 2019-2020, under our guidance. The matter
embodied in this project is original and has not been submitted for the award of any other degree.

Date: 28/03/2020

(Sarvesh Singh) (Prof. Subrat Behera)

Manager- ABM Project Guide

HighRadius Corporations School of Electrical Engineering

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 Acknowledgement
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my sources of aspiration during the course of the
internship.

First and foremost, I express my deepest gratitude towards my mentor at KIIT Bhubaneswar, and
Prof. Subrat Behera for their valuable suggestions, insightful criticisms, and directions throughout. I
am grateful to Mr. Sarvesh Singh who gave an opportunity to work on projects at HighRadius
Corporation and for their continuous support during the internship and for their patience, motivation
and immense knowledge. They helped us and guided us throughout the internship and development.

I hereby take the privilege to express my gratitude to all the people who directly or indirectly
involved in the execution of this work without whom this project would not have been a success.

I am also thankful to my seniors and team leads for their valuable guidance, support, and
cooperation extended by them. Then I would like to thank my project team members for their kind
cooperation, help and never-ending support. I am also thankful to KIIT Bhubaneswar for providing
me technical skills and facilities which proved to be very useful for our project.

PRATIK GHOSH 1603219

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract.................................................................................................................................5

Lifecycle of a deal................................................................................................................. 7

Top 5 Accounts

Client 1

About the client...................................................................................................................... 12

Client’s Needs and Pain points...............................................................................................12

Stages in ABM and Sales Process..........................................................................................12

Strategy and Action Plan........................................................................................................13

Client 2

About the client...................................................................................................................... 15

Client’s Needs and Pain points...............................................................................................15

Stages in ABM and Sales Process..........................................................................................16

Client 3

About the client...................................................................................................................... 17

Client’s Needs and Pain points...............................................................................................17

Stages in ABM and Sales Process..........................................................................................18

Strategy and Action Plan........................................................................................................18

Client 4

About the client 19

Client’s Needs and Pain points 19

Stages in ABM and Sales Process..........................................................................................20

Strategy and Action Plan........................................................................................................20

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Client 5

About the client...................................................................................................................... 21

Client’s Needs and Pain points...............................................................................................21

Stages in ABM and Sales Process.......................................................................................... 22

My Learnings 23

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 ABSTRACT
Order to Cash, also known as O2C or OTC, refers to the set of business processes for
receiving and processing customer sales orders for goods and services and their payment. These
processes are at the heart of all businesses and unless they are managed efficiently and accurately,
organizations would not only face financial problems, but also reputational issues. Every
department in a given company is affected either directly or indirectly by the Order to Cash
system.

Steps of the Order to Cash Cycle

1. The cycle begins with the system receiving orders from the customer. This could be via
email, Internet, sales person, fax or by some form of Electronic Data Interchange. In
some businesses, the order could be a simple purchase request for a particular product,
while in other service oriented or wholesale businesses, the customer and the company
would enter into a long-term or short-term contract.
2. The company might even conduct a credit review of the customer before accepting the
order, especially if they have plans of offering the customer deferred payment options.
3. The order is documented and the company begins the task of fulfilling the order.
4. Once the product has been shipped and delivered, or the service has been fulfilled, the
most important stage of the cycle begins with regard to cash management. The invoice is
created and sent to the customer for payment.
5. After the customer has made the payment, the accountants note the entry in the general
ledger or in case an ERP is used to maintain data, then those invoices get cleared off.

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In an ideal world, this would be the simple chain that ensures that the customer gets his product
and the company gets their payment. However, there are always glitches in every system, and
unless companies deal with them quickly, they could hamper the smooth flow of business and
profitability.

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 Lifecycle of a deal

Any deal starts with marketing team generating the lead. There is a clear transitioning between
the stage when the deal transfers from the realm of marketing into the realm of sales.

Account Based Marketing team falls somewhere between the Marketing and the Sales
team with the focus to generate Sales Qualified Leads (SQL).

