How to sell sap business one
Selling SAP Business One Cloud for SAP Partners
0:00 / 0:00
Timecodes:
I am and welcome to a rainy day here at
4 cows place in the UK my name is
Johannes and I work in the SOP business
one on Davonte and I'm joined today by
Richard nothing who's currently sat
behind the camera but will be taking his
turn in front and you joined us today
and what we want to do is we want to
talk about maybe fresh fruit through
some ideas around really how do you go
about studying SOP business once a month
what are some of the key things that we
should think about and what some of the
tips that were that we can perhaps
discuss and share some best practice
that we've learned for some of our
partners so I think the way that we see
this working is we see this breaking
down into a few different areas I think
the first one that we're going to look
at is is really understanding who it is
that we're selling to so who is in who
is our target market for sa peepers this
one tomorrow and we'll talk about that
and we'll talk about maybe some of the
things that we've seen some of our
partners do in terms of really trying to
address a target market ok so after
we've looked at who it is that we're
looking to sell this ap business one on
tomorrow we're then going to understand
or try to understand why it is that they
are in the market for for an on-demand
solution or why it is that they may look
at actually buying as a business one on
demand and and after we've done that
we're then going to start looking at
what it is that they're buying so you
know really understanding how we can
take it so peepers this one on demand
and how we can package that up you know
what it is that we're selling to them so
our third point is ready to look at and
understand what it is that we are
selling so you know I think if we look
at the on premise world what we're
selling becomes you know really quite is
it's quite simple than I think we all we
all understand it which is yeah we take
a sleepy business one we take the
services that we have we take any add-on
solutions that we might have and we
deliver that to a customer with a form a
solution I think what we need to look at
here is in the on-demand world we're not
just selling them those pieces we're
also selling them the hosting
this as well where is the samething
business one actually going to be
hosting so we've got another
relationship that we need to consider
there and and by looking at all of that
we need to understand what all those
components are and work out how we
deliver them to the customers so that
they are simple from the customers point
of view because the customer doesn't
want to see that complexity and then the
final thing and I think this is the one
that is possibly the biggest challenge
which is how and yeah yes we can take
business one and we can deliver it to a
partner to a customer sorry and and and
in fact if we look at it we can do it in
exactly the same way if we chose to do
so we we can sell a customer a
software-as-a-service license where
they're paying for business one on a
monthly basis and then we can deploy and
have an implementation for them in
exactly the same way as we would in the
on-premise world now if we do that I
think we're kind of missing some of the
the benefits that we have with software
as a service with cloud-based solutions
I think people expect those to be
rapidly deployed solutions so we need to
look at how we really package that up
and I think customers are already
beginning to tell us that they expect
certain things from their solutions
where they buy something from the cloud
so you know it may be that today we can
do things in a certain way but we need
to start having one eye on the future if
you like a really beginning to
understand how we can change our
deployment model how we can change the
way that we price our components how we
change you know the delivery of all of
the adults and the services that we
bring and that you as partners bring
really into this into this whole
equation so these are the things that we
want to talk about today and we want to
keep it quite for we're going to
gonna kind of throw backwards and
forwards between this so alright so my
turn to do an introduction for those of
you who know me you don't need those if
you don't know me my name is Richard
Duffy and I'm the SAE business one
product evangelist and what I'm going to
do is talk about the first of our topics
here when it comes to selling and safety
business one on demand and that is who
who are you going to sell their safety
was this one on demand - who's gonna buy
this solution now there's a whole bunch
of different opinions on this on this
topic and you can say well the kinds of
people who are most likely to buy NSA
feed business one on demand solution are
those kinds of organizations who are
looking to be able to deploy a solution
very very quickly they're the kind of
organizations who are looking to deploy
a solution at low cost they don't want
to tie up too much of their working
capital in in their IT infrastructure
and there are two great examples there's
other people that you can think about
that might be wanting to buy an SAT
business one on-demand solution and you
might say okay well maybe it's the
subsidiaries of large enterprises where
they want to take a solution to be able
to deploy that and roll it out very very
quickly to their subsidiaries and all of
these are great examples of people who
might want to buy an essay peepers is
one on-demand solution but fundamentally
I think there's a couple of things which
