In the mid-1990s, I was deeply impressed by my experience in CA. At that time, there was a project, the customer was a famous domestic electrical appliance manufacturing enterprise, and it was ready to install a computer management system. On the eve of visiting customers, the author prepared a set of product demonstration data in detail, involving procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, sales, finance and other aspects. Because the CA-CA-MANMANX system was very complicated at that time, it took nearly a week, and the author thought that the materials were well prepared. When I went to the customer to demonstrate the product and talk about the software module, at first, the customer interrupted the author's introduction and asked me three questions:
Do you know the problems in my enterprise management? What problems can your software solve in my enterprise?
How much do you know about my electrical industry? What are the aspects of your software?
I spent millions on your software. Is my investment worth it?
Because I was not prepared in advance, the author faltered and answered some cliches such as "effectively reducing inventory, improving order response speed and improving customer satisfaction". The general manager of the account politely terminated my speech and politely refused the promotion. When he left, he told the author that what he needed was a software system that could solve the actual management problems of his company, not our software.
In fact, CA's MANMANX software has many successful electrical appliance manufacturers in the United States and Europe, but at that time, the author only listed the customer list and did not talk about the essence of solving the problem. After the visit was unsuccessful, the American headquarters sent a consultant, who is an expert specializing in software demand analysis in the electrical industry. The author and He visited the customer for the second time, but only brought a set of slides without a computer (PPT was not very popular at that time). They introduced in detail the development history of the international electrical industry, the problems faced by the electrical industry in China, the solutions to these problems by CA software and the implementation steps of CA software. Customers listen carefully and take notes carefully. After the meeting, the customer arranged for computer personnel to watch our software demonstration. And quickly signed the contract. This incident touched the author very much. Make the author subconsciously aware of the influence of software consulting on customers.
The increasingly fierce consulting industry
Today's consulting market is mainly the competition of three groups: the first competitive group is international large-scale software companies such as SAP and Oracle, as well as famous consulting companies such as Deloitte, Bi Bo, Hanson and Hampton, and the second competitive group is small and medium-sized integrated software companies at home and abroad such as Microsoft, UFIDA, Inspur, Kingdee, Xindazhong and others; The third competition group is software companies that focus on certain fields, such as Cohen and Jiasoft in the pharmaceutical industry, Fuji whirlwind in the process industry, Wuhuan and Shuanghui software in the clothing industry, and Reebok in the clothing industry.
These consulting companies can be divided into two categories, one is that consulting companies sell software, and the other is that software companies provide consulting services. Consulting provided by software companies may become the development trend of software companies in the next stage. Because there are both management tools and management tools and software, enterprises can provide products, integrated services, solutions and consulting, so traditional management consulting companies will be caught between Scylla and Charybdis.
Major commercial software companies, such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions and SAP, have begun to pay attention to strengthening their consulting services to make up for the decline in software sales. This leads to Capgemini Ernst & Young &; The competition among large information technology consulting companies such as CEY, Accenture and Bi Bo is becoming more and more fierce. The latest blow to the consulting service market comes from SAP, a German company that is in a leading position in the enterprise management software market. Recently, a new group has been established to engage in software consulting, a key service project in information technology consulting. At the same time, its American competitor Oracle Bone Inscriptions is also increasing software outsourcing, that is, supporting and managing business. At present, nearly two-thirds of the income of some large software manufacturers comes from consulting services, which exceeds software sales. Moreover, although this risk is related to the service-based business model, this trend shows little sign of changing. Although they entered the consulting service field to support software sales, the potential return of the business itself is enough to attract software companies. Henning Kagerman, co-CEO of SAP, said that it is possible for the service business to achieve a profit margin of 25%, which reached 20% last year. Since 1995, the service income of large software manufacturers has been rising steadily, but SAP has the largest increase, and this service initially only accounted for 2% of the company's income.
This paper analyzes the investment of international software companies in consulting, and then looks at the actions of China software companies. Inspur Software introduces "consulting" experience from overseas and plans to earn 2 billion yuan in five years. Inspur Consulting actually comes from Wang Hu and Li Jian. For a long time, Zhuo Yuan Consulting has provided many industry solutions for Inspur, which directly threatened UFIDA and Kingdee in some big projects. In fact, Bo has always been very low-key and unobtrusive. In 2002, it established a joint venture with South Korea's LG-CNS to establish software consulting and outsourcing business. This company is a joint venture between American EDS, a global information technology service provider, and South Korea's LG Group to provide IT services, with an annual operating income of about 800 million US dollars. Lenovo's acquisition of Hampton strengthened consulting investment. Although the performance in the past two years is not ideal, the reason for the decline in performance is by no means the mode of consulting plus software, but the internal friction from the power struggle after the reorganization of the company. India's Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is one of the largest global software solutions and consulting services companies in Asia, with 22,000 software engineers. The company set up a software consulting company in Shanghai in 2002. We must attach great importance to the eyes of enterprises all over the world.
How to become an excellent consultant?
In fact, few software companies can be called "experts" in real pre-sales consultation in China. The improvement of consultants' level often comes from the study and accumulation of enterprise management experience. Because China has only been reforming and opening for more than 20 years, there are only a handful of enterprises that can be called large-scale management norms, and there are even fewer consultants who have implemented systems for these enterprises. Large-scale ERP projects in China are implemented by a limited number of consultants.
Good pre-sales consultants of domestic software companies mainly come from the following channels: First, personnel trained by international software companies. For example, the entry of SSA Company of 1992 has trained a large number of consultants, and Kelon's project has also trained some consultants, which is the beginning of the consulting industry in China software industry. Second, the cultivation of foreign enterprises. Some people who work in large foreign companies in China. They have learned a lot from the management experience of foreign companies, but these consultants often only know the management of a single industry and a single department. Third, domestic finance and MRPII companies have the ability to understand. Through years of software system implementation practice in domestic enterprises and self-study of some management knowledge, I have gradually become an excellent software consultant.
The training of consultants is a very important thing in software companies. The formation of a consultant's consciousness will experience the cultivation of product knowledge, computer knowledge, industry knowledge, management knowledge, humanities knowledge, sociology knowledge, logic knowledge, operational research knowledge and even history and geography knowledge. It takes at least three to five years to train a good consultant.
Summarizing more than ten years of software consulting experience, the author thinks that the word "communication" is the most important. Communication is divided into two levels: the first level is the communication of enterprise management concept, which is called intellectual conquest; The second level is the transmission of emotional meaning, which is the so-called military conquest.
For the second level of communication, all pre-sales personnel who have mastered the "China characteristics" sales method have it, which is also very useful for some projects. Like some financial software, small-scale invoicing software, through "one brand and two deductions, revolutionary wine every day", as long as you have good emotional communication with middle-level cadres in enterprises, you can sign the bill immediately, and naturally you don't need to do the first-level communication. "Nothing you do for sales is shameful!" This slogan put forward by a famous domestic enterprise has achieved the ultimate in secondary communication.
What we lack most is the first level of communication, that is, the communication of management concepts. It is especially prominent in some large-scale projects, especially in some enterprises with modern management consciousness. Because many domestic enterprises have realized that they have problems or may have problems, but they don't know where the reasons are, and naturally they don't know where to start solving the problems. At this time, enterprises often pin their hopes on the information management system, but they don't know that without the corresponding management structure and process, the information system can't play or can't fully play its role. At this time, if software companies use consulting as a means to help enterprises find the crux, and on this basis, increase value and help enterprises effectively improve their management level, they can communicate well with the top management of enterprises, and naturally sell the software. Of course, in the face of different enterprises, there should be different ways of communication with management concepts. For managers of state organs and state-owned enterprises, consultants may be more likely to talk about the support of software management for improving political achievements, while managers of private enterprises are more concerned about the support of software management for performance.
As the software market becomes more and more mature, customers' purchasing mentality becomes more and more stable, competitors' sales methods become more and more sophisticated, and simple software sales will become more and more difficult. Software sales based on consulting services will definitely become a game played by high IQ people. "Doctoral sales, undergraduate implementation" partner sales model will become a trend of software sales. Of course, from traditional software sales to consulting sales is not an overnight thing. The growth of pre-sales consultation often goes through the following stages: using hands (software demonstration), using brains (business process combing), using heart (management mode communication) and using words (mutual trust). Fortunately, now, the consciousness of "consulting sales" is being gradually accepted, and consulting companies have begun to pay attention to the training of consulting practitioners. I believe that with the emergence of a large number of qualified consultants, IT will become more and more important in China.
Source: China Computer World