Monday, January 26, 2015
Communicating the value of a Dynamics upgrade to your end-customer can feel like a harder sell than the sale of the original of the system. In fact, there are many motivations and events that can drive the need for an upgrade, you just have to be able to detect these buying signals to quickly turn them into upgrade sales. Well, what drives demand for an upgrade?
Key Demand Drivers for An Upgrade
Why are upgrade sales important to you? Upgrades are essential to helping you stay competitive in this changing marketplace and securing your existing customer base. It’s no secret that an existing customer base is a gold mine for a sales professional: easy-to-sell and simple-to-service.
Understanding the motives that drive customer demand for Dynamics NAV upgrades is very important for your upgrade sales. To be frank, nobody goes “window-shopping” for an ERP upgrade. However, being able to identify the upgrade drivers that commence the “window-shopping” is crucial to landing upgrade sales.
There are two primary reasons customers choose to upgrade their ERP systems:
- Business Challenge Driver
- Emotional Change Driver.
Business ChallengeDrivers are primary industry drivers that drive the need for an upgrade. These are usually related to strategic, economic or risk factors that have a very measurable impact on the organization if left unchanged.
An example of a Business Challenge Driver would be an update to an industry compliance regulation requiring more extensive, detailed reporting for your customer. Many times the new reporting format or detail is not available in the customer’s current version of their ERP system, which then requires an upgrade to stay in compliance with new industry regulation.
Emotional Change Drivers are generally driven by fear or greed. Unlike Business Challenge Drivers that move at a very slow place, these Emotional Change Drivers are usually tied to a quick “trigger” or negative event.
An example of an Emotional Change Driver would be losing a large, profitable client due to a failure or delay caused by the ERP system. Surprisingly, most ERP upgrades can be reverse engineered to identify a negative and emotional “trigger” event.
Other well-known demand drivers for upgrades are to:
- React to discontinuation and end of solution support
- Increase productivity
- Take advantage of new technology/functionality
- Meet growth and profitability goals
- Increase ROI from BREP and ERP investment
- Response to new requirements and regulations
- Increase software integration
- Solve resourcing challenges
- Make customer’s dream of Cloud ERP come true.
Do you want to learn more? Click here to watch On-Demand Webinar (free) What Drives Demand For An Upgrade?