are key to this and the secret here is
to really identify the key
characteristics of these people and the
key characteristics of people who are
these days from what we have seen what
the analysts are saying that the market
is saying the key characteristics of
people who want to deploy cloud-based
solutions are fundamentally
organizations who don't want to invest a
huge amount of their working capital
90 now are these people in certain
industries you know what funnily enough
there doesn't seem to be able to
specifically type that that really lends
itself to deploying an on-demand
solution I think really what it does
come down to is understanding what are
the key things that a customer is
looking to do and when you think about
that when you think about the the things
that they're wanting to do promote from
a strategic perspective really it's
about identifying those customers who
want a business solution that's going to
meet all of their requirements it's
going to be easier to deploy there's
going to be based on best practices that
is going to be affordable and you know
again these are organizations who don't
want to spend a huge amount of money
upfront so that's the who you know do we
do we need to get down to the specific
industry level I mean that sa P one of
the things we do is we pride ourselves
on our level of industry knowledge but I
think in this particular instance it
doesn't necessarily come down the
industry look at sa P business by design
as an example where we had a lot of
success we've had a lot of success in
the IT space we've had a lot of success
for companies who are in a wholesaler
distribution you know in the IT space
why because these kinds of people tend
to be a little bit more savvy about the
whole on demand concept about the whole
concept of running their business
solutions in the cloud but I think the
fundamentally what it comes down to is
being able to have a conversation with a
potential customer about what it is that
the solution has to offer and being able
to articulate to them that you're
offering ASAP business one which is the
same application that has been deployed
successfully by more than 35,000
companies
the world today in an on-premise model
and taking that same functionality
taking that same solution that same
capability and now being able to deploy
it in a cloud model and then having the
discussion with them about why the cloud
makes sense and why the cloud makes
sense specifically to them so that's my
view if you like on the whoo now that
again might not be and a detailed enough
level but again one of the things that
Joel and I want to do is spend this time
talking with you to get some of those
thought processes started for you and of
course both of us are available to have
a conversation with you about your
strategy so you should reach out to your
SI p business one channel manager and
reach out to John or myself would be
more than happy to sit down and say ok
let's look at your specific a situation
as an SAT business one on-demand partner
and let's work out a strategy that makes
sense for you so that's the how what
we're going to do right now is talk a
little bit more about the Y and John's
going to jump back up here and he's
going to talk to you about that let's
let's let's move on and I think if we're
going to address this market then we
need to perhaps have a look at why it is
that organizations would look at
something there's an on-demand business
management solution and I think you know
this point is an interesting one because
if you look at the research and if you
look at the papers that have a Dean
group sort of released on this in the in
terms of one analyst they they think
gone back and business management
software was really kind of the last
bastion in terms of business software
they've moved towards the cloud and if
you go back to 2007 in survey that they
did with CFOs at the time it was a very
very small percentage of those
organizations that would even consider
running a business management
Aldon when they went back and did that
in 2010 there was a small change but not
that much and it really is only in the
last 18 months two years where
organizations have actively said well do
you know what yes I would consider
running ERP in the cloud so I think you
know when we look at that you know that
gives us an understanding that you know
I think we have to accept that
business management software is
something that that companies like to
kind of hold in close and feel secure
about so I think you know there's a
there's there's bethenny bit of shift in
the market in terms of organizations
feeling that the cloud is maybe more
secure I think there are some other key
points that we we should probably
understand and we can then use these to
really build what our proposition should
look like to our customers into the
prospects and I think the first thing is
access and I think this is one of the
things that really really appeals to
customers they like the idea of a cloud
solution because they get access so they
get access from the devices that they
have from where they are at any given
point and you know they are just very
aimed very quickly and very easily and
simply able to get hold of their data to
get a hold of their information to
process their transactions and to share
that where they need to share it I think
you know that's one thing that the cloud
really people have that perception it's
like well if it's stored there then it's
very easy for me to be in another
country to be in another office to be
able to share that across multiple
