Application Software

Business Application Software

Sample Customer Pain Points, Value Propositions, and Benefit Statements

To achieve sales success, it is increasingly important to provide prospects with quantified, personalized value propositions (business cases).  Value-based tools automate the creation of high quality business cases.  Common value-focused tool capabilities for B2B software sellers, include:

  • Assess customer business process performance, issues, and needs (diagnostic assessment)
  • Select or configure solutions based on customer needs
  • Estimate costs
  • Analyze solution impact on KPIs
  • Quantify solution benefits (cost savings, productivity improvements, revenue growth, etc.)
  • Calculate TCO and/or ROI
  • Compare to competitive offerings
  • Create customer-specific documentation (presentations, proposals, business cases)

Customer-facing web-based marketing tools (demand generation tools) are often referred to as “ROI calculators” and often only contain a couple of the above components.  Tools used internally (by sales staff or partners) are typically more comprehensive.

The table below summarizes:  1) Sample Customer Challenges or Pain Points which are familiar to many business software buyers.  Effective tools assess customer needs and present solutions (your products) that solve them. 2) Sample Solution Value Propositions that automation tools can personalize and thereby make more compelling. 3) Sample Benefits that business value tools can quantify (must be done credibly), making your business cases substantially more effective.




Flexera Laptop

 

 

 

Industry / Products

Sample Customer Challenges / Pains

Sample Solution Value Propositions

Sample Benefits To Quantify in the Tool

Business Intelligence

Database management systems (DBMS), data warehousing, data marts, online transaction processing (OLTP), Financial planning, corporate performance management, reporting, analytics, dashboards, scorecards, enterprise search, ETL, OLAP, query

Example Vendors: Microsoft SQL Server, Teradata, IBM, Oracle, MySQL, Ingres, PostgreSQL, Sybase, Oracle Hyperion, Business Objects, Informatica, Cognos, Information Builders, MicroStrategy, SAS

    • Not able to effectively analyze and understand existing data. 
    • Too much data, too little actionable intelligence.
Improve access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance
    • Improve analysis speed
    • Improve access to desired data
    • Improve decision-making quality
    • Improve business performance
    • Reduce errors
CRM

Sales force automation (account, contact and opportunity management), marketing campaign management, customer information management, order entry, customer service management, customer analytics, product configurators, proposal generation

Example Vendors: Oracle Siebel, PeopleSoft, Onyx, Sage, NetSuite, SAP CRM, Salesforce.com, Amdocs, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SugarCRM, Infor, SAS, Amdocs, Kana, Aspect, Avaya

    • Sales processes are fragmented and inefficient
    • Customer communications are error-prone
Enables greater customer insight, increased customer access, more-effective customer interactions, and integration throughout all customer channels and back-office enterprise functions
    • Revenue growth
    • Sales and marketing efficiency and effectiveness
    • Improve margins
    • Improve customer satisfaction
ERP

Manufacturing, operations/production management, inventory management, planning/scheduling, finance/accounting, human resource management, product management, warehouse management, logistics, purchasing, order entry, and enterprise asset management (EAM)

Example Vendors: SAP, Oracle Fusion (E-Business Suite, J.D. Edwards, PeopleSoft), Lawson, Intentia, Infor, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, Kronos, Infor

    • Business processes are too manual and inefficient
    • Operating costs are too high
    • Systems are not well integrated
Automates and improves the processes of the administrative, production, inventory and product development aspects of an enterprise
    • Business process efficiency and quality
    • Cost savings
    • Improve adoption of business best practices
    • Reduce errors
SCM

Logistics, production planning, inventory management, supply chain planning, execution, sourcing and procurement

Example Vendors: Ariba, Manhattan Associates, RedPrairie, SAP, Oracle, Dassault

    • High supply chain costs
    • On time delivery issues
    • Demand variability
    • Supply chain not transparent
Automates and improves the flow of products, services and related information from source to customer
    • Reduce supply chain costs
    • Improve on time delivery
    • Reduce inventory carrying costs
Content, Communication, and Collaboration Software

Document management, web content management, document imaging, records management, digital asset management, e-mail and calendaring, web conferencing and shared workspaces/team collaboration, instant messaging, e-learning suites

Example Vendors: Microsoft SharePoint, Exchange, Cisco, IBM Lotus, Oracle Collaboration Suite, Novell GroupWise, WebEx, EMC Documentum, FileNet, Hummingbird, Interwoven, Mobius Management Systems, Open Text, Stellent, Vignette, FaceTime, Avaya

    • Collaborative content creation is inefficient and frustrating
More efficiently and effectively organize, access, use and share structured and unstructured content (documents, records, images, forms and media)
    • Improve communication productivity
    • Accelerate content creation
    • Improve content quality
Office/Productivity Software

Word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics, personal information management, note-taking, task and project management

Example Vendors: Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, Oracle StarOffice, Google Docs, IBM SmartSuite

    • Outdated productivity software
    • Missing desired features
Improve user productivity with new UI, features, and capabilities
    • User productivity
    • Content quality
    • User and customer satisfaction
Engineering Applications

CAD, CAE, CAM, Collaborative product data management

Example Vendors: PTC, Dassault, Siemens, ANSYS, CNC Software, Oracle Autovue, Sopheon, Autodesk, Bentley Systems

    • Engineering processes not collaborative, efficient, or integrated
Automates and improves business processes and data management activities specific to ideas management, concept planning, and design and the handoff of a design to execution
    • Accelerate time to market
    • Improve design quality
    • Improve customer satisfaction
    • Reduce product defects
Vertical-Specific and Other Applications

Commerce applications; e-discovery; e-learning; engineering applications; enterprise search; enterprise social software; geographic information systems; governance, risk and compliance; media and entertainment; mobile and wireless applications; PLM; digital content creation software

Example Vendors: Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop; Apple Aperture; Corel CorelDRAW; Adobe Acrobat Reader, Autonomy [Cardiff] LiquidOffice Form Designer, IBM Lotus Forms, and Microsoft InfoPath

    • Outdated software
    • Lack desired features and capabilities
    • Rapid regulatory change
State-of-the-art features and capabilities automates and improves work processes and outcomes
    • Improve customer satisfaction
    • Reduce process costs
    • Reduce errors
    • Improve compliance
    • Reduce risks
    • Improve quality

 

AnalysisPlace builds highly-effective sales and marketing tools that help enterprise software vendors articulate their value propositions to their prospects.  Contact us to discuss tool solutions that can help your company obtain more qualified sales leads, improve sales close rates, and cut sales cycle times.