Briefing Description
Business Development Briefing - Microsoft in the Australian Mining Industry
Participants: sales, presales, marketing and general management
Duration: 1 day
Subject Overview
This 1 day business development briefing will provide attendees with an overview of Microsoft's upcoming plans to dramatically increase its presence in Australia's mining industry, and will provide a number of promotional, sales and "business value" arguments to assist Partners to capitalise on these activities.
Objectives
Program objectives include:
- brief Partners on Microsoft Australia's plans in the mining marketplace in 2008
- provide Partners with arguments and practical sales and marketing skills to increase the amount of business they win within the Australian mining industry
- describe how Partners can leverage the promotional and other programs about to be launched within the Australian mining industry by Microsoft
- equip Partners to convey the capabilities of the Microsoft platform that are relevant to this industry
- expand on the above to describe the various platform solution areas relevant to various parts of the Australian mining supply chain - and why the Microsoft platform is the best option in each instance.
Target Audience
The session is designed for senior personnel within the Partner, responsible for the development and execution of sales and marketing strategies. Pre-sales and business development resources will also value from attending. Partners are encouraged to send a small group of attendees to the event to work together as a team.
Prerequisites
There are no mandatory prerequisites for this session.
Useful but optional prerequisites include:
- basic knowledge of Microsoft’s Customer Campaigns targeted at Technical Decision Makers (ie Core IO, BPIO, APO) (see www.microsoftio.com)
- understanding of basic sales management and marketing processes and concepts
- familiarity with the Australian mining industry
Content Overview
- Industry/opportunity overview
- Australian market overview
- market growth drivers
- key technology imperatives (“tracking physicals”; “visibility across supply chain” etc)
- Overview of typical mining supply chain scenarios
- identification of key customer "pain points" across elements of the mining supply chain
- business implications of these pain points
- example scenario - "supply in action"
- Relevance and benefit of the Microsoft platform
- relevance and applicability of the "people ready" message
- how the Microsoft platform provides value to the mining industry
- equipment & event monitoring
- maintenance, repair & overhaul
- production & stockpile planning
- transport management
- executive insight
- mobile workforce
- how optimising customers' infrastructure can lead to successful business outcomes
- Case studies - group work
- investigation of typical customer scenarios
- identification of potential pains and their likely impact
- high level solution overview, including capabilities required to address the pains
- outlining a vision with the customer of the improvements that can be made
- at a high level quantify the value provided to the customer
- Key sales issues for success in the Australian mining industry
- who to approach within various parts of mining organisations
- overview of existing mining solutions within the Microsoft Partner community
- review of Microsoft's sales process (to foster partnership selling)
- Action planning
- development of action plans to be shared with Microsoft
Throughout the course Partners will undertake a number of self assessment exericses, to identify areas within which Microsoft can aid the development of the Partner to successfully compete in the Australian mining market place. Action plans will be developed, to be shared for follow up by Microsoft Partner Account Managers.
