“Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.”

–Malcolm Gladwell

Some people agree with the above quote, some strongly disagree–but we can all agree that if you do something for 10,000 hours, you probably know more than most on that subject. In solution selling, you are taught very early to identify the problem, then formulate a solution to solve that problem for your future client. Now you ask, “how are these two topics related?”

Selling an SAP eCommerce solution is not like selling a widget. There is no ‘one size fits all’ magical silver bullet in SAP eCommerce. The odds of Manufacturer A’s business rules being the same as Manufacturer B’s (if I had to guess) are about one in a million. That’s not to say that there are not similarities between solutions. At Corevist, we say our SAP-Integrated eCommerce solution is 80% “out of the box.” The remaining 20% is where Experience comes into play.

The value of experience

For months, I’ve been working on formulating the value of the experience we have here at Corevist.  How can I quantify it to share with prospects? Is it in hours, years or projects? In case you were wondering, here’s a quick breakdown:

• Over 150 Years of Combined SAP eCommerce Experience
• Over 300,000 Hours of SAP eCommerce Experience
• Over 500 SAP eCommerce Projects
• Countless hours of post implementation support for SAP eCommerce Solutions

But how does this benefit our prospects and clients here at Corevist? Its embedded in a few of our core values that we strive to deliver daily;

• Be Passionate about our clients.
• Be Professional – be Trusted Advisers
• Be Proactive – Anticipate the questions, be prepared with answers

Being Professional is of utmost importance to those involved in the sales process, or should I say journey here at Corevist.  It all starts with our first communication to a potential client when we ask ourselves,

• “What value can I deliver today?”
• To our product demonstration–“How can we identify what our future client needs and visually demonstrate to them how we can achieve it?”
• To our product demonstration–“Did we successfully solve the business need? Did we uncover a new need that needs to be solved?”
• Then onto our SAP eCommerce Assessment (currently a no charge event)–“Is our client’s system ready for eCommerce?”
• Negotiations–“Do we need to assist our client by introducing them to 3rd party vendors?” “Do they need assistance in understanding the SAP licensing landscape?”
• Project Kick-off–“Have we helped our client organize the event so all of the project stakeholders are involved?”
• Implementation–“Have we involved our client’s clients? Have we had the discussions with end users to get their feedback?”
• Golive–“Is everyone prepared? Are the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed?”

How do we know to do all of the above?  Experience! The team here at Corevist has literally been there, and done that.

300,000 hours of SAP eCommerce experience in action

The value of experience became crystal clear to me a few days ago. We were doing what I thought would be a fairly normal demonstration focused around replacment parts.  

Boy was I wrong.

We kicked off the demo by asking the prospect to reiterate their business needs. Of course, getting to this point, I had a fairly good understanding that it was going to be focused around replacement parts, and I had built our demonstration around it.

But, the prospect threw us a curveball. They had a bigger, long-term need that they needed to scale to.

They needed to ensure that the complex orders, currently being taken by phone, email and yes even fax, could be properly formed and placed in SAP so the manufacturing side of the house could fulfill the orders.  I won’t share the private details of the conversation, but needless to say, having our SAP eCommerce experts on that demonstration allowed for us to show our core values.

• Passionate – We cared about the business need, not just making a sale. We advised on the proper long term solution. We didn’t just throw a band-aid on the problem and hope it would go away.
• Professional – Experience allowed us to go over previous real-life scenarios to see if they could fit. Also, we were able to show a future enhancement we have in development which would solve the business need 100% correctly. (Using SAP’s Variant Configurator to properly form and place the order in SAP – coming Q3 2017 :-) –stay tuned!!)
• Proactive – Strategize with the prospect to show the possible gains, and pitfalls.

The Takeaway

In a nutshell, Experience in SAP eCommerce is worth its weight in gold. You can’t put a dollar figure to that value. It’s a person-to-person, relationship value. We are trusted advisors looking out for our clients’ best interests. With 300,000 hours of SAP eCommerce experience under our belts (and counting), we’re becoming better advisors every single day.

If you’re looking for the best SAP eCommerce solution out there, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me. Let’s talk about your business needs–where your company is today, and where you’re going. I’d love to hear from you.

Email me today: ariel [DOT] mordetsky [AT] corevist.com

–Ariel Mordetsky, Director of Sales