Deep Dive into Account Based Marketing:

Account Research

As the name suggests this consists of task which include a through research on the prospect:

1. Contact Map: A detailed list of all the employees of the particular organization related
to the finance department. This list is made followed by an exhaustive research through
LinkedIn using relative relative keywords.
2. Interaction History: This sheet has information about any previous interactions with the
prospect alongwith self explanatory notes.This has details of communication alongwith

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 details of people involved both from the client’s side as well as HRC. This is created by
referring the OPIUM and Salesforce data as well as discussing with the AE’s and SP’s
involved.
3. Power players: Based on all the individuals we have in the contact map, assuming their
level of influence and authority in decision making we identify the power players. These
are the people who would have the major authority when it comes to buying out solution.
4. Org Hierarchy: The Organization Hierarchy is a flow diagram of the prospect’s
organization consisting of people form the contact map constructed on a basis of who
reports to whom. All the power players should be included in the org hierarchy.
5. AR Centers: A lot companies have have their AR Centers located in a different country
other than the location of their headquarters. It is suggested to look for the location of the
AR centers while doing the account research so that we can create a pitch for the prospect
accordingly
6. Systems: This includes the details of all the ERP system which the prospect uses. This
will make it easy for us to pitch our solution to them.

ABM Campaigns

The lead generation can be of two types:

1. Inbound leads
Inbound leads come to you. These are the individuals who come to your website, sign
up for the services you put on your landing pages and blog, sign up for a trial or a demo. They
find you and decide they want to interact with your service, and/or product.

2. Outbound leads
Outbound leads are the ones you reach out to, usually via cold call, social media, cold
email, or on the phone. They don’t know you yet, they haven’t seen your website, blog, or other
services. They haven’t signed up for a trial or a demo. You find them and try to encourage them
to interact with your content, and use your product or service.
Once the account research is over we start with our outreach campaigns. We send out the
first correspondence to our prospect via email/ LinkedIn message. Follow Up and track the
response to the email. The EFTA team, then follows up with the potential customer to get them
on a call. If the customer agrees, then an introductory/discovery call is set up.

Pre-Discovery Discussions

The entire team for the account, consisting of an Inside Sales Executive, an Account
Executive and a Solution Principal discuss about the account a few days prior to the discovery
call. The basis of the discussions is the communication that the ISE had with the customer till
now. Also we try to find what might be potential pain points of the customer depending upon

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the industry.The Solution Principal also prepares a pre-discovery document, which captures all
the information about that potential customer.

Discovery Call

On the discovery call, we understand the customer’s pain points and identify the
goldmine, i.e. the area which provides maximum value. We then perform sizing of the wallet to
gauge how much the customer is spending currently on that activity. Generally, the next step of
a discovery call is to set up a demonstration of the solution that the customer is interested in.
Prior to the demonstration call we ask our customers a wish list of their requirement. This helps
us to tailor the demonstration call according to customer’s need rather than giving a vanilla
demo.Many a times, prior to the call, we also send a questionnaire to be filled. This gives us a
heads up in knowing in depth about their processes.

Demonstration Call

In this call, we try to show those scenarios from our solution that corresponds to the
challenges that the customer is facing. A tailored demonstration is always the best way to get the

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customer engaged. We keep the demonstration conversational rather than one-way pitch so that
the customer feels at ease and opens up.

Business Case preparation and ROI modelling

After the demonstration calls, the next step is to prepare a business case for our
customers. This helps them to present the business case internally and get approval for the
project and helps it in being justified. An important part of the business case is the Return on
Investment (ROI) of the project.
So rather than just selling the product, we adopt a consultative approach to help our
customers in the best possible way.

Identification of Stakeholders of the deal

During the course of our discussion with customer, we identify the key stakeholders of
the deal. According to Miller Heiman, there are different personalities in a B2B space that have
a key say in making a decision. Also, as a part of our Strategy, Action and Planning, we closely
monitor the personality type of different stakeholders, so as to make the deal conducive to them.

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Negotiations

If the customer is not sold on pricing, then a negotiation phase starts where we try to
satisfy the want of the customer without sacrificing a lot on our side. Discounts play a handy
role in it. It usually takes a lot of back and forth, but once this is done, the deal is moved to
contract stage.

