Trying to find innovative ways to close that crucial deal can be difficult. Sometimes the detail of the technical requirements and the customer's demands can cloud the real business issues. Sometimes you just need an outsider's view or an idea from outside your market area. That's where Shark's Deal Clinics hosted by Shark's Business Experts can help. Shark has huge experience in producing business cases that win deals in many different industrial sectors.

What are Deal Clinics and how can I benefit?

A deal clinic is a hosted meeting arranged between a Shark representative, yourself and your client to discuss areas of potential benefit of your product. These benefits will be discussed, quantified, and entered into the software tools in order to assess the viability of the business case. Shark's role is to get the customer to contribute with their honest opinions of the benefits - including cost savings, extra margins, revenues etc at a level they are very comfortable to sponsor - rather than issue benchmark examples of manufacturer claims.

A full ROI based business case - now sponsored by the end customer is produced during the session and handed over at the end of the meeting.

Inevitably the client has their own opinion about the benefits and usually they will already have some thoughts about the potential economic impact. In offering a range of benefit options, with the information and questions necessary to value these, the supplier is more likely to secure the agreement of the client rather than by dictating the best benefits with which the supplier usually leads.

Whether you are a Shark software user or not, you can use the Shark Experts to help you close that deal.

Once you have seen the process of benefit discovery you will be better equipped to create your own sponsored economic justifications in future.

Examples of areas that might be discussed with the client:

• What features of your solution link to a quantifiable economic benefit e.g. electronic invoicing saves 29p postage and 2 days cash collection...hundreds of times?
• Will the level of their IT monthly support charges be higher or lower than their current level of charge?
• What features of your solution will help identify slow moving stock, which could cut wastage... which we can then identify and value?
• What features help reduce lead times, packaging costs, visibility of orders to suppliers etc?
• What administrative tasks would be saved... e.g. re-keying from one system to another? How many times is this happening?
• How can an improved level of customer service possibly be turned into an economic benefit?

Preparation for a deal clinic

It is important that you as the supplier are able to outline the areas where your solution might impact the client's business. It is recommended that you come to the session armed with an overview of the solution. This will facilitate the discussion to discover elements from the client to add to the business case.

Book your deal clinic now and get ready to accelerate your deals