Customers want to buy value

Shamik Paul/Vishwanath Kulkarni, July 27, 2009
The Hindu Business Line
Wipro Ltd, looking to strengthen the sales organisation for its global IT business, recently appointed a global sales head. Martha Bejar, the former head of communications sector at Microsoft Corp, joined India’s third largest software exporter to lead its sales initiatives.

eWorld caught up with Bejar, who is currently in Bangalore to understand the company and the people steering its operations.

Excerpts:

After having worked in product companies, do you see a drastic shift in the work profile?

In Microsoft it was a lot about software. In Nortel it was a lot about infrastructure, software and big turnkey projects that included a lot of services.

Here it is very focused on the business side of customers as well. But there is an absolute market trend in that direction.

To be part of that trend, to be part of that transition, is a dream come true for me.

At the end of the day, whether you are selling a car or a book or services, customers want to buy value, and that does not change from industry to industry.

And that is what we are doing here. We are trying to get closer to the customer, understand what value we can add to them and how we are going to address their business challenges.

What do the Wipro bosses expect from you?

My responsibility would be around the evolution of the sales organisation. The aim is to have a world-class selling team. But a transformation is not something that is going to happen overnight.

The execution of it has to do with the sales team, but the verticals have a bit to do with it, and my bosses have a bit to do with it. This is something that our company will have to work closely together.

What kind of sales strategy would work in this market?

Customers are taking a little longer to decide where they want to make investments. They want the return on investment to be quicker, and are a lot more demanding in terms of solutions that are tightly packed to their businesses, and how we can make their businesses stronger.

It is very important to let customers know that you care about their business. To let that sincerity become real, you have to have a good understanding of their business. That has to be the approach now as the purse gets tighter.