Oversight Systems

Frank  Cespedes

Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | February 2017

Oversight Systems

Abstract

This Teaching Note accompanies the case, set in May 2016, which discusses sales strategy and channel partnerships at Oversight Systems, an early stage software firm that developed analytics for organizations to monitor their data for errors, fraud, and operational inefficiencies. The case traces Oversight’s evolution from custom analytics to prepackaged software modules and, as well as case analyses and teaching plans, the Teaching Note provides the instructor with materials for a wrap-up lecture on channel selection and management in startups. Teaching Note for HBS No. 817-105.

Keywords: Salesforce Management; Sales; Sales strategy; entrepreneurial sales; entrepreneurial sales and marketing; software sales; marketing; marketing management; Distribution Channels; pricing; Salesforce Management; Distribution Channels; Marketing Strategy; Technology Industry; North America;

Language: English

Format: Print

13 pages

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Citation:

Cespedes, Frank. "Oversight Systems." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 817-120, February 2017.

Sales methodologies play an important role. A common approach in a sales force allows for consistency, dissemination of best practices, acceleration of learning, and it helps the firm to scale because management then has common metrics to monitor and evaluate. However, it’s rare that the same methodology is relevant across the buying situations encountered by salespeople in a market. This article discusses and provides examples of variables relevant to analyzing sales tasks and evaluating the relevance of a selling methodology: differences within an industry, within a category, and when target buyers change.

Common advice in sales is to provide insights to customers during sales calls. But this advice generally stays at the level of “tell people something they don’t already know” and results in sales conversations littered with many irrelevant factoids. This article provides examples of how salespeople develop and deliver resonant insights in customer conversations and why the framing of insights depends upon to whom they are talking and when in the sales cycle.

Most research and training in sales focus on acquiring new customers. But winning back previous customers is increasingly important: mergers, choice in supply chains, and uncertainty about trade wars mean that B2B customers are constantly re-evaluating relationships with suppliers and making changes. Meanwhile, large buyers account, on average, for over 25% of revenues at publicly traded firms, up from 10% in the 1980s. This article discusses how and why the process for reacquiring lost customers requires a different approach than acquiring new ones and illustrates the process and its implications via a case example.

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Oversight Systems

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