About the Author
Amrita is the NaaS Business Development and Sales leader for HPE Aruba’s Network-as-a-Service offering. She has been engaged in driving the transformation efforts of enterprises from legacy technology...
Full bio
Post-COVID has seen the hybrid workplace become the new norm. With a majority of employees splitting their time between the home office and workplace, managing and securing this widely distributed network is top of mind.
ANetwork-as-a-Service(NaaS) solution addresses complex customer problems with a flexible and agile solution, but due to complexity of customer issues, a new non-traditional selling approach is required: Identifying actual quantification of business benefit and presenting appropriately to the customer.
IT procurement cycles have accelerated and investments have increased – higher than pre-COVID. These post pandemic trends have accelerated the need for agility in IT, network procurement, and management. According to theIDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Aruba, Network as a Service: State of the Market* 71%的组织anisations report their long-term planning cycles have shortened due to COVID-19, with 82% of the same cohort stating the long-term planning cycles have deduced to two years or less.
With hybrid work environments, securing the enterprise within and outside its boundaries in a flexible and scalable manner is a priority.
To address such a requirement and ensure seamless connectivity, organisations are rapidly adopting consumption-driven NaaS models to balance out the cost of network growth versus the digital experience of their stakeholders.
Organisations are also looking to accelerate connectivity to edge locations while easing the burden of managing those new locales. They need simple platforms that enable rapid access to new technology to ensure the network meets the needs of their business.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) technology and flexible consumption models like enterprise NaaS make it possible for organisations to respond effectively to these challenges. The IDC 2022 study highlights that one third of organisations have deployed NaaS and another 35% plan to deploy NaaS within the next 24 months.
Companies are no longer looking to purchase hardware, rather they are seeking to provide their constituents with an end user experience that offers:
- The best-in-class agile network solution, with richer levels of visibility and cross-platform control with centralized management and AI/ML capability for seamless and efficient network operation
- Technology that minimizes operational risk and provides advanced data management and protection that spans the entire edge-to-core continuum
- Vendors that deliver optimized network planning, a scalable solution with sustainability built-in, and a simple monthly payment with no upfront capital expenditure. In a consumption-based model, customers will only pay for what they use. Additionally, the NaaS provider removes the traditional challenges of managing/operating networks.
Moving towards an experience economy
As a result, various stakeholders from technology, operations, procurement, finance, ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance), security, data analytics, etc. have a vested interest in the network.
The traditional method of selling based on price and product features is outdated. Companies should embrace value-based selling that focuses on the customer business pains that the solution will address for the organisation and benefits for each stakeholder. Customers’ stakeholders -primarily the C-level executives- are looking to measure investments in terms of money, risk, and time. They are unwilling to make decisions without some value-based justification and a solid understanding of the Return on Investment (ROI).
Transitioning to Customer Value
The transition from selling on price and features requires a new approach, one that is customer centric and focuses on business challenges, outcomes and value.
Communicating valueto the customer enables the sales process to follow aCustomer First philosophy.
Act as a Strategic Partner
- Value selling differentiates a salesperson by encouraging sellers tolearn a prospect's business by engaging with many stakeholdersthat they might not traditionally interact with. This helps in understanding all of the customer pain points and offering the best solution to address the current and future business requirements.
- Value selling helps the prospect understand thehidden costs(e.g., planning and downtime costs, overtime, expedited freight) associated with the current network and business processes that can be avoided.
- Value selling helps the sales team (partner)gain access to the economic buyer and executives通过专注于早些时候的商业前景objectives, risks, and digital strategy. You will also differentiate from other vendors by focusing on the customer needs.
- Value selling also highlights thefinancial return of the opportunity like quantified benefits, NPV of the project, ROI, and Cost of Delay. This helps the technology department or the company management justify the technology investment to the decision makers, resulting in higher conversion rate.
Ultimately, value selling can help a seller engage with an executive audience, speak in the customer’s language of money, risk and time, sell the right solution to the customer, shorten the sales cycle, and become a trusted advisor.
Customer stickiness is a factor of experience. To drive customer stickiness, it is imperative to showcase the value of the experience through the right positioning of the NaaS market offerings.
Aruba Value Management offers several tools that a seller can leverage to aid them in confidently steering the customer conversation and closing the deal faster. To learn more about how Aruba’s Value Management can help your sales team transition from traditional approach to selling value, contactvaluemanagement@hpe.com.
To find out more go towww.nexbus-cng.com/naas.
*IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Aruba, Network as a Service: State of the Market,* doc#US48894322, March 2022
** Contribution fromRamanand Dang, May 2022
Related Resources:
