FAULT LINES REVEALED

In today’s information overloaded environment, face-to-face selling is giving way to power packed presentations. But there are several fault lines that impede progress, finds this study by Banking Frontiers:

Every IT company is doing its marketing in media, social media, events, conferences, etc. However, the bell rings only when it is called to make a presentation to some team at a prospective organization. That is when the real excitement begins; dopamine levels surge, creating extra energy. A frenzied search for information and insight begins to update the existing presentation to create the desired impact.

Key people are quickly identified to make the presentation, who begin to look as if they are on the verge of conquering the world.

Then they make the presentation…… some pass the test, some fail.

Today’s crowded market and fierce competition make it tougher than ever to clinch a deal, more so when selling technology to banks and financial services institutions. When selecting a technology partner, the client organizations have to look not only at technology aspects, but many others including financial strengths, the organization’s stability, product maturity, competitive scenario, etc. Do the IT companies making presentations understand all these concerns? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In a hyper-competitive marketplace, technology vendors win if they have holistic strategies and persuasive

presentations to convert opportunity into success.

A presentation is therefore a key tool. When done well, a presentation can take the technology company to the next level of the ladder.

So what do the decision makers in BFSI organizations feel about presentations that IT companies make? Mostly, they feel unhappy, and sometime frustrated. Many presentations leave a lot to be desired and fall short on several parameters to take the opportunity to the next level. Many companies with good products and technologies have failed because the presentation was lacking.

Having said that, there is broad agreement that there is no universal solution for creating a great presentation. Each presenter has his own pitch which will be different from others’. What they must attempt is to put their best thoughts and energy into creating a meaningful presentation and then leverage it to create to a powerful impact.

MINDSET COUNTS

Rajesh Lahori, head of Cash Management Product at RBL Bank, says salespeople from IT companies making presentations often fail to scan the target bank’s market. “Most often their mindset is that the company they represent has a great product. They assume that it will work this way and that way. This leaves us in the bank to figure out how the product fits into our activities. They come with ‘one size fits all approach’,” he says.

However, Lahori maintains that mature technology organizations have domain specialists and they help bring a perspective. But startups often do not have this facility. “The startups have not thought it through stage 1 and stage 2. They are not clear whether they are looking for equity or business or partnership. They are hedging their bets, but that requires different pitches. The product is only one tool. They blur the line and we are forced to ask a lot of questions,” says he.

Lahori also explains that large IT companies seems to have a problem of plenty, ie, they push across multiple

Prasanna Lohar advises people from IT companys to understand who their target audience is before they make presentations about their product, and to concentrate on the product that this target audience requires

products. In the process, they miss the whole plot. “But banks have a very clear problem statement. Majority of these big IT companies don’t study the audience and come with a 30,000 ft pitch. There is a difference, for example, between us and HDFC Bank. Volume is critical for them, but innovation is critical for us,” says he.

He mentions about the mentoring he has done for salespeople: “We all have limited patience and getting repeated opportunities to make presentations is really difficult. Typically, we will call a limited number of IT companies for making presentations,” he says.

He also points out that often IT salespeople do more R&D while preparing to make presentations at large organizations because such organizations ask very clear cut questions.

STARTUPS LAG

Prasanna Lohar, head of Technology Innovation & Architecture at DCB Bank, says salespeople from early stage startups often make crude presentations and are not time conscious. “They need to calculate how every 10 seconds can be useful. There are issues in the way they speak and the content that is there in the sales pitch. Typically, they have problem in coordinating between their own people making the presentation. Their focus should ideally be on product demo or business value, but definitely not both,” avers Lohar.

Another point that Lohar found in the way sales presentations are made by startups is that the teams consist mainly IT people and not business people. And mostly their talking points veer more around existing problems and less on the solutions. “The issue I believe is that many of the people in startups are focused on creating an organization and they may not have a good mentor. They have limited data on market share of various competitors and often they are unable to give data on profitability,” says he.

EVOLVING GUIDELINES

“At DCB Bank, what we have done is that we have created guidelines for sales presentations. We tell them to make the presentations short and insist on demos and less of powerpoints. Our guidelines explain what we in the technology team

in the bank expect and we share this with the salespeople in advance,” says Lohar.

He, however, admits that some of the presentations are really crisp and well supported by a story. “Where there is a personal experience, it flies immediately,” he says.

Lohar reiterates that IT companies must make sure what their target audience is before making a presentation. “I see a lot of repletion of data, like architecture of solution. Mature IT companies like IBM, Microsoft, FSS, Worldline, etc, that offer many services and products, have lot of data and they tend to talk about products other than what we require. This often results in generic presentations. They seem to be keen to show their whole portfolio,” says he.