Contracts

In this phase, we prepare the Order Form, a Master Service Agreement and a Statement
of Work for the customer. We first need to get these documents internally approved and then
send it to customer. If the customer doesn’t agree with some terms and conditions, then we get
“redlines” which we need to resolve internally before the final document is sent to the customer.
This usually takes a lot of back and forth. Once, this is done the contracts are signed and the
deal is closed.

“The average sales lifecycle is about 4-6 months because of the complexities involved in
B2B scenarios of billion-dollar companies.”

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Client 1
About the company

My Client 1 is a packaging products and systems company which supplies retailers and
manufacturers based in Montreal and Sarasota, Florida, with 17 locations, 12 manufacturing
locations in North America and one in Europe, and 2000 employees.

Revenue: $ 809 million USD

Needs/ Pain points

We were in conversations with them since 2017, however the dialogues never took off. Then
they came back in January 2018, with the need to automate their Claims and Deductions Process.

Stages in Sales Process

Discovery call

We started our initial discussions with an introductory call with VP Finance, John (name
changed) and his team. Our main motive was to understand their challenges and identify which
parts of our Integrated Receivables suite would be beneficial in resolving it. During the course
of our discussions, we got to know that due to business growing at a healthy rate, they faced
challenges in handling their claims and deductions process. In addition to that, all their current
claims related activities was done manually making it very cumbersome to handle largevolumes.

In order to address this, we presented our Claims and POD automation Cloud and
Deductions Management Cloud as a solution and gave overview for the same.

The next step in the process was to gather their specific pain points in the claims process
and then setup a tailored demonstration to address the same.

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Solution Demonstration

Claims and POD Automation(CPA) Cloud, Deductions Management Cloud

The call was scheduled for 1 hour. In this call, we gave a detailed demonstration of the
functionalities of CPA and Deductions Cloud. The mantra that we followed was to let the client
speak as much as possible so that we can better understand his needs and wants. During the
course of our discussion we identified areas which were of most importance to the client. John
informed us that they would be preparing a Business Requirement Document and would be
evaluating multiple vendors as well. As a feedback, he told that our Deductions Cloud looked
pretty impressive and matches with their needs and requirements.

The next Step in the process was to have a call to understand their more specific
requirements.

Call to understand typical challenges

The purpose of this call was to identify the typical challenges that they currently face in
their claims process. For this call we also roped in our Product Manager. John also brought
along his entire team and then we discussed their challenges like Return Merchandize
Authorization(RMA) and proposed ways to solve it.
The call went well with them asking us to provide with some documents as to how we
have helped our other clients streamline their deductions process. They would then prepare the
Business Requirement Document(BRD) and would involve us then.

Strategy
Based on our previous interaction John had set the expectation that they would be
reaching out to us in a couple of months and then involve us in their BRD process. However,
based on our experience we have seen that in such situations the balance tilts away from us due
to a large gap between interactions. As a result , we stand a chance of losing the deal. So we had
to find ways to keep them engaged.

Now was the time to execute the Strategies.

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Strategy 1 : To bring them on a call and invest time into our solutions.
Action : We wrote an email to John proposing a demo for the recent AI version of Deductions
and Collections Cloud.
Result : John replied by saying he is open to the invitation and asked us to set up a time.
We scheduled the time for the demo. It went well and they were super impressed with the
functionality and robust nature of our solutions. He said that he is also willing to explore other
solutions that we offer. This opened up a new avenue for discussions and we were quick to
propose a demo of the Integrated Receivables suite, which they accepted.

Strategy 2 : Entice them to evaluate multiple products as opposed to only Deductions Cloud.
Action : We prepared a customized presentation to cater to specifically their needs
Result : We did the demo of Integrated Receivables and they identified Cash Application and
Credit Cloud as areas of their interest.

Strategy 3 : Show the value of our Cash Application Solution.

