Interview with Heinz Lorenz, Head of Global Demand Management, NTT DATA Business Solutions AG
The amount of data in the sales and marketing departments of many companies is growing rapidly. However, in many places the data is stored in various silos where it is only used for limited individual measures. In order to make targeted use of the extensive knowledge for demand generation, the SAP consulting company NTT DATA Business Solutions AG has raised the application of data in sales and marketing to a new level and organized it globally.
Why did NTT DATA Business Solutions AG introduce a cross-departmental and cross-country, data-driven demand management approach?
“The overarching goal is to create the greatest possible customer value and provide highly relevant, timely and personalized content. This is not about simply producing as many leads as possible and processing them one after the other. NTT DATA Business Solutions is active in 30 countries with its own branches. Cross-national data-driven demand management means recognizing and exploiting global growth potential transparently: Which markets are particularly interesting for us? Which product or service is best suited to a customer segment? Which target customers offer which sales potential? Sales and marketing work together in a more coordinated and much more targeted way. This is not just about acquiring more new customers. The focus is also on the existing customer base. Showing them new opportunities to implement urgent digitalization in a value-adding and sustainable way and to develop it further in a targeted manner using the latest technology strengthens their competitiveness.”
What conditions do companies need to establish in order to implement up global demand management?
“Essentially, it’s about fostering a new mindset regarding the use of data in sales and marketing and establishing a shared foundation. This involves, for example, recognizing that global demand management relies heavily on the interaction and coordination of all teams involved. NTT DATA Business Solutions already employs over 12,000 professionals worldwide, each with deep expertise in their respective fields. However, a cross-departmental perspective is also crucial. When sales and marketing collaborate closely, sales success can be proactively planned. Demand management operates across departments, providing a reliable data foundation and regularly bringing all stakeholders together. The “plan-do-check-act” approach is an effective method for evaluating the execution of jointly planned campaigns and making swift adjustments when necessary.”
What challenges might arise from implementing this approach?
“A certain amount of persuasion may initially be necessary to show that there is significant untapped potential that has not yet been seen and addressed. It must also be made clear that a clean data structure and high data quality are the essential backbone of successful demand management. To achieve this, all departments and divisions involved must pull together to create a “resilient”, analyzable database that everyone can use.”
What key success factors determine whether global demand management can generate measurable benefits?
“It is essential to achieve a high level of acceptance among the departments and employees involved. This includes, for example, using concrete and practical analyses to show sales how existing market potential can be made visible with the help of a strong database and the right analysis tools. Building on this, a highly pre-qualified sales approach can be developed. The reproducibility of successes also plays an important role. By reusing proven success patterns, for instance across comparable sales regions, the efficiency of cross-country and cross-departmental demand management can be noticeably increased. NTT DATA Business Solutions AG’s revenue has grown continuously in recent years. In the 2020 financial year to around EUR 1.072 billion and for the 2021 financial year, which ends for us on March 31, 2022, we again expect a significant increase.”
What benefits could NTT DATA Business Solutions AG realize by establishing Data Driven Demand Management?
“Today, we are not only able to fill the sales pipeline with more leads, but also to accurately determine the potential of individual leads and prioritize our activities accordingly. This gives us greater predictability with regard to the sales pipeline. We now also have a much more concrete idea of which customers are ideal for our company and how we can acquire and develop them. We can see which gaps in our portfolio we can fill with existing customers. And we have increased our flexibility in the implementation of campaigns, meaning we can test the success of individual measures more quickly and optimize our activities accordingly.”
What features must a data analytics solution offer in order to provide the best possible support for global demand management?
“We use MODELYZR for our data analyses. The software makes it possible to easily link internal and external data sources on one platform. Mining functions that allow us to recognize patterns in our data and derive activities from them are important to us here. Everyone knows this from Amazon: Customers who have bought this product have often also bought that product. Intuitive operation should also be a relevant feature of the right analytics software. Even users without a background in data science can generate absolutely concise analyses with MODELYZR. Bookmark functions also make it easier to share analyses with sales colleagues in other regions, who can apply them quickly and easily to their own data. Supported by lean machine learning processes, we use MODELYZR to identify market potential quickly and in a targeted manner – both in the existing customer segment and with potential new customers. This allows us to manage sales and marketing activities in a very focused way.”
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