Mediafly Best Practice Series: “Tailor As You Talk” with Ariba/SAP

Over the next few months, in partnership with our customers, Mediafly will be profiling certain uses of Mediafly that represent best practices in certain areas of mobile enablement.  For this first installment, we are highlighting Ariba (an SAP company) and how they have used Mediafly to evolve the way their sales reps have conversations with customers and prospects.

Last year’s acquisition of Ariba meant that thousands of SAP sales reps needed to be able to integrate Ariba’s solution information, content, and sales material into their sales conversations – nearly overnight. Enabling this hybrid sales force to sell effectively became a top priority and since sales reps are spread out globally, the delivery mechanism of the solution needed to be mobile-first in nature.

Ariba leadership knew that they wanted to provide their sales force with nimble navigation between sales and marketing materials so that as the conversation with a customer or prospect changed, the sales reps could be as flexible and fluid as the conversation itself. This is a philosophy that Mediafly has seen in a number of industry leading companies; one that we refer to as “tailor as you talk”.

The Ideal Partnership

Delivering enterprise content in a way that allows the presenter to “tailor as they talk” can be a difficult undertaking.  It requires a coordinated effort between marketing, sales, and IT so that content is structured in a way that facilitates non-linear presentations and can be easily accessed by the presenter.  This is what ultimately results in an elegant presentation. Ariba’s Marketing Director, John Lark, knew that key to their strategy would be to rollout a mobile sales enablement solution. He partnered with Mediafly to create the Ariba SalesKit app. This innovative sales tool was built on Mediafly’s platform and leverages the Mediafly Interactives framework: an Interactive User Interface (UI) built on top of an enterprise grade mobile solution that allows for the customization of how content is navigated and hence presented. When an Ariba or SAP rep opens the Ariba SalesKit app, they are presented with a few macro options to navigate to the presentation materials they want (dependent on the user’s level of access):

• Browse by Solution area

• Access content through a guided selling option called “Sales Play Selector”

• Review training material to better prepare for anticipated discussion points

• Browse corporate information, competitive analysis and marketing campaigns

The Ariba SalesKit app leverages content which is uploaded via Mediafly’s content management system and the associated user management parameters in order to instantly distribute digital media (i.e. video, documents, slides, etc.) to their global sales force.     Ariba also uses an Interactive UI to allow Ariba and SAP reps to navigate to content quickly and easily.  Sales reps can choose what they see and how to view it.

Ariba made it easier for their sales team to…well…sell.

In the “tailor as you talk” environment, as the customer or prospect changes conversational directions, Ariba’s Interactive UI allows the rep to adapt without missing a beat. They can jump to an entirely different product section or sales play with just a few clicks and swipes.

The sales rep can also quickly search, jump back to the Home screen, or access any of the content areas that are listed in the app’s home view.

Reps who are less familiar with Ariba products or who want to navigate content via a guided sales model can answer a few key questions on a selector screen, resulting in the population of the most relevant “sales plays.”

“This tool really saved me when I found myself with a senior executive at a Fortune 10 company who really wanted to see Ariba in action,” shares Don Hutcher, Director of Sales for New England Ariba. “I didn’t have a Solution Consultant with me, but was able to grab my iPad and proceed without having to wait three weeks to get back on her schedule.”

Ariba SalesKit allows reps to quickly move through material in a way that is intuitive and contextual to the conversation.

Don’s story is one of the best examples of the “tailor as you talk” approach. Having no internal resource constraints, his meeting was successful and Ariba’s sales cycle avoided an unnecessary extension. Just like any business mobile app, user adoption is one of the most telling success factors. Enterprise organizations should strive to make their mobile app(s) effective and easy to use while continuously innovating so that as the business evolves, so does the app. Similar to software as a service, Mediafly’s mobile apps as a service (MAaaS) delivery model allows for an enterprise grade app framework, an intuitive interface, and platform-wide innovation. After launching the Ariba SalesKit app in February 2013, Ariba has continued to iterate and improve the content that is delivered via Ariba SalesKit and elevate the intuitive interface that reps use when accessing content.  Since launching their app, Ariba has leveraged the Mediafly Interactives framework to add features such as Collections, What’s New, and much more. This is a great example of how Mediafly’s technology enables a company to deliver their innovative ideas to the field.

Favorite Features

The Collections capability has allowed Aribians to proactively organize sales materials for a particular meeting or group together the content that they use most frequently. These collections are specific to each rep but still allow the rep to leverage the broader corporate library of great selling materials in an individualized manner. Ariba is just getting started with the innovative ways they are using Mediafly.  We look forward to seeing how Ariba and other companies leverage mobile transformations to solve their business challenges. Want to revolutionize your organization like Ariba did? Click the link below to look at all the solutions Mediafly has to offer!