Another lacuna Lohar finds in some of the presentations is that they miss out on critical information at the first meeting, such as list of customers, implementation time scale, etc. They make presentations without focus on products. “We bankers want short presentations. We cannot afford to spare more than 30-45 minutes to a company,” he says.

He, however, reveals that some of the startups make it a point to be precise and to the point, but they often get into fanciful details. Established companies sometimes talk a bit too much.

“I give feedback after the presentations and most of them appreciate it,” he says.

REHEARSAL REQUIRED

Sandeep Sethi, who has been in various leadership roles at ICICI Bank, LG, Videocon, HCL and Wipro, says he insists that startups rehearse before they make presentations to senior management. “They like to do many slides about selfintro, which we ask them to cut down to a single slide. Our people are more interested in the business case and to see the prototype and the solution. We give typically a 15-minute slot, sometimes extendable to 20-25 minutes, so the intro should not take more than 2-2.5 minutes. We do not want to see architecture or information flow, as these are technical things that business leaders are not interested in. I find this flaw very common among technology salespeople, and so we make them rehearse multiple times. Most often, they use small font sizes in their ppt presentations. And they do not seem to be having standardized templates. Our people are used to seeing presentations in a certain style, but the presentations made by startups have too many distractions,” he explains.

Sethi points that salespeople of startups should understand that the purpose of the meeting is to give a demo to the senior management, but unfortunately most of them are not prepared for this. “Many a times they speak softly and are not confident and seem to lack energy. Fortunately, the reverse is sometimes true,” he says.

He is of the view that making sales presentations is considered as part of business in more mature IT companies. However, he says it has been his experience that the person making the presentation may not be aware of many details. The most important thing in any sales presentation is to ensure that the idea projected is accepted by the target audience and it is well taken to the pilot stage. Then comes issues of execution and compliance, he says.

He advises salespeople to go for more AV content and be careful about their speaking skills. “Sometimes there can be regional touch in the language, though that is usually not a problem. We do not give a mike, so they have to be loud enough,” he adds.

USE CASE LACKING

A spokesperson for HDFC Bank points out that salespeople from IT companies often do not give the use case in their presentations. “It has been our experience that if an existing company is coming out with a new product and it wants the product to be sold to us, then they do not know what type of partners they already have on board. They highlight corporate presentations and then leave it to us to figure out if the product fits our needs. Surely, they need to do lot of R&D before presenting,” he says.

In the case of new companies which have come up with, say, an AI platform, their salespeople too often lack preparation to discuss the salient aspects

Sunder Krishnan feels most often the presentations IT made are weak and the person making the presentations fails to understand the level of the audience

Sandeep Sethi stresses that salespeople should ensure the idea projected in their presentations is accepted by the target audience and it is well taken to the pilot stage

of the platform, he says, adding that they want to come and discuss our pain points.

“If we see a pain point, we will discuss it with our peers and colleagues, or we research on the web, or we look at those who have pitched to us in the past and recollect that. Also, we publicize it at innovation summits. I believe IT companies need to know people in the target organization by doing basic R&D. For that they have to build some trust rapport with the existing employees. In fact, they should be asking an existing customer for an intro into another bank, especially for a telephonic interaction to begin with,” he explains.

FOCUS MORE ON COMPANY

He also maintains that if a sales pitch contains content more about the corporate, it is like a cold call. “Most often, they do not tailor the presentation. They talk about concept and problem statement and ROI and less about the product on offer. They need to inform the prospective customer about use cases at other institutions and how the product scores against competitors,” he adds.

He is of the view that just 15-20% of the people across small and large companies come prepared especially when they have to create awareness and curiosity in the prospective customer bank. “I feel even if they do have an understanding, they prefer to not share much,” he moans.

He believes that banks should be setting up competition monitoring teams, just as they do for corporate banking. He says HDFC Bank does some 150 projects in a year, and 60-80 go live every year. “So imagine how many IT companies we need as partners,” he asks.

He believes that innovations have to be organization-focused and should include tangible as well as intangible benefits. Only 20% innovations will impact topline and bottomline, 40% will improve certain offerings and the balance will improve customer experience, he says from his experience.

SOME STARTUPS DOING WELL

He, however, believes that fintechs are

Tina Singh shares her experience of large companies whose salespeople come without homework and attempt to show their whole deck hoping something will click

fast and 40-50% of those associated with the bank have managed to meet scalability and security standards of the bank. “They have a problem of funding. We have a fear of startups closing down and we look at the track record of the promotor, equity and the source of funding before we decide to associate with it. If a fintech is not strong or viable, we plan to take over the product and develop it in-house,” he elaborates.

