1. Software industry pre sales

2. Understanding the sales cycle
What is Pre-sales
RFx
Solution Design
Bid Management

3. Sales Cycle

4. It’s all about……………….?
Buyer Consideration
Seller Consideration

7. S
Suspecting
Generating Sales Lead
 Marketing Campaigns
 Trade fairs, Industry Forums
 Online Marketing, Social media
 Inside sales team

9. S P
Prospecting
Qualifying the sales lead
For a sales lead to qualify as a sales prospect,
qualification must be performed and evaluating.
 Product Applicability / Fitment of solution
 Ability to afford our solution
 Time frame of purchase

11. S P A
Analysis
 Taking the qualified prospect through a
question and answer session to identify the
requirement.
 help the buyer identify and quantify a business
need a ‘gap’ between where prospect is today
and where it want to be in feature.

12. S P A
Analysis
 SPIN

14. S P A P
Praposals
 Come up with a business proposal suggesting various
product/services that will suffice the need of prospect.
 Include cost, schedule and other information.

16. S P A P N
Negotiation
Negotiate the terms and set in business proposals.
 Pricing (Technique & Amount)
 Scope of the project
 Timeline

18. S P A P N C
Closure
 Making the actual sales
 Getting the sign-off / purchase order
 Getting the SOW (Statement Of Work) signed

20. S P A P N C O
Repeat order
 Maintain the relationship with client and bring more
orders through.
 Cross selling, Other project opportunities.
 Order Renewals

22. What is pre-sales

23.  Pre sales include the
 Entire gamut of activities involved in preparing to engage with
prospects / clients,
 And includes specific response to client requests.

25. Responding
to client
request
Responding to client
request
 Responding RFP, RFI, RFQ
 Providing any information to
the client, which helps him
take the buying decision
 General client query about
solutions and capabilities.

26. Responding
to client
request
Supporting
client visit
Supporting client visits
 Prospects / clients may visit
the vendor’s office
 To see the vendor’s
infrastructure
 Gives vendor an opportunity
to showcase its capability and
do cross - selling

27. Responding
to client
request
Supporting
client visit
Visiting
clients
Visiting clients
 Visiting client for meeting
 Due diligence - to get a clear
understanding of the
requirement
 May also include
demonstration of proof of
concepts or product
 Solution presentation to the
client

28. Responding
to client
request
Supporting
client visit
Visiting
clients
Interfacing &
Coordinating
Interfacing with
Internal & External
Groups to Design best
fit solution for client
 Need to interface & coordinate
with
 Technical competency centers
 Functional SME
 Legal and Financial
 Delivery Teams
 Recruitment
 Third party / OEMs

29. Responding
to client
request
Supporting
client visit
Visiting
clients
Interfacing &
Coordinating
Marketing
Support
Marketing Support
 For various marketing events,
need to support marketing team
through
 Offering and capability
related documents, brochures
and posters
 Extended capability (if any)
through alliances with order
product and development
firms or niche vendors

30. Responding
to client
request
Supporting
client visit
Visiting
clients
Interfacing &
Coordinating
Marketing
Support
Competitor
Analysis
Competitor Analysis &
Market scanning
 Client receive response from
multiple vendors, so one
must know where does it
stand against competition
 What is our competition in an
industry / for a specific bid
opportunity and what are
there offerings /
differentiators
 Market scanning is done
through market research
reports, analyst reports

31. Responding
to client
request
Supporting
client visit
Visiting
clients
Interfacing &
Coordinating
Marketing
Support
Competitor
Analysis

32. RFX

33. RFI / EOI
 Request for information / Expression of interest
 These are usually relatively short documents that ask specific
questions about the vendors and services vendors provides
 Capability Evolution
 Often uses as pre - qualifier to determine which vendors will
receive an RFP or RFQ – vendor Empanelment

34.  RFP ( Request for proposal )
 These are often lengthy documents that provide detailed
information on requirements.
 Functions & workflow,
 Business goals,
 Integration specs, etc
To the vendors so they may propose a solution which meets the client’s
needs and goals
 It often includes scope of requirements, pricing requirements,
contract terms & conditions, as well as detail case studies &
reference requirements

35. RFQ (Request for quotes)
 Can be part of a RFP or RFI
 This is a request for pricing based on what’s outlined in the RFI or
specified in a RFP, or can be used as a request for ala cart pricing
for various service options.

36.  RFI, RFP & RFQ
 A company can do any one or more of the above, usually in the order
shown
 Often the RFP may incorporate both the RFI & RFQ as sections of the
doc, and also include other evolution step such as demo, proof-of-
concept or presentation
 A big advantage of using RFI, RFP or RFQ in software evolution is that
it allows vendors to self eliminate because they can batter assess their
own chances
 This helps the buyer narrow down the choices to the most feasible
solution

37. Solution Design

38. Effort Estimation
Technical Solution
Functional Solution
Project Execution Methodology
Project Plan
Resourcing & Team

39.  Efforts Estimation
 Estimating how much effort it is going to take to complete the project
 Various industry standard methodologies are use for the effort estimation
FP,WBS,SMC
 Given in person months

40.  Technical Solution
 Technical solution addressing the client requirement
 Technology Selection
 Technical Architecture
 Technology Stack
 Licensing / Sizing Information
 Infrastructure / hosting solution
 Compliance to NFR

41.  Functional Solution
 Functional solution addressing the client’s requirements
 Function Flow
 Fitment of any existing frameworks
 Compliance for FR

42. Project Execution Methodology
 Which methodology will be followed for project implementation
 Water-fall model
 Iterative
 Agile
 Asana
 Base camp
 Client specified or vendor recommended methodology.
 Warranty, Maintenance & support

43. Project plan
 Timelines to implement the project
 Milestones to various stage of the project
 Activities to be performed and various deliverables

44. Resourcing & Team
 Recommended to team structure
 Onsite/offshore composition
 Different role identified
 No of resources for each identified role
 Sample CV / Poisoning for key roles

45. Proposal Management Plan
 Project summary
 Customer profile
 Proposal operation
 Competitive analysis
 Strategies and themes
 Roles and responsibilities
 Past performance citation and
references
 Proposal strategy
 Proposal schedule
 Executive summary
 Proposal outline
 Work breakdown structure
 Forms, templates, references,
guidelines, etc.
 Pricing / cost breakdown

46. Bid Management

51. Proposal Building Tips
1. Focus on the customer
2. Customize and personalize
3. Define the solution
4. Calculate Benefits – Buyer value
5. Show Non – financial Benefits - Buyer value
6. Describe the methodology
7. Include differentiator
8. Highlight business information more than technical information
9. Develop proposal standards
10. Ensure the quality standard

52. Proposal Presentation
 Know your audience
 Establish the context
 Include only essentials, from customer perspective
 Establish a structure (agenda)
 Ensure a flow, in order of importance
 Use of mnemonics, picture, graphs – must be relevant
 Using the right tone.
• Tone is determined by
• Choice of words, expressions, sentences
• Modulation
• Facial expression, body language
• voice