Action : We gave the demo of our cash application solution and answered their questions during
the course of it.
Result : We got to know that Cash Application was one area that they have been evaluating for
quite a long time and haven’t been able to come up with the decision. Also, we got to know that
their bank has been pushing its cash application solution.

Current Scenario : Demo of Credit Cloud and then send them HighRadius manufactured BRD
document for them , so as to influence their original BRD document.

I got to learn immensely from this deal as at one point of time we were pitching only
Deductions and from there we influenced them to evaluate multiple products.

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Client 2

About the company

My Client 2 is a North American construction and industrial equipment rental division trades in
the United States and Canada with 701 stores. Their principal market is the US non-residential
construction market but it rents a full range of construction and industrial equipment across a
wide variety of applications to a diverse customer base.

Revenue : $ 4.7 billion USD

Needs/Pain Points

Client 2 came as a reference from one of our existing partners. They were in dire need of a
payments processing solution in Canada. They had planned to implement it in 2017 but due to
certain reasons were unable to do so, hence were in immediate need to do so in early 2018.

Stages in Sales Process

Discovery Call

We had our first call with Mike(name changed), who informed us about their need to
have a payments processing solution. He told that they had operations in two countries: US and
Canada. For US, they have already built their own portal to host invoices. However, it is Canada
where they were not able to build a payments solution. We assured them that it is something that
we do day in and day out, to which he replied that he already had talks with multiple vendors but
none of them were able to do it.

Demonstration Call: Payments Cloud

Mike, who hails from a Treasury background, was spearheading this project. We gave the
demo for our Payments Cloud. He was happy with our approach and functionalities. The next
step decided was to prepare contracts. He also expressed desire to look into Cash Application
cloud, given his Treasury background and relationships with bank.

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Contracts preparation

We prepared the contracts for the client. However, due to some internal issues, he mentioned that
it would take a bit longer to approve this project. In the meantime, we also gave the demo for our
cash application cloud and showed all the areas where we can help them achieve savings.

Current Scenario : Contracts for Payments Cloud- Canada is due to be signed in Q2, with
further Discussions on Payments Cloud for US and Cash Application piece to follow in due
course.

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Client 3

About the company

My Client 3 is a Tampa, Florida-based trucking and chemical transportation business. They

operate three segments - Chemical Logistics, Intermodal, and Energy Logistics - through a
number of wholly owned subsidiary companies. Chemical Logistics includes liquid and dry
bulk chemicals, and bulk dry and liquid food-grade products. Intermodal includes ISO tank
container transportation, depot services, tank cleaning, heating, testing, maintenance, and
storage services. Energy Logistics provide logistics and transportation services of crude oil,
fresh water and production fluids to unconventional oil and gas (“UCO&G”) markets.

Revenue : $ 990 million USD

Needs/Pain Points

My client was facing challenges in allocating and managing their cash. Hence, they had an
immediate need of a cash application solution.

Stages in sales process

Discovery call

A 5 member client’s team came for the discovery call and talked about the challenges
being faced by them on the cash application front. We focused specifically on that part and hence
a demonstration of our Cash Application Cloud was set up as a next step. But before the call we
sent them a questionnaire to be filled, so that we had better idea of the scale of operations.

Demonstration Call: Cash Application Cloud

A wider audience came onto the call ranging from Managers to the CFO. This was a
positive sign because it meant that we had visibility at the executive levels of the organization as
well. We were asked to give a vanilla demo as they were familiar with the automation process
and had been evaluating other vendors as well. They were impressed by our tool’s functionality.
They asked for price to be sent to them rather than coming on a call. We made a presentation

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with the pricing in it as well as competitor differentiation, in order to influence them in case of
apples-to-apples comparison.

We awaited for their response but to no avail. Suddenly, one day our main point of
contact at, Claire(name changed), Director of billing, emailed us about asking for a functionality
that we had in development phase.
We agreed to get on call and discuss that. Since we had functionality being developed, it was a
landmine laid by our competitor against us.

