While running a startup has the advantages of having better professional agility and the unique opportunity of churning out innovative solutions, the competition is tough and sales cycles can pose significant challenges, especially for enterprise-facing startups.
Sales landscapes continually evolve, with new buyer preferences and channels emerging, including virtual interfaces. The importance of building business-to-business partnerships and trust as part of business strategy is crucial to unlocking growth for smaller-sized technology companies. If you are looking for a much-needed push to boost your startup, several experts share tips and insights in this field. e27 spoke to two startups to learn the ropes around doing business with large enterprises.
Building business-to-business partnerships
Brett Doyle, founder and CEO of Mosaic Solutions, a restaurant operating system geared for the food and beverage industry explained, “B2B deals are established via relationship-building and being able to show the value that can be provided when working collaboratively.”
Doyle added, “Large enterprises can become strong validation points and channel partners for startups. We are able to help solve our partners’ pain points via our tech solutions — and, in doing so, work with them to provide us access across their respective networks. This consolidated access to potential clients is a real game-changer for us, especially given the efficiencies it helps to drive across sales and onboarding.”
Emphasising the importance of building B2B partnerships and how participating in enterprise-driven programmes that enable this has boosted their business, shared Siddharth Upadhyaya, Director for Strategy and Sales at Versafleet, a Transport Management Software solution.
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Siddharth elaborated on the experience of his team in being able to successfully leverage SAP assets. “Being a startup, the team has its own set of challenges and having access to the SAP ecosystem through the SAP.iO programme has been the rocket fuel to us. It indeed has opened the gateway to the world of speed-connect and also enables us to demonstrate the power of our solution at a global level.
According to Siddharth, not only has it helped Versafleet with being able to present their solution to large enterprises (and subsequently working with them as their solution partner). “It has helped us to go beyond the regional tag to a global solution.”
Siddharth further shared that his experience collaborating with SAP has enabled his team to build key business buddy relationships with the SAP team, one of the largest global software companies. “What we get is support and collaborative power. This power could be enhanced by getting to know the SAP team members from other regions too, which will not only help the startups in expanding their horizons and networking with newer clients, but it will also provide visibility of the best practices from the respective regions. It would not only strengthen the go-to market plans, but it would also help us build a more robust work culture and revisit the processes, thereby empowering sustainable growth.”
Navigating a new selling landscape
SAP APAC and E27 have an upcoming webinar series to provide deeper insights for B2B startups on ways to navigate a new selling landscape. Entitled, “Let’s Make a Deal: How to Do Business with Large Enterprises”, various international experts will be providing insights on how to do business with large enterprises. It will tackle topics around customer validation, growth marketing, and securing more B2B deals.
Panellists for the upcoming session include Jonathan Tan, Managing Director of Unabiz Singapore, Quah Zheng Wei, CEO of Accredify, Gita Amelia, CEO of Atola and founder of Everhaus VC, Badai Tanmizi, Investment Manager at Qualgro, and Aaron Ang, SAP Head of Midmarket Southeast Asia.
Some of the speakers have shared teasers of what they will be presenting in the upcoming webinar. Jonathan Tan, the Managing Director of UnaBiz Singapore will be sharing about the Sell-To, Sell-Through, and Sell-For models in B2B engagements, and outlining respective considerations for both large enterprises and startups for each collaboration.
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He will also share more insights on the importance of understanding the organisational DNA of large enterprises, how to plan for success from the beginning of the partnership, and how to create more business value as the partnership deepens so that a stronger collaboration and transformation within teams, processes, and operating models can take place.
Quah Zheng Wei, the CEO and Co-founder of Accredify, will share his experience with B2B engagements in Southeast Asia, which includes working with large enterprise clients and government partners. He will also discuss key negotiation principles that has enabled him to build mutually beneficial partnerships with enterprises.
He shared, “when you’re at the table, you must be ready to negotiate with uneven bargaining power. Find your internal champion. Having the right person rooting for you is more important than the budget, product fit, or anything else when it comes to doing business with a large enterprise. Focus on collaboration instead of sales. Sometimes, teams have budgets to co-develop solutions rather than buying them wholesale.”
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Zheng Wei also explained that “when you’re at the table, you must be ready to negotiate with uneven bargaining power. Find your internal champion. Having the right person rooting for you is more important than the budget, product fit, or anything else when it comes to doing business with a large enterprise. Focus on collaboration instead of sales. Sometimes, teams have budgets to co-develop solutions rather than buying them wholesale.”
Other areas of discussion for the upcoming webinar will include how buyers’ expectations have recently changed post-COVID and the drivers of this shift, how to engage with large enterprise buyers, and how to accelerate the sales cycle to drive growth.
For B2B startups looking to gain more insights and expertise in better enterprise selling, register for the “Let’s make a deal: How to do Business with Large Enterprises?” webinar here.
For e27 X SAP programme series inquiries, please contact joel@e27.co or selma@e27.co
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Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by SAP
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