is your direct selling technology strategy relevant?

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How to Keep Technology Relevant in Direct Selling Date: 10/8/2015 Kris Shenk CIO, CAbi

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How to Keep Technology Relevant in Direct Selling

Date: 10/8/2015Kris ShenkCIO, CAbi

Introduction…• Love it or hate it, Technology is one of the biggest

investments that a company can make• Budgets are shrinking, and IT teams are being asked to

do more with less• No matter WHO you are in the organization, you have

to create value by leveraging your technical assets to keep up in the direct selling industry

There are really important ways to assure your technology strategy not only leverages your existing

investments but also helps it grow in relevance!

Technical Appetite…• Start by thinking about your company’s technical

appetite and IT positioning

• How does the organization value IT?

• Screaming for more?

• Irritated with what you have now?

• Complaining about what you have or don’t have?

• Fumbling around?

• Analyze your ticket queue…is it requests for new features or fixing bugs and broken features?

• Is IT leading the organization or is it following, what behaviors do you want to drive with the strategy

• Knowing your organizations appetite will help guide strategic decisions about budgeting, focus, implementation and features

Don’t get too far away from your consultants…

• Go to the consultant meetings and LISTEN!

• If you aren’t invited, GET invited!

• Knowing the personality of your field is critical to successfully creating and delivering technical value

Know your consultant makeup…• What is the technology appetite of

your field?• Is technology a support tool or a

necessary evil?• Are they demanding it? Are they

expecting it?• Consider your segmentation….

– Baby boomers who maybe find technology a distraction?

– Millennials that expect technology?

• Use this information to target technology spending, focus and deployment strategies

How you roll out technology is often more important than the technology itself…• Create a launch strategy with communications and training around

– Knowing what your goal is with the implementation– Knowing what problem you are solving– Knowing what behaviors you are trying to create or change

• Set the support level• Consider rolling out in pieces (like chapters of a good book)• Consider doing a field pilot….get evangelists before full launch• Create training and support that works for all segments to assure

adoption

Know your consultant lifecycle to build a solid technology strategy

User Type Focus Have Now NeedLead Convert to customer or hostess Lead form Compelling content

Easy, painless experience

Fast response

Customer Convert to new recruit Ecommerce shopping Easy, painless experience

My Profile/Account Shopping "my way"

Conversion strategy

New Recruit Promote to Consultant General back office Custom content

Training on the business

Extra help

Consultant Promote to Team Leader General back office Custom content

Training to team leader

Personal performance info

Team Leader Promote to Big Team Leader General back office Custom content

Automation

Team performance tracking

Big Team Leader Support Growth General back office Custom content

All of the above

Management tools

Customized / experiential profiles…A new tech reality

I’m a new recruit…what I want…

• I’m new, don’t overwhelm me

• I want a lot of help text on the page

• I want bite-sized pieces of information

• Feed me the information I need as I need it and not before I need it

• Don’t give me a team report when I have no team!

I’m a veteran…what I want…

• Yeah, yeah, yeah…I get it

• I don’t need help

• Don’t show me things I’ve already done and mastered

• Give me data, data and more data!!

• Let me download it so I can run my own reports

• What is my team doing?

• Action oriented EVERYTHING!

Do you know where your data is?• Data is the single biggest technical asset for a company. It’s

also the hardest area to get budget funding for!

• You need a solid and ONGOING data management strategy that includes:

– Managing storage needs

– Managing retention requirements

– Data presentation capabilities and self support tools for bus users

• Data consolidation

– Data is coming from more and newer sources every day

– Aggregating data for cross functional visibility is critical!

Reporting, Reporting, Reporting…

• Reporting is one of the biggest consultant requests –They are looking for:

• Comparative (performance) reports

• Downloadable (self analysis) tools

• Action oriented (filter and link to an action)

• Predictive reporting and alerts

Data Security…• Budget for it

• Strive to be (and stay) secured at a higher level than just PCI compliance

• Have a competent QSA to help you keep on top of new rules, regulations and to provide opinions

• Regularly test your prevention, incident response and other internal security policies

Communications Platform Consolidation…

• This creates a crazy challenge for Technology…– Move toward infrastructure that will allow

consolidation, content control and cross functional presentations

– Be respectful of your customer lists

– Centralize and manage “opt outs”

– Customize communications profiles for each user

• Emails, newsletters, tasks, texts, posts, alerts, blogs and chats are all flying!

Stay Current with Social Media• Your field is on it, you need to be on it too• Name a social media champion• Watch the market: Social Media tools are maturing…

– Consolidate and manage your social presence from a single point

– Provide statistics and performance measures

– Integrate data with other technology systems

• Tools are coming out to help consultants do the same thing

Social Media as a Support Tool…• Social Media can be a great support tool for the field

if used correctly

• Example:

– We created a closed community FB page for support

– When consultants post issues, other consultants immediately respond (self supporting)

– If multiple consultants post the same topic, corporate responds

– Field assigned moderators keep messaging positive

– Engineering watches the FB for instant alerts to technical issues

Watch the Market• Keeping up with market trends is a key to staying relevant• Good, great and even not so great ideas can come from

almost anywhere• Be careful: All ideas are not created equal so evaluate

against your strategy • See what the DS market is up to

– Find out what your competition is doing– Take vendor demo’s. See what’s going on in the supplier world – Talk to sales – Network with peers

• Tech trends (security, data, cloud)• Trades and trade shows

Summary: Assess your strategy….1. Know your audience

– Know your organization and their appetite– Know your field and their appetite– Go where the consultants go– Use your consultant lifecycle model to drive strategy

2. One size does NOT fit all– Have an multi approach implementation strategy– Customize the user experience

3. New methods of engagement– Social Media and Customer Service– Consolidate communications

4. Consolidate and Protect the data– Have reporting and data consolidation strategies– Have SOLID data security strategies

5. Watch the market and trends

Thank you!

Contact me with questions or comments:

Speaker: Kris Shenk

Email: [email protected]

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/krisshenk

Blog: http://www.krisshenk.com

Kris Shenk is an Information Technology and Operations professional with over 30 years of experience ranging from Fortune 50 to start-ups. Kris is a solution strategist and ‘fixer’ with a special passion for handling ‘technology train wrecks’ and sorting out derailed projects. She focuses heavily on assessing and using an organizations ‘technology appetite’ to build appropriate enterprise solutions to support business growth.

Kris is currently the VP/CIO for cabi LLC, an organization focused on women’s fashion clothing delivered in a unique, high quality shopping experience. Most recently, Kris successfully recovered a failed technology implementation and guided the launch of new enterprise software using open source and cloud based technologies.

Kris ShenkVP/CIO cabi [email protected]