offices so I think you know that's one
aspect the other thing I think that
leads people to look at cloud solutions
it is infrastructure and hopefully
that's where the infrastructure is
or lack of so you know if you imagine
that the prospect that you're selling to
in an on-premise environment where you
know if that question comes up the sense
okay what sort of hardware do I need to
run this business management solution on
and you go through all of the the
discussion on that and then the customer
has to go out and has to buy that and
that can cause a delay the project in
its own right but there's also a capital
investment cost for that
as well with the cloud they don't have
to concern themselves with the speck of
hard way that the solutions could have
run you know and I think that's
something that's key for them from their
point of view they don't need to have
specialist knowledge in order to do that
they don't need to work with you to
really understand this this environment
that's going to run on them and then
we'll come on - how
yeah the effect that has further down
the line upon those organizations - so
here we're offering them something where
that infrastructure just is there and
it's just a they're variable to use then
the next point really is to look that
the fact that we're minimizing their
investment and you know when we look at
a cloud solution we immediately take an
awful lot of the capital upfront cost
out of the equation so now we're we're
giving those users with business one on
DeMars you know you have the customer
has the ability to pay for each user on
a per month basis and you know and if
when we come on to talk about how how
that deployment model works you know
that we can start looking at okay what
impact does that have on services what
impact does that have on the
complimentary add-on solutions that they
use so you know that is something that
is again very attractive you know
minimizing the investment means that
business one on demand can be available
to more companies perhaps than
previously would have been able to
access it okay so what else do the
organization's look for I think one of
the key things that this is definitely a
perception of the cloud if you think
back to your own experiences with the
clown already let's understand that you
know organizations are looking for a
quicker time to value you know if we
just look at our own personal consumer
experience of working with cloud
products typically we expect to be able
to sign up for a cloud products and have
access to it straight away and start to
gain benefit from it as soon as we've
learned how to use whatever
education is and organizations here are
no different you know they can access
software so quickly in the cloud that
they that they can be using it in a
productive environment making their
organizations more efficient gaining
value from the use of there's the
software gaining insight and into all of
the all of the data that they have and
then you know once we open that up you
know and we so start talking about
business one and look at some of those
benefits that we know come from business
one already you know we've suddenly made
that available to them that much quicker
so I think that's something that's key
we're also reducing expenditure and you
might say well how is that different
from minimizing the investment but I
think here really what we're looking at
is we're looking at the ongoing costs so
you know if we take the on premise
example again where we talk about the
infrastructure the hardware
infrastructure that's involved and you
know in that environment although
business one is a simple application to
administer to use you know there is
still an overhead for somebody in the
organization and if you have IT staff
that are using or that are looking after
these application is looking after the
hardware there's a custom bulk of that
now if we take an on-demand solution we
don't need to pay for those employees
and in that way anymore and what they
can allow us to do is actually free up
those resources to concentrate on on
aspects that will really help roam about
customer's business and then the final
thing and I'm just gonna write this down
short rather than trying to but final
aspect is lifecycle management I think
this is this is something that's very
attractive you know and we've all been
through the sales process with customers
before where you know that they're not
only asking about the functionality of
our application but they're also asking
how easy or difficult it is to actually
upgrade that how often do they have to
go through that patch cycle that upgrade
cycle and I think with cloud that we you
know customer
expect that the lifecycle management
just happens you know maybe they get
notification about when the system might
be down for a period of time but
fundamentally they don't need to concern
themselves with how that actually
happens and I think that is a really key
point so I think you know just recapping
on some of those you know these are the
sort of issues and the sort of reasons
that the customers are looking to cloud
solutions and why we have an opportunity
with sa peepers in this one on demand to
address a number of these different
areas so I think that really sort of
stones up the the why are customers
looking and that there'll be lots of
other reasons and if you if you if you
search the internet you'll find so many
white papers out there that really
analyze you know what is this trend
that's happening why is the trend
occurring why why are some people
