Thursday 21 November 2013

Monitoring IT chiefs online is commonplace for sales deals

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SAN FRANCISCO: Monitoring IT leaders on social media channels to find out what makes them tick is often key to securing sales, according to Carlos Zamora, vice president of BT Conferencing in North America.
Zamora explained that the practice was widely used and accepted as part of the modern way in which business is done, during an interview with V3 at Dreamforce 2013.
"As we look at how an opportunity is being progressed, we have a number of teams [to] work through a process. This begins with questions like 'Can we win?' 'Is it the type we want?' 'Is our solution the best?' and 'What extras would we need to provide?' Then we map it from the point of contact and find who the decision makers are," he said.
"When you identify your relationship map and plot the influencers, sponsors and contractors involved you then have to find the best way to engage with those individuals. Nowadays this is done in a variety of ways including social media – what they like, what they do, how they think."
Zamora said the trend is a known and accepted practice within the enterprise space. "If they are not comfortable I have not seen it. We engage with businesses at different levels, but in the engagements I have had our customers understand the information we manage is needed to work with them," he said.
The BT vice president said Salesforce tools have made it quick and easy for non-technical sales personnel to do the research. "To do what we do we have to innovate and train a team and also enable them with the tools they need. Salesforce is at the core of how we are managing this," he said.
"I have been engaged in sales management for quite some time and have to say, the way in which these tools are being utilised and the way they are being embraced is amazing."
Expanding its mobile offering has been a central part of Salesforce's strategy for many years. Salesforce unveiled its new mobile-focused Salesforce1 platform earlier this week. The platform is designed to make it quicker and easier for customers to create or utilise existing applications for mobile.

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