Exceeders, IT Sales, Online Solutions, E-Commerce, Online Vendors, B2B Sales | read
In recent years, companies have seen a sharp rise in online shopping numbers.
It is estimated that in 2018 alone, over 2.4 trillion dollars were spent in online retail worldwide – a figure that has almost doubled since 2014. Online shoppers today make up over 47% of the internet population.
What makes e-commerce so appealing?
It is no wonder that with all of these advantages, even businesses are making their purchases online these days.
As a leading IT software and services enterprise market store in the Gulf, we have taken note of online purchasing trends. Five years ago, it was challenging to make a sale without multiple visits to our customers, guiding them through the sales cycle – making them aware of the product or service, telling them about its benefits, and trying to convince them that it is something they should be buying.
Today, we find that so many customers have already done their research – they know what products and services are out there, and they already have the top two or three vendors or service providers shortlisted. They have done 70% of the groundwork required for a successful B2B sale.
How did this happen so quickly? Quite simply, business owners and buying decision-makers are following the same habits they’ve formed when making a consumer purchase – research, compare, and buy. Sales Account Managers and Relationship Managers are now viewed as ‘brand ambassadors’ – promoting a specific vendor or service – as opposed to actual consultants. The consultants and everything customers need to know is now online.
Because of these shifting purchasing trends, it is estimated that this year, 2019, B2B firms will spend more on e-commerce technology to facilitate online purchasing than online retailers do.
This massive investment in ‘online stores,’ complete with comparisons, reviews, and round the clock access to chatbots and digital account managers will undoubtedly impact on the ground sales personnel, who will probably be engaged only later in the sales cycle, and act more as facilitators for customers than actual account managers.
The Gulf region is no different from the rest of the world. Since 2016 to date, we have seen a dramatic increase in customer research hours. Organizations, governmental and private, now dedicate hundreds of hours annually to research IT solutions for their problems. IT managers now approach us asking about a specific product or service that could potentially resolve their issue – they refuse to be limited to what is being sold locally by the handful of service providers and vendors on the ground.
This was the main inspiration behind Exceeders.com. When we launched Exceeders back in 2016, our primary goal was to ensure customers had options. Investing in IT solutions in a growing region like the Gulf should be about having international prospects and the ability to bring in the best possible product, even if it does not exist locally.
Today, Exceeders is also about making IT solutions easy to access, research, and purchase as we believe that this is the natural future of IT sales. IT decision-makers are also consumers who make their purchases via Amazon, eBay, etc. When you combine that buyer mentality with progressive governments such as the Government of Dubai which has mandated that by 2021, all internal and customer transactions will be digitized to enable a paper-free government for a faster, more convenient, and environmentally friendly experience – where else is there to go but online?
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Originally published Aug 1, 2019 12:59:24 PM, updated August 1, 2019
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You see the end product but we’re bringing you closer to the people behind it !
As one of our most successful partners to date, we sat down with BluGrass’s co-founder Hasan Alameddine to gain firsthand insight on the things they do and the types of human capital profiles that drive their success.
Hasan has been in the IT industry for nine years with an education in Computer Science from the Lebanese American University in Beirut. He started as a CRM developer and was specialized in Microsoft products after he got his certification as a Microsoft Developer.
Hasan’s first enterprise experience in the UAE was as a CRM consultant in EMITAC, where he met Tony Alam and decided to jointly establish BluGrass.
Since its inception 4 years ago, BluGrass has grown to a team of 40 IT professionals with 32 customer success stories under their belt and 80M dirhams in revenue from managed services. Their primary market is the government sector with some focus on semi-government and private entities.
They first started providing hardware maintenance services but identified a gap in the market and quickly shifted their business model to that of a whole managed services provider where they do consultation, implementation, support, and resource allocation pertaining to specific projects.
What sets them apart from other service
providers in their field is their consultation phase. Rather than going straight into implementation based on a customer’s request, they allocation a major portion of the project to perform a full consultation that involves a gap analysis report.