Strategy 1: Get to know how do they currently handle that particular function.
Action : On the call, we asked her to show how she or her team would go about doing that
activity in their normal fashion.
Result : Claire refused to give any information stating that they are looking for someone who
already has the functionality up and running. We were dejected because this meant that we had
virtually lost the deal. A couple of weeks passed by with no traction in the deal. Everything
seemed dead by then. However, one day we received a VM from Claire asking if we had time to
clear some of her doubts. We were astonished as it meant we were still in the game. Also, we got
to know that Claire is interested in our Collections tool as well. This opened up a new window of
opportunity.

Strategy 2: Schedule 2 calls, one for demonstration of Collections Cloud and the other for
clearing up of her doubts related to cash application.
Action : 2 calls were done with Claire on successive days and that helped he calm her
nerves and all her apprehensions were taken care of.
Result : We became frontrunners in the deal.

Current Scenario : We prepared the contracts and after rounds of negotiations involving their
CFO and Legal teams, they finally signed the deal with HighRadius on the last working day of
2017.

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Client 4

About the company

My client 5 is a leading global supplier of packaging, closures and related services to

manufacturers, fillers and brand owners in a wide array of industries, including the beverage,
food, personal care, pharmaceutical, household care, industrial, and coatings sectors. In 2017,
Chicago, Illinois-based Berlin Packaging reported a valuation of $2.6 billion and revenue of
$1.3 billion.

In addition to its mainstream rigid packaging products, the firm offers packaging and supplies
for laboratory environments as well as packaging systems for transporting hazardous and
temperature-sensitive goods. It also provides custom packaging design, consulting, and
financing services.

At the end of 2017, the firm had 30 sales offices as well as more than 75 dedicated or third-
party warehouse locations across the United States and Canada. Through its European
operations with Bruni Glass and Bruni Erben, Berlin Packaging also has sales and
warehouse locations in Italy, France, Spain, England, and South Africa.

Revenue : $ 1.1 billion USD

Needs/Pain points

The client was in the need of a payments solution and a cash application solution. With the
business clocking year on year growth, and with limited resources, they found themselves in
need of a solution.

Stages in Sales Process

Discovery Call
Regional Manager of Credit and Accounts Receivables, James (name changed), came on
the introductory call and informed us that they were looking for a payments and cash application

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solution. They did not have any strategic corporate initiative driving it rather they were in the
exploratory phase and were evaluating vendors for the same.

Demonstration Call: EIPP and Cash Application Cloud

In the demonstration call, we started with EIPP cloud presentation and talked about their
challenges pertaining to it. We then focused our discussions to Cash Application. Alex(name
changed) was the only person who applied cash and increasing volumes of incoming payments
was a huge burden on him. So, on seeing our solution he was super impressed as well as relieved.
The call went well with them asking for a quote.

Quote presentation

We presented approximate savings that they would get from the project. James told that
he was also looking at other vendors and that he was impressed by our solutions but he pricing
was on a little bit higher side.

Current Scenario: They recently acquired a company in the EMEA region and told us that they
have been asked to put all current projects on hold. So, they would revisit this project once they
have worked through the acquisition.

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Client 5
About the company

My Client 5 was founded in 1987 Washington, DC. They are a provider of information,
analytics and marketing services to the commercial real estate industry in the United States,
Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain. The company’s suite of online
service offerings includes information about space available for lease, comparable sales
information, tenant information, information about properties for sale, Internet marketing services,
analytical capabilities and so on. They went public in 1998.

Revenue: $ 837 million USD

Needs/ Pain points

Initially we were in talks with Senior Manager of Collections and Cash, John(name changed),
who briefed us about their challenges. While their business was rocketing, it brought along with
it some serious issues related to Cash application and Collections.

Stages in Sales Process

Discovery call

We started our initial discussions with an introductory call with John. Our main motive
was to understand their challenges and identify which parts of our solution suite would be
beneficial in resolving it. During the course of our discussions, we got to know that due to
business growing at a healthy rate, they faced challenges in allocating and application of cash
received as bills from the customers. In addition to that, they had many delinquent customers,
who were yet to make their payments and number of such customers was steadily increasing. So
they had a two faceted problem.

