1. Pre-sales Workshop

2. Contents
1 Presales Process Overview
2 Roles & Responsibilities
3 Writing a Winning Proposal
4 Post-RFP stage
5 A Generic Framework

3. What is presales
A set of activities normally carried out
before a customer is acquired
A typical sales cycles
 Suspect
 Prospect/Opportunity
 Lead
Presales involvement in these phases
differs from situation to situation

4. What is Presales
 Happens along with a sales
person before a sale closes
 It is sales support
 It is also about being a technical
and business consultant

5. A Typical Sales Process
Product Knowledge
Prospecting
Approach
Needs Assessment
Customer Presentation
Sales Close
Follow-up

6. Presales Involvement
Product Knowledge
Prospecting
Approach
Needs Assessment
Customer Presentation
Sales Close
Follow-up

7. What is not presales
 Searching for new suspects,
prospects or leads
 Qualifying prospects
 Deciding and planning to approach
prospects
 Negotiating with customer in closing
a deal

8. What is not presales
 Developing relationship with
customers
 Calling for a meeting with the
customer
 Deciding the price of a deal
 Collecting feedback from the
customer

9. Presales in IT
 Companies looking for vendors to
implement software solutions call for
proposals
 Support for Sales in closing a deal
 Many times a technical and business
consultant for the potential customer
 Crucial link between Sales, Customer
and Delivery
 Needs a blend of technical, business
and soft skills

10. Presales in IT
Needs to work having the ‘big picture’
in mind – winning the deal for the
company as well as customer delight
Presales role could be specific to
account, territory, technologies and
partners
 Plays an important role in making
proposals for RFPs and RFIs

11. Why Presales
 Increasing complexity in customer’s
business requirements in terms of
variety in technology, number of
components or modules, security and
infrastructure needs
 Customer delight is more than
matching customer needs with a right
technical solution. Customers expect
vendors to partner with them in
meeting their evolving business
needs

12. Why Presales
 Bidding process is a complex and a
very formal one, with strict adherence
to procedures and timelines
 Bidding process involves intelligent
negotiation on price, scope of work,
schedule and other contract
requirements
 Therefore is too important to be done
without committed and dedicated
professionals

13. Without Presales
Making proposals may either end-up
with delivery heads or worse, with
sales
 Sales will not have the depth of
technical knowledge to provide a
solution
 Delivery heads may not have skills to
match customer’s business needs
with the right technical solution
 Both the teams could be short on
bandwidth to take full responsibility

14. Place of Presales
Presales
Customer
Sales
Services

15. Presales in career growth
A great opportunity to know up close
the market and the business of
software, and what ‘sells’
Opportunity to get a systemic view of
many things that makes up an
organization and it’s business
Opportunity to get to know different
cross-sections of customer and
technology solutions

16. Presales in career growth
People with a technical background
can add lot of value by bringing in
their experience and thereby benefit
from it
Working in presales can also be seen
as a choice for shifting to
management career path
Opportunity to learn a variety of skills
including client liaison, managing
cross-functional teams, leadership,
consulting skills

17. Presales in career growth
In larger organizations, presales
gives a very good opportunity to
network with all the right people
Since presales is demanding on both
technical and business knowledge
and management skills, it’s the right
place for a challenging job

18. Presales is different
Any specific sales engagement is
temporary
therefore the corresponding sales-presales
engagement is also
temporary
The same is true for the other
cascading engagements between
presales and others down the line
The engagement on an average lasts
for about a month – from the start of
the RFP to the end of the RFP

19. Place of presale
 Where does a presale person belong
to
 Practices
 Center of Excellence or Technologies
 Accounts
 Territory
 Partners
 Sales
 Sometimes from the project itself

20. Common Attitude and Perceptions
I am on bench. So they picked me up
to do this job…
This is mainly a ‘cut-copy-paste’ job.
Why do they need me ?
In any case, winning depends entirely
on the sales team and the top
management…
After all, I am a technical person… I
don’t know or want to be a sales
person
 I don’t see the results immediately, it
usually takes months before I hear…

21. Common Attitude and Perceptions
We are non-billable resources.
Obviously we don’t get enough
resources to do the job
I am not trained for this job…
There’s just not enough and right
information around to write this
proposal…
There’s hardly enough time to do this
work… Why can’t they inform me
much ahead ?
How do I grow in my career in this
path ?