looking at cloud solutions today that
perhaps weren't yesterday all right so
I'm going to now talk about the what
component what are we actually selling
our customers when we're selling them sa
new business one on demand so first and
foremost I think one of the key messages
is the sales process doesn't actually
change in terms of the business
application and he's selling them first
and foremost whether it's deployed
on-premise whether it's under mark
whether it's in the cloud whether it's
you know on the table whether it's in
the doorway whatever the case may be you
are still selling them a business
application and that business
application has to meet their
requirements so that doesn't change that
whole process of determining the right
fit determining whether or not there are
complimentary solutions that you need to
offer in the solution none of that
really changes but there's a couple of
other components that you now have to
bring into the picture you have to bring
in the picture this idea of the if you
like the hosting solutions
you know the components that are being
delivered by the hosting partner that
you are working with as an SAT business
one on demand customer then of course
you have your implementation services
now Joel touched on this in the
introduction this is one of those key
areas we'll talk about it a little bit
more in the deployment area but one of
the key things that we're hearing from
customers is that
now starting to and now starting to say
alright you're providing the software to
me in a on demand model you're providing
to me software as a service where I pay
per user per month to access the
software and the amount of time you're
asking me to commit is one year and yet
you know mr. partner you're now saying
to me well it's going to cost me still
the twenty five thirty thousand whatever
the traditional implementation costs
were of deploying an on-premise solution
now that's going to probably float for a
little while okay
but one of the things that I think
you're going to find over time is that
customers are going to start saying all
right well why do I pay per user per
month for the software and not per user
per month for the implementation
services and the support services and so
on so you need to start factoring that
in as well so bring all of these
components together you know that's the
what you're selling but it's not just
about the solution I think you go back
to the points that Joel made before
about why are customers going to buy an
on-demand solution you go back to those
things like access you go back to those
things like minimizing their investment
you know to a certain extent when you're
selling an on-demand solution the the
what you're selling really relates back
to those points you're selling ease of
access to the solution you're selling
you know the whole concept behind on
demand and this is a new sales pitch
that you really do need to be able to
articulate effectively to your customers
so hopefully that makes sense you know
this whole idea of what and the
challenge certainly for us as we work
together as partners with you know you
as an SI P business one on demand
partner an acid si P is to really refine
that whole idea refine that whole model
that we have a offering this sort
into customers and explain to them
specifically what it is that they're
buying from you so hopefully that makes
sense now I'm going to just roll on a
little bit with Joel's permission and
just start talking about our next point
which is really around the how and this
comes down to the subject of deployment
now this rolls on from that last point
that I made which is really around the
idea that customers are now saying okay
this is an on-demand solution its
software as a service how do I now
consume this how are you going to
package it up as a partner to make it
easy for the customer to understand
what's what are the components that are
involved yes there's the SAT business
one software yes there's the cost of
having it hosted yes there's the cost of
the ongoing upgrades yes there's the
cost of the implementation how are you
going to package all of that up now
Joel's going to talk about this in a
second but I want to frame the
discussion for you and it's important
that you know you don't feel like you
know here we are as safety lecturing you
a partner about how to run your business
because that's not what this is about
but I spend a lot of time talking with
analysts and bloggers and influencers
and customers and other partners as well
and one of the key messages is the
market is changing the way that people
are expecting to have their
implementation services is also changing
as well customers are now asking the
question as I said before why do I have
to pay a big chunk of services and yet I
can pay for my software per user per
month so the challenge for us to work on
together is you know how do we address
this problem and I'm going to pass back
to Joel and he's going to talk a little
bit about how you might want to do that
so job over to you so um you know
carrying on from where Richard left off
where he has talked about
the challenges are that we have you know
as a community with deploying a cloud
solution now with with the expectation
change that's happened in the market in
terms of what people want what people
expect and what we wanted to do was
really share some thoughts with you and
these are thoughts these are here to
sort of provoke a discussion these are
the Gospel according to s AP these
aren't you know what Richard and I are