In order to address this, we presented our cash application and collections modules as a solution
and gave overview for the same. The next step in the process was to setup a detailed
demonstration of the Cash Application and Collections Solutions.

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Solution Demonstration: Cash Application Cloud, Collections Cloud

The call was scheduled for 1 hour. In this call, we gave a detailed demonstration of the
functionalities of Cash Application and Collections Cloud. The mantra that we followed was to
let the client speak as much as possible so that we can better understand his needs and wants.
During the course of our discussion we identified areas which were of most importance to the
client. John informed us that he is looking at other vendors. As a feedback, he told that our Cash
Application Cloud was better than others whereas the Collections Cloud functionality was pretty
competitive. He decided that he wants to go ahead with the Collections Cloud for now and the
Cash Application piece would come later.

The next Step in the process was to gather metrics, for which we scheduled a 30 minute call.

Day-in-A-Life

The purpose of this call was to identify the tasks breakdown of John’s collections team
and that’s why it is called “Day-in-A-Life”. Before this call, we had an assessment sheet ready,
which contained a list of questions to be asked. On the call, he helped us identify the areas that
his team was spending most of their time. The whole idea is to try to find different activities that
the team is doing and identify the automation % that can the Collections Cloud would provide
for each of those activities. This is useful in preparing a business case, which our point of contact
could present internally in order to justify this Collections Project. Hence, a business case
presentation was the next logical step.

Business Case Presentation

This was a 30 minute call where we walked John through the pricing of the solution
along with the rationale behind the costs. He seemed satisfied with the price and told that he
would be presenting this to his VP and CFO. Also, he informed us about an ERP implementation
going on internally which might hinder this project. When asked about timelines, John replied
that he wants to be as aggressive as possible. So, we expected this project to be completed by the
end of the year.

Strategy

Based on our previous interaction we expected John to talk internally within a week.
However, 1 week turned into a couple of weeks and finally into 1 month. John stopped replying

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to emails and getting him on a call turned into an arduous task. Till this time we had lost traction
and believed that the deal is tilting in favor of the other vendor.
Now was the time to execute the Strategies.

Strategy 1 : To propose an onsite visit.

Action : We wrote an email to John saying we are going to be in his city in a couple of weeks,
would he mind going out on a casual lunch?
Result : John replied by saying he is open to invitation but cannot tell when he be available? We
waited for him to schedule the visit but he didn’t reply to our emails. So, Strategy 2 to apply

Strategy 2: Marketing email to be sent to VP, CFO of the company and Thanksgiving email to
John
Action : We wrote a marketing email which highlighted the benefits they would get on
implementing Collections Cloud. We sent it 2 times, on Fridays of each week because according
to a study there are higher chances of emails being opened on a weekend.
Result : We got a response from John’s boss and it was positive. We proposed him a visit to
which he agreed and gave John the responsibility to schedule it. This led us to believe that we
had visibility at the Executive level, a notion that we had earlier discarded.

In this strategy, I had to juggle between marketing and sales roles. So, it was a great cross-
departmental learning for me.

Strategy 3: To get the visit scheduled from John

Action : Wrote an emotional email to John addressing troubles he would be facing on month
ends.
Result : John asked us to schedule a call where we can set up dates for the visit.

Current Scenario : We got in touch with the VP who asked us to provide names of existing
customers and well as differentiation points between HighRadius solutions and Oracle Cloud.

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My Learnings

1. Account Based Marketing is all about being organized, the more organized you are the
more efficient sales person you become.
2. Account Based Marketing is not only about price but more about trust and value.
3. Invaluable experience in dealing with different personalities, some very tough like John
while others are quite affable like James.
4. Account Based Marketing is the central arm of any organization which needs to
communicate with all other departments whether it be consulting, Product Management,
Development and so on.
5. Account Based Marketing brings $ to the company.
6. Account should be more inbound than outbound. It should be customer focused.
7. People buy only if they trust us and if our solution solves a real need.
8. There are multiple layers of people to go through and convince before a project is signed.
So, an understanding of each of their personalities, goals and KPIs is essential.

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