This is to be able to identify all aspects in a customer’s current state, their desired state, and the required transition phase, and thus defining every parameter of the project to ensure complete visibility. After that phase has governed the customer’s approval, they will move into the implementation phase with full management and support from their side.
Since joining the Exceeders platform 2 years ago, they have been able to close 2 major deals in managed services.
![blugrass-smpost-02[8]](https://www.exceeders.com/hs-fs/hubfs/blugrass-smpost-02%5B8%5D.jpg?width=2048&name=blugrass-smpost-02%5B8%5D.jpg)
Success story
Recently, BluGrass signed a 5-year contract for a managed services project with a government-based investment company in the UAE. This entity collectively encompasses 6 other government agencies and an employee count that rakes up to 2000+.
The project entails managing the customer’s whole IT systems from bare infrastructure (servers, storage, networking) and security to infra applications (underlaying windows applications ) and high-level business applications (ERP, CRM).
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Every sales manager knows that taking proper care of the sales team is an unwritten rule of a business to achieve greater heights.
Every business owner dreams of a sales team that is 100% motivated all the time. Unfortunately, this dream is often not a practical reality.
As the pressure of digitisation on sales functions has grown in the past couple of years, companies are looking for new approaches to optimise sales enablement.
In some ways, empowering a a sales team simply means giving them greater autonomy of decision making and thereby brings better outputs. Sales managers seek out for better ways to do so because no marketing mixture is going to be everlastingly successful!
Training is one of the core elements in empowering any workforce. This is also true for a sales team. There are always new technological developments happening in a company's environment. If they are more technical in nature, giving proper training to the team members is a proactive approach.
The overall skill developed by the sales team is depending upon the quality of the training they receive. It is very important to pay attention to each member and shape them as equally trained and skilled.
Nobody needs to tell you that communication and collaboration are the keys to have a healthy sales campaign. It is all about having up-to-date information and keeping everyone on the same page.
Uninterrupted communication through relentless collaboration enables greater dynamism. Authorities should make sure that there is no communication gap and no one in the team is left behind.
Though sales persons are perceived as the smart ones, there needs to be constant empowerment. They should be more customer-centric for the most part. To have greater customer focus, it is important to have strong back up and this can be provided by the manager who offers ultimate support with solid marketing campaigns.
These campaigns should have the essence that attract and keep the customers hooked. In a way, the management is providing them ultimate authority to do more things which is aimed at bringing more fulfilling outcomes.
Offering more money, time off or a great gift is another great way to give employees a goal to work toward. A recent Aberdeen study shows that non-cash incentives are usually more effective than financial compensation, with top performers 31% more likely to prefer non-cash options.
Your best bet of getting the right incentive for your employees is by giving choices and let them vote on what incentive they’d most prefer. It will give your employees a greater sense of involvement, kickstarting a refreshed sense of excitement.
This should be cited as the most important point because, without the contribution of IT, organisations cannot dream of making it big. These days, marketing success needs smart technology solutions. If the sales team needs to be out in the field, why don’t they have a smart sales application?
We must agree that a sales application can do a lot of automation tasks which have been actually pestering the hapless sales team. It is going to be a great remedy as the features are most advanced and help to sort out several sales issues.
Enabling self-service for B2B buyers isn’t the only benefit of digital commerce. By bringing the sales team into the digital channel, B2B merchants can target the most complex parts of the purchasing experience and turn them into opportunities to retain and grow each account.
The competition in B2B commerce is growing, and the increasing expectations for great digital experiences mean that even long-time industry leaders will need to evolve in order to stay ahead. Empowering the sales channel to provide insightful, consultative selling across all their accounts will resolve the channel conflict that many companies struggle with, accelerating growth for years to come.