telling you that you should do but we
think these are areas that we think have
the opportunity to potentially be
different in the on-demand so I think
one of the key things that I've seen so
far and unoriginal as we've been talking
about it today is is this idea of
templates and this isn't new to us ap
Business one you know let's face it we
have the starter package which has been
available for s AP business well which
gives us that ability to take something
that's highly pre-configured and put it
into a package that's going to allow our
customer to consume that and start
getting benefit very quickly now we can
actually take that and we can add
another piece to that puzzle because
when it comes to the on-demand solution
obviously as we've said before then
they're not having to concern themselves
with the infrastructure but they're also
not having to concern themselves with
the lifecycle management so we can
actually add two more benefits into that
and certainly if we look at the way that
the partners that we have currently
deploying on-demand are working is
they've gone down this room saying I
want something that will allow my
customers basically fill out a
questionnaire and when they fill out
that question there that questionnaire
is answering all of their questions to
do with the implementation and then the
partner can go away very very quickly
tailor their package to suit that
customer deploy it train them and ensure
that one that customers getting value
very quickly but - they're also making
money
from their software as a service as
quickly as possible so we've looked at
that sort of generic idea of templates
and actually you know we can then start
feeding that into the idea of okay how
do we go about pricing the components in
an on-demand solution of this so if we
take that idea and if we take you know
the package solution that we have you
know first of all we can make something
crunching there in like the starter
package maybe choose a size of customer
of five to ten users where we think we
can go and deploy this and get some good
return so that's one way of doing it I
think the other thing that we can do
though is that we could look to have an
industry focus and again you know we
have examples and partners who are
really doing this and doing it extremely
well today if we take Orchestra over in
the u.s. they have a solution for
microbreweries and this is proving to be
extremely successful in that market but
also extremely successful as an
on-demand deployment method that's what
so you know I think there is a real
opportunity there for us to to to again
and say you know companies when they
looked at cloud want this this this this
application want the benefits from their
solution very very quickly and one way
of doing that is by using a package
solution so again this all comes back to
all of these these things that we talked
about with business well are really
knowing you market you know and
understanding that domain and being able
to sell and implement to those sort of
customers so that's one thing I think
the other areas that we do need to
consider as well are in the whole
lifecycle management and I think this
theme has come up several times today
already and and I think one aspect that
perhaps is something that we should
spend some time talking about is that
above grace because imagine if if you
were buying a software as a service
solution
and you've got the contract in front of
you to sign when you looked at all of
the different components that were on
that contracting you've ticked off the
per user per month that's fine but the
add-on
user per month that's also fine
implementation well you know we've
already discussed some of the ways that
that can be packaged up and then you get
to the fact that in fact there's going
to be an additional library charge when
this time comes right now for an upgrade
than abdomen and I don't think that
customers were expecting that certainly
the ones that we've spoken to don't
expect lifecycle management to working
so then we need to start considering
things like ok so you know how many am I
going to do in here and you know as a
partner how many upgrades am I going to
offer to my customers are you and you
know this is something again and you
know each partner we taught us got
slightly different way of approaching
this some are looking at maybe three a
year which might be patches might
include a major upgrade so those are
looking at four or maybe five and again
I think this needs to be something that
that needs some careful consideration
you know and if we frame that we could
look at that in the innocence of
business one and our release cycle as
well so you know in business was
released family just as a recap last
three years a major of these last three
years as a family and within that time
there will be a couple of minor releases
on a yearly basis and they will have
patches in between so again you need to
kind of consider all of that in line
with you know which add-ons you are you
running in your environment as well and
you know there's some consideration
there in terms of how you might want to
deploy that and how you might want those
to work as well and then coming up with
an overall plan that you're going to use
for the majority of your customers that
exist within your landscape what are the
other aspects that we do need to
consider as well is that some of the
cloud providers that we've worked with
this year and we've signed up but are
offering this upgrade piece as a service
to you as a partner as well and in fact
they'll take care of that aspect for you
