Paper - Professional Sales Call Plan
MP861026
EXAMPLEPAPERProfessionalSalesCallPlanMAR6930.docxStudent Name Omitted
01 August 2021
MAR3400 – Professional Sales Call Plan
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to outline a B2B sales call plan that will guide a sales representative working for Oracle. This specific sales call plan is customized to best assist a Business Development Consultant with 6 years of experience selling Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. This paper will thoroughly outline the steps of the sales process, adapted to fit the needs of Oracle’s target customer.
The immediate goal of the sales call is to build rapport and develop trust with the company. The strategic goal is to develop a deeper understanding of the company’s needs and problem areas. If these goals are completed, I will aim to develop a deeper connection with the buyer in the hopes of obtaining commitment and creating a strong, long-term relationship.
Company
Oracle is an American cloud technology corporation that provides organizations worldwide with computing infrastructure and software. Oracle Cloud applications help provide businesses with resources to perform efficiently, cut costs, and keep their data secure. Founded in 1977, Oracle has grown to be a very successful, multinational corporation comprised of over 135,000 employees. The company is ranked #80 in the Fortune 500 with sales reaching $39.7B.
Oracle offers a broad spectrum of products ranging from data-driven cloud applications to various infrastructure resources such as Oracle’s Autonomous Database. Oracle provides these solutions to customers in 140 countries, covering industries such as Banking, Insurance, Engineering, Healthcare, Life Sciences, and more.
While the scope of Oracle’s offerings is broad, my area of expertise is focused on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Product
As described on the Oracle website, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a deep and broad platform of public cloud that enables customers to build and run a wide range of applications in a scalable, secure, highly available, and high-performance environment. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a form of cloud computing where compute, network, and storage resources are held in the cloud. This product allows for businesses to function efficiently without paying for and managing their own equipment.
Hundreds of companies are using IaaS to scale their infrastructure up and down on demand, access high-performing equipment and services, and reduce their expenses. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure has many different offerings that align with the specific needs of its users, ranging from analytics, to application development, to applied software technologies. Some of the benefits that customers seek when implementing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are a reduced expenses, accelerated innovation, improved speed, and data security.
Target Customer (use of product, needs, decision criteria, etc.)
The Target Customer for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is comprised of any businesses that can benefit from modernizing their technology. This can be any business ranging from mom & pop pizza restaurants to multinational, billion dollar tech corporations. Through my role as a Business Development Consultant, my sales territory consists of medium and large organizations in the West – this geographic territory includes California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon. Many of these prospective customers are already using some form of Cloud Computing, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS). Examples of these prospective companies headquartered in my territory include Disney, Airbnb, Netflix, and Zillow.
Target Customers of Cloud Infrastructure are seeking to access to platforms that can provide them with the capacity necessary to perform efficiently. These customers are looking for ease of use, quick accessibility, high performance, security, and dependability that can help them successfully run their business and meet their goals.
A prime example of the type of customer OCI is aiming to serve is Zoom, a recent customer success for Oracle. Amidst the chaos of the pandemic, working and communicating from home became a necessity for people worldwide, skyrocketing Zoom’s user count from 10 million to 300 million. Due to this influx of customers, Zoom found themselves in need of service capacity that could help them satisfy their customers and manage their rapid growth. Zoom expressed their three main requirements: scalability, performance, and reliability. They found that OCI could effectively fulfill these requirements at a lower cost with excellent service and support.
Purpose Statement (5Q for Rapport)
Purpose Statement:
My goal for today is to learn more about you and your business, but before we begin I will introduce myself. My name is Nikki Shuman and I’ve been a sales representative with Oracle for 6 years. Through my time with Oracle I’ve worked with over one hundred businesses like yours to improve performance and build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. If we uncover any opportunities where we can be of help to you and your company, I would love to work together in the future. For today’s meeting, however, I’d love to start by getting to know you a little better – why don’t we start with you telling me about your business.
Rapport (Adapted FORD Model – relationship with the buyer does not already exist)
1. What about your team – what does your work group look like?
2. What do your team’s main day-to-day responsibilities look like?
3. What does your team do for fun?
4. Is your team working on any interesting projects?
5. Are you and your team working towards any goals?
Needs Analysis Questions (SPIN Technique)
Open Questions
1. How are things going within your business? (situation)
2. What is a crucial focus for your business right now? (situation)
3. What types of technology do you currently use to manage your data? (situation)
4. How have these products been working with your current business strategy? (situation)
5. Which elements of your cloud software are not performing up to your standards? (Problem)
6. What issues have you seen with your businesses performance due to problems with your data management? (Problem)
7. What types of consequences have come up as a result of this problem? (implication)
8. What effect would a security breach have on your business? (Implication)
9. If you could design your ideal Cloud Infrastructure product, what would it look like?
10. If we could present you with an option that solved your current problems like (main issues X, Y, Z), what would you think about that? (Need Payoff)
Closed Questions
1. Are you the only person involved in the decision making process? (Situation)
2. Does your business use Cloud Infrastructure to manage your data? (Situation)
3. Have you ever experienced data security breaches as a result of security weak points in your computing infrastructure? (Problem)
4. Is there anything that is not performing as you expected it to? (Problem)
5. Would a security breach be highly detrimental to your business? (Implication)
6. Does your current Cloud Infrastructures rate of performance slow down your other business activities? (Implication)
7. If we had a solution for some of your main concerns, would you be interested in exploring them? (Need Payoff)
Features and Benefits
1. Feature: Autonomous Services
a. Benefit: Oracle’s Autonomous Database offers self-repairing, self-optimizing autonomous features. Machine learning is used to automate routine tasks resulting in improved efficiency, higher performance, and time saved.
