‘We have gained more insight into the buying process of customers’

With over 115,000 people in more than 35 countries, Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. Together with its clients, Capgemini creates and achieves results-oriented business and technology solutions, tailored to customer needs. “In the current market clients are looking for partners who can really add value, come up with a solution and have the courage to take responsibility for achieving that solution.” According to Arthur Donzel, Sales Director of Capgemini Financial Services, this should be the starting point for the sales process.

Value Selling

“Whether it is a consultancy assignment or a major outsourcing project, basically in any sales process it’s about the same thing: what challenge is a customer facing, what solution can you offer and how do you add value. In the past, you could see that customers liked to hire a ‘gut’ for a project in which they were in charge. Now they’re asking you to take responsibility for achieving results. For this you need to have a sales mind set.”

“Delivering value starts early in the sales process. We have done a pilot project with a workshop on value selling. It was very successful. Next we organised three follow-up sessions supplemented with individual coaching. The purpose of these workshops was to have sales reasoning more from the content. Consultants, mostly used to reasoning from the contents, became more interested in the sales process.”

CxO

“It’s not about what we can do or our in-house competencies. What are the critical issues of a customer? How do we solve their problem? To gain this insight, you need to meet the CxO level. And that demands a certain attitude and focus. What keeps them personally from sleeping?” According to Van Donzel you cannot fit a good sales process into a tight theoretical framework or roadmap.

Integrated approach

“Eisenfelt is constantly focusing on four aspects: the issue of the customer, providing added value, the personal agenda of the customer and the role of sales during the sales process.” Van Donzel thinks that’s a strong combination. “That you can practice with a person who could be your customer in real life, and not some actor; this makes the role play very instructive. You get immediate feedback from the person concerned in response to a sales call. ‘This is how I experience it…’, ‘I think this is…’, ‘You could also do it like this… ‘”

“To me, the path with Eisenfelt really introduced a transformation in attitude and method, and not some ’trick’ that you were taught.” In addition to Financial Services, Eisenfelt has also coached other business units since the summer of 2011. “It is an advantage that, within the Company, we are now speaking the same language.”