Rolling Out New Sales Technology Is Too Much Effort & We Don’t Have the Time or People

One of the concerns any organisation faces when implementing new systems is the impact this can have on already stretched resources. Having to divert teams who are already working to capacity is never desirable.

The challenge

JSP is Europe’s leading independent manufacturer of ‘above the neck’ Personal Protective Equipment.

An estimated 40 million people a day use JSP products to protect themselves at home and work, using equipment made across three continents and exported to 100 countries.

JSP had a considerable list of requirements for a new sales platform.

• They urgently needed an interactive sales tool for their global sales reps and customers to quickly access their complex and growing portfolio of 300-plus products.
• Each item had their own specifications, H&S standards, technical documentation, accessories, 3D product models, videos and images.
• It needed to be visually striking, intuitive to use, multi-lingual, work on any device (laptops, tablets, large touch screens at events) and enable customer conversations to continue remotely when it wasn’t  possible to meet face-to-face.

POP was a perfect match to meet their requirements, however those same requirements raised doubts in JSP about their level of effort required to implement the platform across their entire organisation.

With their sales and marketing teams already running at full capacity, JSP doubted that they could spare the time and team to deploy the POP platform. We had to show them that we would do the bulk of the heavy lifting and that we could deliver on time.

We also needed to be able to reassure them that once implemented, centralised control would enable them to maintain data integrity and brand homogeneity across several countries.

The solution

The answers to the challenges of implementation and deployment lie in the POP platform and our tried and tested onboarding process, both designed to ensure that each customer, while unique, is handled in an efficient and methodical manner.

Starting with discovery and scoping, we have a robust process which means we take on the heavy lifting to minimise the pressure on our customers’ resources and people.

With JSP, our team began by helping define the goals which would guide development and be the measure of success.

Next, came a survey of all key staff to ensure that their knowledge and experience guided and informed their dream sales tool and how it should function. 

A discovery workshop followed closely after this to present back the findings from the survey, and to identify the key content required, along with new assets to bring the JSP products to life, such as interactive 3D models of all their products.

This input was then used to flesh out the key aspects of the new experience creating a blueprint for success, defining what it had to do and what the customers’ priorities were; aligning key stakeholders as to what their sales experience would deliver.

And, where integrations were needed with existing systems such as their DAM, CRM and analytics platforms, we were able to bring our considerable knowledge to ensure that this went smoothly and quickly.

From this point onwards,with the blueprint in place, our team developed all of this input into a fully-working prototype which was thoroughly tested by the JSP team.

Once the final implementation was completed, we made sure that sales, marketing and back office teams were trained in how they could get the very best results from their platform.

The results

Despite reservations, for JSP the result of our work was a system which made it easier than ever before to demonstrate to customers the value of their products and deliver detailed product and regulatory information quickly and easily.

This included solving the challenges of managing global marketing collateral in multiple languages to ensure that wherever they were, each sales rep had everything they needed at their fingertips every single time.

JSP were now able to manage all of their marketing and sales materials from a central single source of truth, ensuring that whenever and wherever their sales reps accessed  information, it was up to date and accurate.

Just as the implementation was completed, the world went into lockdown as the COVID pandemic took hold, raising a host of unexpected challenges to business continuity.

Fortunately for JSP, the POP platform works as well remotely as it does face-to-face, enabling them to continue working with and serving their customers in the face of unprecedented difficulties.

The next step

The POP team is always available to discuss not only the many advantages of the POP platform itself, but also how we, as a company, can take the weight off your shoulders when it comes to implementation.

We won’t pretend that we can do the implementation without you, but we have geared our processes to minimise the time required from already hard-pressed teams, while we do the heavy lifting.