Google Gets Serious about Enterprise Sales
August 7, 2009
I saw an announcement in PCWorld that provoked a happy quack here in the mine drainage ditch. I have long been a critic of the Google for making it darned hard for a prospect to get a Googler to sell them something. If you have tried to call Google to buy something, you know that you had to work to get a call back. One of my clients told me a year ago, “We are a big company and I can’t get anyone to return my call. What’s with that outfit?”
Navigate to “Google Offers On-Site Services to Search Appliance Buyers” by Juan Carlos Perez. Most of the Google watchers, pundits, and experts have not paid much attention to this story which was released on August 5, 2009 on the IDC news service. The program is called ROI JumpStart. The “ROI” is important because Google is making its marketing hook for this big enterprise leap one composed of value. The “i”, according to PCWorld, represents “information”. Ah, return on information. Let me translate: “i” means value from what makes a modern organization run. Mr. Perez wrote:
The two-day service engagements will be provided by Google approved partners with expertise on Search Appliance configuration, deployment and training, Google said. The ROI JumpStart offer runs until Sept. 30. Although the ROI acronym usually stands for “return on investment,” Google uses it in this promotion to mean “return on information,” since the Search Appliance is designed to help employees find a wide variety of corporate data more easily.
Now those who want to buy something will be referred to partners who can sell, integrate, and return phone calls.
Google intentionally moves at a glacial pace, putting its forces in place, and setting up its chess pieces for a game changing approach to enterprise sales. The idea is that if you move really slow and incrementally adjust lots of discombobulated actions, people can’t figure out what is going on. Google, therefore, surprises lots of folks. Here in Harrod’s Creek, we have learned how to monitor Googzilla, so we are not often surprised.
Image source: http://creoleindc.typepad.com/rantings_of_a_creole_prin/images/checkmate.jpg
Who are the Google partners who will become Google’s feet on the street? How will the enterprise sales program unfold? What is the method for connecting a potential buyer with a partner? I don’t have any details. What my years of research into the Google have sensitized me are:
- This is a ** very big and important step ** for the Google
- The partners have been hand picked for their ability to be Googley and deliver sophisticated technical solutions. Partners do return phone calls and understand the methods of traditional organizations.
- The pent up demand for organizations who want to go Google has reached critical mass so partners will be in a position to intermediate between the organizations hungry for Google solutions and the GOOG itself.
In short, I anticipate an explosion in Google enterprise revenue and the realization that Google has taken baby steps, moving slowly to put in place a potent sales and customer service organization that is the polar opposite of traditional enterprise software sales.
The Google is now moving with extreme prejudice. If some of Google’s targets of opportunity don’t know the meaning of that phrase “extreme prejudice”, in my opinion, the meaning will become crystal soon.
Stephen Arnold, August 6, 2009
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