so this is definitely one of those areas
that you know
terms of pricing in terms of the way
that you're going to work with your
hosting provider is something that you
really do need to ensure that you you
you get to the bottom of understand
completely and most importantly and I'm
saying this is running really the key
thing here is you know let's make sure
it's easy for the customer to understand
the customer doesn't want to see all of
this now this this messy char that I
have here full of this information where
we're just trying to talk about some of
the aspects some of the components that
really make up the on-demand solution
customer does want to see that what the
customer wants to see is that they are
buying a solution that has a per-user
price per month and that they can use in
a consumer and that's it so I think
that's the key thing we must always
remember that when we're packaging this
up you know it's ok for us here today to
be discussing all of the different
aspects but we need to make sure that it
comes across as very clear very concise
to our customers and then you have the
final sort of point on this charming
terms of consideration is support and
again this is there as a sort of thought
process you know what is it that we want
to do with support do we want to offer
support in the same way that we do today
yo are you gonna take the per user cost
per month and add as a percentage on for
support or are you gonna perhaps look at
doing it in a different way and saying
well you know it's software-as-a-service
I'm going to do support all the rest is
demand and you know what we'll do is our
offering to bundle of hours of of time
however you wish to quantify that and
allow a user or a customer to call that
off as of when they need it you know is
that the way that you're gonna do it you
can offering different tiers you know
and again this isn't a case of yeah we
believe you should do it like this this
is really just one of those aspects that
you know here is something else that we
we potentially could tweak as part of
this model and and a lot of its going to
be down to the earth what does the
customer really well okay so with all of
this as I said you know we we need to
think about all of these different
aspects perhaps these are things that
you know you know we could have just
considered on demand
you know it's just we sell business one
and we just happen to be deploying it in
the cloud but actually I think when you
start digging into it when you start
looking at the opportunity then what we
see is that here is actually here's an
opportunity for us to do something quite
different I have to start changing the
way that we do some of these activities
and key thing in all of this you know I
said it already I'll say again is let's
just make sure that it's easy for the
customer to understand all right so
let's just quickly recap what I've done
I've covered with you so where do we
start we talked about who who is going
to buy a safety business one on demand
what should your target market be what
are the characteristics of these kinds
of customers we talked about why why
they enter by what are the key things
are going to motivate them to buy an
on-demand solution rather than an
on-premise solution we then talked about
what is it that we're going to provide
to them as part of our package and then
importantly and the most difficult
aspect of this whole discussion is we
had the conversation about how and of
course you know what job took you
through is potentially you know what
looks like a fairly complex series of
pieces but it is you know one of the
challenges oftentimes one of the things
that you don't want si P to do as a
partner is tell you how to run your
business right but then sometimes we
also get the feedback will they say P
can you give us some guidelines the
whole purpose of this session is really
they give you a framework for starting
to think about what it is that you want
to do what's the next step
the next step is that you need to have a
conversation with one of our team now
you can reach out to a joel house you
can reach out to myself Richard Duffy
you can talk to your channel manager you
can talk to your local product expert
and if they can't help you specifically
around this they can certainly organize
for you to have a conversation with job
or I and we would be more than happy to
talk with you
think about how this can work for you so
that's the call to action take what
we've talked about today give it some
thought
it's very very clear it's not just a
case of signing up to start selling
business one on demand and then running
out and going to market and start trying
to find some customers that's they're
gonna be the next thing which we're
going to need to talk about which is the
marketing aspect but you really need to
have given all of these things some some
thought first because the answer to
these questions are actually then going
to lead on to then say well how am I now
going to go out and find those customers
out my now going to attract them how am
I going to talk to them what am I going
to do from a marketing perspective to
lead them through a buying cycle so
hopefully this has been helpful for you
again my email address is Richard Duffy
at sa P calm and Joel's email address is
Joel dot Harris at sa P calm and of
course you can find both of aspire by
our social media we'd be more than happy
to have that discussion with you and see
what we can do to help you become
successful selling and implementing sa P
business one on demand Thanks