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GITEX 2019 has finally concluded. We had five power packed days of action, business networking, and meeting new partners and clients. We spent last week full of conversations and experiences around innovation, technology, and future.
In case you were not able to attend GITEX 2019, we are afraid - you really missed out! 😉
But don't worry, here is a run-down of what went down at GITEX 2019 and what is new for Exceeders this and next year.
As we mentioned in our GITEX preview post, we launched our flagship product, Exceeders Collaboration Agreement aka, ECA app. ECA app launch was an instant success and within the first three days of launch, the app became #3 trending app for its category.
In short, ECA is a comprehensive app for both Android and iOS. It offers users access to over 300 IT solutions and providers. With just a few clicks, IT leaders around the world can connect with Exceeders’ partners and start collaborating with them to grow their own organisations.
Want to benefit from ECA and Exceeders network? Download app here.
Speaking of Exceeders network and partners
Just like last year’s edition, at GITEX 2019 we welcomed exciting new partners to our network.
Vestigos
We announced our partnership with Vestigos Consulting Services represented by Mr. Stelios Leftheris. Vestigos is a leading consulting firm that specialises in helping startups develop their products and acquire funding. Vestigos will support and connect with all startups within Exceeders ecosystem.
FlairsTech
We also signing a partnership with FlairsTech. FlairsTech is a leading IT provider helping organisations digitally transform their workplaces and employee experiences.
NESICON Middle East
NESICON Middle East and Exceeders also became partners at GITEX 2019.
NESICON is an agile Information Security Intelligence company that serves a niche market in Middle-East and Africa for business that seek top quality information security services for their organisation.
Cloud Solutions
We are now partners with Cloud Solutions. Cloud Solutions was represented by their CEO Ajith TK at GITEX. Cloud Solutions aims to help SMEs in the UAE - digitally transforming their operations.
Exceeders and Diyar United Company are now partners officially. Mr Saed Zaidan, Director, Business Development joined us at the Day 2 of GITEX.
Diyar offers IT services including Microsoft solutions to help businesses in Kuwait enrich their portfolio & bring value and help them accelerate their digital transformation.
Ubility
We are now official partners with Ubility. Together, Exceeders & Ubility will provide top of the line AI solutions that help out customers & improve their customer, supplier and employee experience.
eCity Oman
eCity is another new partner added to Exceeders network. We are delighted to announce our partnership with eCity for IT Services to help bring its portfolio of innovative solutions to the Omani SME Market.
GetBEE
We're so proud to be partners with GetBEE - Bringing Expertise Everywhere. GetBEE gives its customers the tech to drive better results digitally.
Sahab Smart Solutions
Exceeders and Sahab Smart Solutions are official partners now. Together we will expand Sahab's portfolio of innovative solutions to organisations in Sharjah and help them transform digitally.
CNS Middle East, one of the biggest SI in the GCC is now an Exceeders partner. CNS, was repped here by Mr Hatem Hariri at GITEX. CNS focuses on enterprise and public sector around the GCC region.
We are now official partners of Cork Information Technology a channel in Bahrain providing ERP solutions- represented at GiTEX by Managing Director, Raju M V.
Jathwa Technologies
At Gitex we also became partners with Jathwa Technologies, an emerging ICT provider from Saudi Arabia. Represented at Gitex by Salem al Enezi, President, Jathwa provides top solutions in CustomerExperience, DataAnalytics, & smart mobility.
We are proud to announce that our education startup, Nadrus, was acquired by the Omani Society for Education Technology (OSET).
An education initiative by Exceeders, Nadrus aims to bridge the gap between formal education and the market skill demand. It currently serves about 200,000 Arabic speaking learners and more than 150 educators in fields ranging from Microsoft Excel and Photoshop, to Android application development and programming.
All in all, we had an incredible week at GITEX 2019. We are thankful to our hardworking team, all our partners who visited us, and everyone who came by and made our day.
Now the countdown to GITEX 2020 begins already. ⌛