Tina Singh, chief digital officer at Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services, believes that since startups have very simple propositions, their sales presentations need only few minutes. “My larger problem is with big companies,” she says, adding: “They come without homework and want to show their whole deck with the hope that something will click. They come unprepared sometimes not understanding the role of the person to whom they are making the presentation. Big companies have different teams and they do not coordinate with each other. The account manager is not always available, and especially in consulting and solutions, as they have not done their homework.”

She points out that some of the analytics and rating firms are more proactive in their engagement and most of the times they share an agenda and ask what all need to be discussed.

She i nsists that while making presentations, product or solution demo is made only in the second phase. She believes that TCS is more focused while making presentation and IBM is getting better. “They have corrected the overemphasis on technology,” she says.

BUSINESS BACKGROUND HELPS

Tina Singh says people with business background are better in sales presentations than those with IT background. “Over the years, sales presentations are getting better, but the problem is that there is too much clutter now,” she says.

Rajesh Lahori of RBL Bank elaborates the normal practice of how presentations are conducted. “Typically, IT companies are called by technology teams from within the bank, which has a team of IT and business to do screening. Even if the guy is pitching wrong, the objective is to get to the main issue. The crossfunctional team assimilates this. Also, we screen out those who pitch too well, but don’t have the basic strengths,” says he.

VIRGIN THOUGHT PROCESS

Lahori is happy to see that most of the salespeople come with a very virgin thought process. “They come with the passion that technology will solve all problems on earth. Our standards of what is ideal have become diluted and interacting with them helps purify this. The largest risk is the ability to deliver and scale over a period of time and that is very person-dependent for a fresh company. Some of them overdo the homework and tell you what is wrong with our house - especially those who have lots of experience and then have got into the technology part. The large IT companies bring a larger international perspective as they have that expertise,” he elaborates.

Lahori also mentions that many of the models that salespeople adopt are revenue driven. They also mention about various complying standards, but on going deeper, there are gaps. “Actually, security costs them a lot. They are depending on the markets they are in, and plan accordingly. So you could have large companies selling both the application and the security side by side,” he says.

Lahori sees about 3 presentations per month, most of them in second and third rounds. “That is when we know whether it is vaporware or real. We ask them do demonstrations. The initial pitch is typically a blend of both business and technology,” he says.

He maintains that one thing that most presenters do not do well is appropriate follow-through. If there is a question from a junior person in the bank, they may skip the response. “But it is a question from the company. It is like a full toss ball being bowled at you and it is an opportunity to strike. The question is how you convert the customer in a crowded market. Leaving too many loose ends is bad,” he says.

Lahori has a different view that mature companies make their presentations too fanciful with too much tech jargon and

Chaitanya Wagh is of the view that some of the fintechs do better in their presentations than bigtechs, but what they must do is to focus on innovation per se and the benefit to society at large

lots of clutter. Startups, he says, do not come with poorly designed presentations. He rarely sees a badly made presentation by them.

UNWANTED STRESS ON PPT

Sunder Krishnan, chief risk officer, Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, says that IT companies lay a lot of stress on ppt presentations, but it is important for them to ascertain what kind of audience they are addressing and the objective. He feels most often the preparations they make are weak and the person making presentations fails to understand the level of audience. “Lack of data orientation conveys gut feel rather than conviction. Data has better conviction value and evidential value,” says he, adding it will be good for salespeople to think out of the box, be street smart and bring some kind of life at the interaction. He is of the view that foreigners are a bit cold, and this could be a cultural factor. Indians are good in the unplanned world but bad in the planned world, says he, adding startups are unconscious about time and they do not even ask how much time they have for making a presentation.

TEMPLATES WILL DO GOOD

Chaitanya Wagh, CTO, JM Financial, believes that MNC technology companies have standard templates while making presentations, whether this is good or bad. “However, that does not work for our kind of setup, especially when something innovative and front-end concepts have to be presented. It is good if some bigtech wants to present a company profile and portfolio. I believe smalltechs have a way of putting things away. Typically they are given very short time. They spend too much time on intro and fail to present what is good for the client or the society at large,” he says.

He also states that there is need for the presenters to provide details of what their companies have done in the past.

“As for human part of the presentation,” he says, “fintechs are faster than bigtechs to come to what the offerings are. Many are able to explain well. Only thing is that they need to focus on innovation per se and the benefit to society at large. Bigtechs usually take more time than fintechs to come to the innovation part.”

However, the worst thing about sales presentations is that salespeople tend to assume that if 5 minutes are given, they will get 10 minutes, he says with anguish. He also believes that it is okay to use videos for customer testimony, process flow or showing products in use, and justifies that video presentations catch attention and convey the impact effectively.

The conclusion arising from this study is that business growth is stifled at most IT companies due to their weak skills in preparing and delivering presentations. Those that do overcome their weaknesses can look forward to a brighter future.