Sales Enablement Above All: How SAP Enables Services Sales

In 2006, SAP Global Services Marketing and the Field Services Management Office were forced to face a few unsettling facts. The company was driving toward a goal of having more than 100,000 customers by 2010, but because software—not services—is SAPs primary focus, less attention was given to services opportunities. In addition, multiple lines of service with complex and broad portfolios—all with different approaches to sales enablement—made it difficult for sales teams to prioritize and sell the right services for each customer and prospect. Couple that with the fact that, all too frequently, the company launched services marketing programs of which sales was not aware and you can see why the services teams were concerned.

Turning that concern into action, the services and support teams partnered in new ways to promote the active selling of SAP Services. The first step on the path to transformation began with the leadership team’s decision to make a significant investment in sales enablement—so significant, in fact, that 40% of all 2007 Global Services Marketing program tactics are devoted to it. The goal of the enablement initiative is to help sales recognize and articulate the value that services can bring to their customers.

We Feel Your Pain

The first order of business was to create a sales enablement team within Global Services Marketing with the express purpose of improving the collaboration between sales and the services marketing organization. The team identified three major causes of disjunction between services marketing and sales and then developed strategies for easing the pain:

1. Complexity of the sales force. In a complex environment with multiple sales teams executing against different charters, the sales enablement team works to:
   • Help sales teams detect services opportunities for specific sales situations and understand the value that services will bring to their deals
   • Provide tailored support to each sales team; deliver as much information as necessary but as little information as possible
   • Consolidate and standardize the sales support material for strategic services programs
2. Motivation to support Global Services Marketing programs. The sales enablement team is tasked with making services more attractive to the sales force. They strive to make it easy for sales to support services programs by:
   • Preparing them for demand generated with marketing programs
   • Standardizing material
   • Using existing channels for rollout
   • Enabling remote learning
   • Providing support infrastructure
3. Information overload. Each solution and service group tries to get the attention of sales for their programs. The team’s goal here is to consolidate and integrate the messages by:
   • Focusing the service offering materials only on the strategic services portfolio
   • Tailoring sales enablement campaigns and materials to the specific needs of each sales group (based on needs assessments)
   • Leveraging existing channels, platforms, and infrastructures to publish services assets, activities, and messaging
   • Being a “gatekeeper” between the content owners and the sales force

Getting Down to Brass Tacks (a.k.a. Tactics)

From January to April 2007, Global Services Marketing program management created 220 tactics across all services programs; approximately 90 of them were created by the sales enablement team to help bridge the gap between services marketing and sales. This section outlines just a few of the highlights.

Several of the materials the team created address all three of the pain points between marketing and sales:

• Services Welcome Packs. These are given to newly hired sales representatives to explain the services strategy at a high level as well as introduce the strategic services, provide guidance around how to sell them, and explain where to go for more information.
• Remote and tiered learning material. The team created a series of sales enablement podcasts on strategic services that outlines, in an interview format, how these services are positioned to customers and why doing so is beneficial for both the customer and the different sales teams. The podcasts are distributed in sales newsletters and are also available on the corporate portal.

In addition to creating content and collateral, the sales enablement team:

• Participates in onsite sales trainings
• Hosts regional Webex sessions for sales around online campaigns
• Creates surveys and games to motivate the sales teams to sell services
• Supports learning about strategic services
• Increases the exchange of information and feedback between services marketing and sales

Results

The sales enablement team within Global Services Marketing has created a new definition of what sales and marketing collaboration looks like at SAP. Of the many results the company has tracked since the program’s inception, sales is reporting high levels of satisfaction with the materials provided to them by the sales enablement team. They are also reporting an increased number of customer wins and stronger positioning with prospects as a result of integrating the messaging about SAP’s services into their sales pitches. In addition, the sales enablement team’s efforts at SAPPHIRE 2007, SAP’s international customer conference, paved the way for services experts to meet with more than 200 customers to discuss the company’s various lines of service.

Internally, the team has received kudos from sales and the leadership team within SAP’s services organizations. Bernd-Michael Rumpf, head of SAP Global Field Services, recognized the teams for their efforts, saying, “Over the past year, our Field Services Management Office and Global Services Marketing team have come together to develop joint marketing plans for SAP’s strategic services initiatives. They’ve worked in close collaboration with the Services Sales Operations teams in every region of the globe to deliver a marketing plan that is truly embraced by our Services Sales Managers.”

Today, SAP Services continues to bridge the gap between services marketing and sales, driving toward the company’s mission of maximizing customer success.

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