selling microsoft azure in the smb - handling objections

[email protected] @nerdometer +91-9916043731

Director Sales, Marketing & Strategic Alliances, CloudCover.In


Real-world Scenarios from Indian SMB Market

Real-world Case Studies from Indian SMB Market


SMB Adoption Cloud & Mobility (Indian Consulting firms = 0-999, Microsoft SMB = 0-250)

Out of total SMB populatiion, 96% of SMB have employees = 0-10 = 33.8 Million organizations

Remaining 4% of SMB have employees = 11-999 = 1.3 Million organizations

Combined wallet share growth:

2013: 30%

2014-2015: 45%+

Key drivers: Tablet & smartphone; Cloud Adoptors are out-growing their competitors

Growth comes at the expense of on-premise servers

Key Drivers:

Driving Profitability ( competitive advantage over peers ) Cut Costs ( i.e. Lower Total Cost of Ownership ) Move away from Hardware/Software Repeat Purchase Cycle to an OpEx model Greater Business Process (GBP) efficiency Faster Delivery Times Achieving Quality Excellence


- Do you have an AD disaster recovery solution in place?

- What if I give you an I&A Management Solution; i.e. AD DR solution on Cloud?

- Which is backed with a financially-backed SLA of 99.9% uptime from Microsoft


- Everyone gets the value-prop for utility computing

- While selling, prospect will immediately go to reasons it will NOT work for them

- These are called objections

- Let us take top 10 objections and evaluate options on how to overcome them.


- Would love to explore cloud but dont have money // budget // have budget constraints.

OBJECTION 1: I DONT HAVE MONEY

We are having this chat to save you money

Money refers to Total Cost of Ownership added value to already what you are spending to run the IT infrastructure, how if we can compare it and lower it? Would you be interested in saving money?

TCO includes the servers you have running, hardware/software/licenses, desktop software, routers, networking equipment, salary of the 2/3 SysAdmins who are employed to make sure this all is running, electricity bill for server room, maintenance and added to this Running costs.

No SLA on any of the above-mentioned components

Alternative which I wish to talk about costs lower, with NO CAPEX (Capital Expenditure), on-going monthly bill with pay as you go, and definitely backed with a financially-backed SLA from Microsoft. How does this sound?

Would you like to have a 15-min conversation on Microsoft Cloud offerings and its benefits?

Lower TCO in 1/3/5 years

Savings


- I have spent 20+ years dealing with on-premises servers. Moving

to cloud seems too daunting! Not for me maybe!

OBJECTION 2: I DONT UNDERSTAND CLOUD

Cloud (Azure) is not a new architecture paradigm. What is new is the way components of your core Infra will be managed and SLA-backed by organization.

You purchase hardware as of now.

You purchase software as of now.

You have to order these and this takes time (purchase cycle).

You can launch a VM on Azure in less than 3 minutes.

Saves your time considerably & lets you do more.

As an IT Professional / CTO / CEO / IT Manager, wouldnt you be interested in knowing how you can do MORE with paying LESS?

Would you like to have a 15-min conversation on Microsoft Cloud offerings and its benefits?

Explain Cloud as Managed

Services of Infra

Not New Architecture

Focus on Agility & Ability to do More


- I have made significant investments in on-premises

hardware/software/architectures.

OBJECTION 3: I HAVE INVESTED ALREADY

Agreed that you have a lot of investments in on-prem already.

Find out when *NEXT* purchase cycle is.

Key to hit the person again and pitch him/her Cloud ROI before next purchase cycle.

3 Questions to probe NOW:

Are you launching new applications? Will your currently Virtualized hardware on server X be able to handle that?

What is your average time for deployment from dev/test to actual deployment in a virtualized environment? Are you facing slow migrations?

Do you have any applications which are facing unforeseen problems while going from dev/test to actual deployment?

Would you like to have a 15-min conversation on Microsoft Cloud offerings and its benefits? (IF YES IN ANY ONE OF THESE)

Leverage & bundle deals on

Azure


- I lose control. I have no idea what Microsoft will do with my

sensitive and customer data?

OBJECTION 4: WHAT ABOUT MY DATA?

Multiple business functions are out of direct control (e.g. power, water, facilities, personnel and legal)

Your data remains yours only.

On Microsoft Azure, when data is written, it is written sparsely. This means, when a virtual disk is created, disk space is NOT allocated for its entire capacity. Instead, a table is created that maps addresses on the virtual disk to areas on the physical disk and that table is initially kept empty. When a customer writes data on the virtual disk, space on the physical disk is allocated and a *pointer* to it is placed on the table. When data is deleted, the *pointer* is freed.

If anyone tries to read a region on virtual disk that they have not yet written to, physical space will not have been allocated for that region and thus only zeroes would be returned. There are no utilities that would help anyone figure out who the previous owner of the block was.