2. Feature: Unique Migration Tools
a. Benefit: OCI’s unique migration tools facilitate rapid implementation while maintaining key customizations and integrations. OCI allows for customers to obtain the ability to migrate custom applications with minimal re-architecture or reintegration. As a result, customers can enjoy all the benefits OCI has to offer while saving time and effort.
3. Feature: Full-stack Protection
a. Benefit: Oracle has a comprehensive strategy to tackling cyber-attacks comprised of 3 important pillars: Automated, Always on, and Architecture-In. This data security protection shields against major points of vulnerability such as unencrypted data, malicious insider abuse, misconfigurations, and vulnerable web applications. What this means is that your company won’t have to worry about security threats that compromise your valuable data, resulting in time and money wasted
4. Feature: Capacity-on-Demand Licensing
a. Benefit: OCI’s Capacity-on-Demand enables companies to deploy their desired number of processers as their workload requires. This feature allows for users to access the tools they need to carry out tasks without incurring costs and downtime associated with hardware upgrades.
5. Feature: Flat Network Design
a. Benefit: OCI’s flat network design limits the number of “hops” to get from one server to another within an availability domain. This results in less than 100 microseconds of expected one-way latency within an availability domain. The benefit of this for your company is you will have a faster performance, reducing time spent on activities and improving efficiency.
Anticipated Objections
1. Your competitor – AWS – is a better option (Misunderstanding)
· You believe that Amazon Web Service (AWS) can provide a service superior to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure? This is a concern we have heard many times before, since Amazon is a competitor of ours, however our statistics prove that OCI is a better service than AWS in many areas including price, flexibility, and performance.
i. Price: Oracle charges ¼ the cost for outbound bandwidth, 44% lower compute costs for HPC, 74% less than AWS for private network connectivity, and 3X a better price-performance for compute compared to AWS for general purpose compute instances. Oracle also offers more aggressive pricing for Compute, Block Storage, and Networking. (Proof Source: Figure A)
ii. Performance: Oracle offers the best performance per server, providing users with 45% more compute TFLOPs per second, 14% higher memory bandwidth, and 525% more IOPs per server. (Proof Source: Figure B) This results in an overall better performance at a lower cost to you.
iii. Flexibility: OCI has flexibility that allows customers to select exactly the number of cores and memory necessary, while AWS requires fixed instance sizes.
https://www.oracle.com/cloud/economics/
2. It takes too much time and effort to switch (Misunderstanding)
· Your concern is that switching from your current cloud infrastructure software to OCI will be difficult and time consuming? I understand that cloud adoption would typically involve time and effort that customers do not want to endure. With that being said, Oracle launched the new Oracle Cloud Lift Services to give customers access to technical tools and cloud resources to migrate to OCI quickly and at no additional cost. This software incorporates help from Oracle cloud engineers and premier technical services to help the transition be as seamless, quick, and efficient as possible,
3. I don’t have a need to purchase Cloud Infrastructure (Misunderstanding)
· Currently, you believe that you have no need for Cloud Infrastructure in your business. Many companies don’t think that Cloud Infrastructure is necessary to their business until they observe the tremendous impact that it has on any type of business. Cloud computing supports long-term plans, optimizes performance, and reduces costs – which is something that can elevate any business.
When our customer, Mazda, decided to switch from their current on-premises data center environment, they concluded that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure has a 50% lower total cost of ownership over five years. Additionally OCI provides up to 70% performance improvement.
https://www.oracle.com/customers/mazda-motor/
https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/oracle-cloud-infrastructure-ten-reasons.pdf
4. The price is too expensive (Real Drawback)
· I understand that you are concerned about the costs associated with implementing OCI. We have heard this concern from other businesses who are also opposed to incurring extra costs. However, the implementation of OCI is an investment that, in turn, helps businesses to cut costs. One of our customers, 8x8 Inc. began using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and has since experienced more than a 25% increase in performance and savings of more than 80% in network outbound costs.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is also optimized for flexibility and costs by providing options to build your solution without waste. OCI gives customers the ability to choose the specific number of cores and memory necessary without having to fit predefined shapes – allowing businesses to meet their goals without extra costs.
https://www.oracle.com/cloud/economics/
5. Cloud Infrastructure is unfamiliar to me, and I do not understand it (Real Drawbacks)
· I understand that Cloud Infrastructure is a complex tool, and you are concerned that you do not understand it enough. As Cloud technology continues to grow around the world, many other businesses share the same concerns. For this reason, Oracle offers a broad spectrum of support services such as Oracle Consulting so that you can elevate your Cloud success and get the best value possible. These services help with cloud migration, moving applications, paths to autonomous features, and insights for analytics.
https://www.oracle.com/consulting/technology.html
Closing Statements
1. Can we meet next Wednesday to begin implementing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure?
2. If you are still unsure of the impact that Oracle Cloud Infrastructure could have on your business, I would love to give you access to a 30-day trial to experience Oracle Cloud for free. Is this something you would be interested in?
Proof Sources
Figure A - Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Overview from OpenWorld 2018
Figure B - Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Overview from OpenWorld 2018
Sources:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/oracle/
https://www.forbes.com/companies/oracle/?sh=c6fbfc6509c8
https://fortune.com/company/oracle/fortune500/
https://www.contino.io/insights/whos-using-aws
https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/GSG/Concepts/baremetalintro.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBrKIlSt_Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOZ51qGOn4A
https://www.oracle.com/cloud/what-is-iaas/
https://www.oracle.com/customers/zoom/
https://www.oracle.com/consulting/technology.html