22. Common Problems
Presales work is not assigned the
right resources
Not enough training is given
Presales work needs many temporary
resources and therefore gets less
commitment
People who are on bench are
assigned
Proposal can have too many technical
components and therefore may need
involvement of many people

23. Common Problems
May face ownership problems
Demanding on technical, business and
soft skills all at once
Every RFP response ‘suffers’ from
extreme time constraints

24. Presales Process

25. Winning a Deal
Opening
Game
•Market Analysis
•Strategic Planning
•Account Planning
•Branding
Middle
Game
•Account Management
•Relationship Management
•Opportunity Management
•Pursuit Management
End
Game
•Proposal Management
•Presentation
•Negotiation
Deal Client Market

26. Pre-RFP RFP Proposal Post-RFP
• RFP Issue
• Pre-Bid
Conference
• Clarifications
on RFP
• Modifications
to RFP
• Identify
resources to
work on RFP
• Finalise reqmts
• Shortlist
vendors
• Finalise
Evaluation
Criteria
• Finalise Budget
• Customer
presentation by
vendor
• Prepare
Proposal
according to
RFP guidelines
• Customer
Visits
• Demo of
Capabilities
• Presentation
• Evaluation
Presales Stages

27. Presales Stages
Roles
 Customer
 Sales person
 Presales person
 Finance
 Solution Architect
 Domain Expert
 Technical Consultant
 Account Manager

28. www.themegallery.com
Presales Stages
• Finalise reqmts
• Shortlist vendors
• Finalise Evaluation
Criteria
• Finalise Budget
• Issue RFP
• Arrange pre-bid
conference
• Provide
clarifications
• Receive proposal • Request for site visit
and/or demo
• Evaluate and finalize
vendor
• Make customer
presentation
showcasing services,
products and
strengths
• Receive RFP
• Seek clarification on
RFP
• Get commitment
from internal
resources
• Keep mgmt
informed
• Assist presales with
inputs from customer
and about customer
• Add commercials to
the proposal
• Arrange for
Customer visit
• Arrange for demo
and presentation
• Provide inputs as
needed
• Receive RFP
• Identify resources
to work on RFP
• Form cross-functional
team
• Seek clarifications
• prepare proposal by
working with cross-functional
teams or
by taking inputs from
them
• Assist sales in
customer visit, demo
and presentation
• Provide inputs as
needed (case studies,
testimonials)
• Provide inputs as
needed (questions to
customers on
business needs,
technical specs, etc)
• Provide inputs as
needed (technical
solutions, relevant
case studies, etc)
• Provide inputs as
needed (inputs for
demo)
Delivery Presales Sales Customer
Pre-RFP RFP Proposal Post-RFP

29. Information Flow
Customer
Sales
Pre
sales
Delivery
•Business Reqmts
• Technical
Reqmts
• Constraints
• Evaluation
Criteria
• RFP
• Clarifications
• Provide infn on
products,
services
• present success
stories
• seek further infn
on customer
• RFP
• Infn on
customer
constraints,
preferences,
priorities
• Competitor infn
• RFP Clarifications
• questions on
RFP
• questions on
customer
• status update
• Response to RFP
• questions on
business and
technical reqmts
• questions on
customer
constraints,
Evaluation
•Carsitseurmiaptions,
customer
problems, etc
• seek to
understand
business and
technical reqmts
to form a solution
• seek to
• understand
solution provided

30. Discussion
Use the IFD to discuss about
 The gaps in information flow
 The inefficiencies
 What kind of information loss happens
 Identify areas of potential risks
 The choice of medium and its suitability

31. Session 1 -Summary
What did we learn
Questions