A tighter window of opportunity
In tough times you have to prove there's a reason why your customers need your services.
Janet Szilva, president of AJS Group, a sales consultancy, says that in going back and reacquainting her clients with the concept of ROI, she drives home the point that selling ROI isn't what it used to be.
Years ago, she notes, a three-year payback was an acceptable horizon, but today, 12 months is a more typical requirement.
"In a tight economy, customers are looking for an initial cost savings in a short time," says Szilva.
Scott Silk, senior VP at ePresence, a provider of directory-based solutions, agrees that projects with a payback period of a year or less are more likely to be green-lighted in a recession. Silk says the eProvisioning applications offered by his firm have a nine-month payback window (these apps allow companies to more efficiently allocate email and network accounts, PCs, and cellular phones to employees).
Indeed, even the former Web consulting hotshots that treated the sales function like an old-economy relic are emphasising rapid ROI as a cornerstone of their efforts to survive the ongoing shakeout.
Bob Howe, the CEO of Scient, which previously focused on fast time-to-market and building elaborate e-commerce vehicles, says the firm is now responding to customer demands for "an accounting period return... ROI in some timeframe that makes sense to them."
