| | June 20158CIOReviewopinionin myMobile Sales Enablement Drives Efficiency and Increases SalesTechnology prod-ucts such as High Speed Internet, Voice over IP, and business productivity applica-tions are rapidly growing in the telecommunications industry. Small and midsized businesses represent a significant opportu-nity to capture a potential 64 million dollars of a 100 million dol-lars market and CenturyLink of-fers a wide range of solutions for business cust ome rs' need. These solutions are often sold in combinations of bundled products and services, which provide the best overall solution to meet our customers' business needs. The competition for customers who need these technology products is fierce. A key competitive edge for sales is to rapidly identify new customers who are within areas for specific products and services. The standard approach for sales lead generation order processing took anywhere from six to eighteen days. Researching our sales team's operational model, we discovered 70 percent of sales agent's time was spent in the office researching prospective customer locations to determine the opportunities that aligned with existing infrastructure and available products. The research involved significant work to search through online maps and directories to identify potential sales leads. Once leads were identified, the sales team would generate combinations of customized quotes for CenturyLink services utilizing a set of Excel-based tools. All of this was done before the initial contact with the customer, and often resulted in significant time spent on activities that did not yield any sales. CenturyLink's Sales Acquisition team approached IT with the challenge to deliver a mobile solution that field sales agents could utilize to identify high value customers and work directly with them to configure, quote, and close contracts. The goal was to By Bill Bradely, CIO, CenturyLinkBill Bradely
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