Reflection – Learning Launch     Challenge   I was recently hired as the Senior Sales and Business Development at an IT Company, that belongs to  a International Group, so we are a local representation of a much bigger corporation. The company  has existed locally for around 25 years, and it had been mainly focussed on servicing a small and  select group of enterprise customers, and for a long time their basic approach to the IT business did  give them good results because they have one of the strangest IT technical teams I have ever worked  with, yet in the later years a problem with sales numbers started. So, when I joined, I was tasked  with turning this around.  Some of the challenges I found there: 1st-the fact that the company had  been in 25 years in the market focussed only on specific keys accounts, it was virtually unknow by  other customers, and had no local social media presence. 2nd-the Sales team was composed of only  two people, that were basically request processors, that were already busy managing the keys  accounts. 3rd-Budget for marketing, because of the current situation (unfortunately was cut).4th- Being part of an international group with huge resources, in terms of people skills, with many  different and unique products and solutions was not being leveraged or promoted by the local  office. After understanding these main issues, we assumed that a cause was a lack of market  presence and customer knowledge of our potential, skills, products and solutions.      Selection   The first step was to understand the current local market, we engaged with our team locally and  internationally to understand their vision of the market and future technologies that would or could  be adopted in the market, we engaged with the technology partners to understand their vision and  their plans and new technologies, we engaged our customers, and also got information from the  major news, blogs, forums and technology sites.-This allowed us to create a road map of where IT as  an industry locally is and where it was walking to, and where we as a IT company could fit.   The second step- we started by creating a list of all our capabilities, skills, products, solutions, and  key strategic partnerships. With this we managed to identify, what we can do, what top and unique  skills we have, and what products solutions and partnerships set us apart from the competition, and  how they fit in to the road map created in our research.    The third step was to create the connection with the group, understanding the different resources  available, who were the right people to talk to, the correct process of requesting support, and how  we could introduce their unique products and solutions that could support the local market  trajectory- a workflow was introduced, bridges were created, and new possible income was created.   The forth step was to understand how we could with the limited sales resources, and no marketing  budget promote and get more people to know about our unique skills-a few tools were identified  (Linked In, Facebook, Tweeter, E-mail campaigns, Cold calls, Meeting request, Webinars,), and we  also had a great technical team composed of 11 people, with different skills levels, and a great  network of connections and they would turn to be an invaluable strength in the development of the  initiative.                 Application      For our first learning launch, we focused on creating a local on-line presence,  opening pages in all  platforms(Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweeter), with specific information, about our unique, skills,  products, and partnerships, that support the trajectory of the local market, because of the lack of  marketing budget and a small sales team, a more direct approach was used, the technical team  started sharing our company posts with old colleagues(now also working in IT, in different

companies), friends, contacts. They engaged with them to understand their understating, need,  vision, and comments. By that we manage to understand that some of the technologies that are the  future are very new and in the very early stages on adoption and gave us a more directed focus and  understanding of the real market current status, and the openness to adopt new technology.    For our second learning launch, we focused more on the current needs of the market promoting  specific solutions and products through now our exiting social media. And we also started to engage  the potential customer with e-mail, Webinars, meetings and cold calls explain and introducing the  new technologies that would eventually be adopted by the market.   Our assumption that the lack of market knowledge and customer knowledge of our potential, skills,  products and solutions was the main cause or drop in sales. We completed a survey with different  players in the IT marketplace, from technical teams to management .  The surveys included  questions about our new market presence, solutions presented, understanding the process  procurement of new partners and suppliers, and feelings about the change and understanding of the  company core capabilities, survey was conducted within a one-month timeframe.     Insight   By implementing the learning launch tool, our stakeholders identified our assumptions and designed  launches to test these assumptions. Our results confirmed what we anticipated: That by creating a  market presence and showing our capabilities, we opened the door to new customers, and managed  to position ourselves has a market disruptor, bringing new technology. Going forward, our team will  take this insight in to account and assimilate it into future launch designs.      Approach   Given that our team has already reviewed the insight gained from our first two launches and  surveys, and that it created positive change and a growth in sales and customer engagement, the  company is ready to start a full rollout around the whole group.