Would you like to have a 15-min conversation with one of our Technical Solutions Architects to know more about Data Control mechanisms for Microsoft Azure storage, Microsoft Azure VMs, Microsoft Azure SQL Database, Automatic Backup etc.?

Build Trust

Divide & Conquer


- I lose control. I wish to keep some customer sensitive data on-

premises and explore cloud for the web applications as such.

OBJECTION 5: WHAT ABOUT MY CONTROL?

We completely understand that you wish to keep data on-prem.

Is it governed by SLA-policies? Or something in contractual form with customer?

On Microsoft Azure, you can definitely opt for a hybrid cloud environment wherein we can utilize something called predictive cloud bursting and access publicly-accessible components of Core Infra on Azure Public domain, whereas the core data is stored in-house on a private environment.

This suits your business model perfectly. Additionally, its highly secure and thus alleviates all your other concerns about data storage, security and leakage.

Would you like to have a 15-min conversation with one of our Technical Solutions Architects to know more about a Microsoft Azure Hybrid environment for your organizational use case? We will discuss key advantages of having a Hybrid Cloud deployment wherein we will use already existing investments & assets revolving Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V, Microsoft Systems Center & Microsoft Azure.

Pitch Hybrid Solutions


- I fear about my applications and data. How secure is Azure?

OBJECTION 6: IM CONCERNED ABOUT SECURITY

We completely understand data security is top priority.

Awareness organizations have less control that they really think. It is extremely important that you bring this up early.

Three levels exist

- Platform (Core Infra)

- Architecture (Setup of VMs on Azure)

- Code (Setup of PaaS on IaaS)

Platform is secured by Security Certifications responsibility of Microsoft. ISO/IEC 27001:2005, SOC1 & SOC2 SSAE 16/ISAE 3402, CSA, FedRAMP and others.

Architecture & Code is joint responsibility of Microsoft & Customer

Would you like to have a 15-min conversation with one of our Technical Solutions Architects to know more about the Industry-wise Security Certifications that Microsoft Azure has? Refer customer to Microsoft Azure Trust Center Compliance section to read through all the certifications in detail.

Pitch Hybrid Solutions


- I fear poor performance. Are you sure for my applications?

OBJECTION 7: PERFORMANCE WILL BE GOOD?

We understand application performance is critical to your business.

Awareness Are you aware of the effective caching mechanisms on Cloud?

Understand organizational use case

We can explore any of these

- Code optimizations to run faster on Azure

- Front-end optimizations to run faster on Azure

- Code Co-location

Would you like to have a 15-min conversation with one of our Technical Solutions Architects to know more about the effective application performance tuning on Microsoft Azure?

Effective Caching

Get details of workload

Hybrid Applications (if

everything else fails)


- I need to consult with X. My Manager/Boss says No Thanks!

OBJECTION 8: MY BOSS SAYS NO!

Are you speaking to key decision maker?

Cloud Sales happen from topdown and not vice-versa

Target to bring the KDM in the same room OR part of the same conversation

Would you like to have a 15-min chat along with your on the benefits of Azure? We will explore ways in which your expenses will be lowered, and you will deliver IT timelines faster thus becoming indispensable in the eyes of your Senior Management. How does that sound for a plan?

Speaking to KDM is key


- I need time to think about it!

OBJECTION 9: I NEED TIME

Figure out (if possible) his key pain-point (or fear)

Mostly in Indian SMB market it is about fear of losing job if other factors are OK with prospect (e.g. price, solution roadmap, delivery etc.)

Have a candid discussion Cloud is an IT Enabler and theres no fear of losing jobs / employment

Key points

. A Microsoft Azure Partner who will deploy the workload on Cloud will train your folks and provide adequate hands-on training

. Look into it as an opportunity of upgrading your skillsets on Cloud (Azure)

A few recent SMB customer wins could be discussed here.

Find out what is holding back!

Share Case Studies


- I heard XYZ cloud is Cheaper!

OBJECTION 10: XYZ IS CHEAPER

Figure out (if possible) his key pain-point (or fear)

Azure from Microsoft successfully competes with all other cloud platforms in terms of pricing, features and support

In fact, Azure provides financially-backed SLAs whereas others dont.

Cheaper is a relative term. For example, if youre a Microsoft .NET shop with considerable Microsoft software licenses and youre developing enterprise-grade mobile applications for your US/EU customers, your PaaS transition on IaaS Azure would be cheaper than on a compete platform since it would require you to have Microsoft licenses as part of Software Assurance (SA) to be able to run on the compete platform as part of BYOL. Thus the compete platform may enable you to launch VMs at a lower cost, but your solution-centric Infra setup on the platform would end up being costlier as your solution scales.

For example, compete platform may offer Exchange Server DR. But Exchange Online offering from Microsoft OR Office 365 with Exchange Online as part of it for an organization buying Volume Licensing comes cheaper.

Share Case Studies

Leverage & bundle deals on

Azure

selling microsoft azure in the smb - handling objections

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