| Turning sales process adoption around at Microsoft
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Our Customer’s Pain |
After investing in a new global salesforce automation system and the deployment of solution selling methodologies Microsoft identified a serious problem: The investment they had made was not paying-off. Interestingly industry research was discovering a much boarder business problem associated with user adoption of sales process methodologies and CRM systems. Research from AMR for example stated that up to 47% of CRM initiatives were at risk of failure due to user adoption issues. Sales teams renowned for being amongst the hardest to adopt change were simply rejecting the call to become automated.
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The emergence of a new way
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Around the same time PACE were experiencing great success in helping some of Microsoft’s subsidiaries adopt the Microsoft Solution Selling process. The Mexican subsidiary led by Ruben Bravo the Enterprise Sales Manager engaged PACE to help the team address significant pipeline and sales process adoption issues. Aware of the by now pervasive adoption issues sweeping most companies who had invested in salesforce automation PACE developed an approach based on a program of experiential learning (or “learning by doing”), and most critically, a focus on sales management coaching and reinforcement. The program was a massive success. The Mexican Sales team became the only team to meet their sales quotas for the FY across a region of major economic turmoil driven by the collapse of the Argentinean economy.
"With the turmoil taking shape in the South American market we knew we had a massive challenge ahead to meet our sales goals. We also knew that we had poor adoption of our sales process resulting in sizeable pipeline gaps vs. quotas. The PACE program enabled us to no to not only become the no:1 sales team in South America but also take a big step forward with the adoption and perceived value of our solution selling processes and tools."
- Ruben Bravo, Microsoft
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Success breeds Success
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Success in South America led to success in Canada where PACE was invited to address similar adoption issues for the Microsoft Canadian sales team. The learning by doing approach was shaped into a 4 level program duped the “Cone of Learning” – The adoption programs focused on factual learning in phase 1 such that all the sales team understand the sales process and the potential value it could deliver to them. Phase 2 involved interactive learning workshops where teams practiced using the processes, the tools and resources to help them drive deeper relationships with their customers. Phase 3 focused on experiential learning (or “learning by doing”) where sales teams focused on the application to real opportunities and most critically, in the final phase focused on making Microsoft become self reliant by through management coaching and reinforcement, to ensure continued adoption.
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The Cone of Adoption was born
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The unique way that PACE addresses user adoption issues of sales process and salesforce automation was developed into the “Cone of Adoption”. The difference between the Cone of Adoption and traditional adoption techniques is that the Cone of Adoption engages the entire “Life cycle of Learning” – a PACE program addresses factual learning (or “I understand this”), interactive learning (or “I understand how I can apply this”), to experiential learning (or “learning by doing”), and most critically, a focus on management coaching and reinforcement, to ensure continued adoption. Managers were identified early on by PACE as the most important role, the role that models excellence to the teams. In this regard they sit atop of the Cone.
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The Next Step |
The work that PACE completed in South America and Canada for Microsoft was soon recognized by the corporate team responsible for sales excellence. PACE were invited to address the very same adoption issues that were by now pervasive across Microsoft. Jonathan Bumba the lead for transforming Microsoft’s opportunity management processes invited PACE to develop a worldwide adoption approach.
PACE developed the following:
 A global coaching & re-enforcement program targeting sales
teams and sales managers as the models of excellence. The
Coaching Pipeline Success (CPS) for account teams and
Coaching Pipeline Success for Sales Managers (CPS SM)
programs were developed.- A single and consistent place where all sales teams could
access to gain access to the sales process, the tools, the
resources and proof points that could help them drive for
deeper customer relationships. The e360 sales portal was
developed.
“PACE literally turned our solution selling issue on its head. From being the worst we became the best. PACE not only impacted our pipeline but also changed the behaviors of our sales teams and sales managers."
- Corinne Chubb, Microsoft
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| Results
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PACE delivered 84 workshops on a global basis in the largest sales geographies such as the US market as well as emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil. Over a 12 month period PACE impacted the behaviors of sales teams and sales managers leading to an unprecedented number of early stage net new opportunities discovered as part of Coaching Pipeline Success programs (CPS) that were ready for sales team & management follow-up. The number of opportunities in the global pipeline increased by greater than 100% and most significantly grew the global pipeline by $672m.
"The PACE program enabled us to not only grow our sales pipeline which of course is the main assessment of success but also positioned our sales mangers as being in the middle of the process as the modelers of excellence."
- Jonathan Bumba, Microsoft
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For more information on how PACE can assist you address your user adoption issues contact sales@itsstillnotworking.com.
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