Guide: There are no shortcuts at the enterprise level
What does 12 years mean to a company?
In the field of consumer Internet, 12 years is long enough, and the stories of going public in just a few years have been common in the past. In the toB field of enterprise services, the time dimension of industry maturity and enterprise development has been lengthened, but the story is equally exciting.
July 18, 2023 marks the 12th anniversary of the establishment of CRM Enterprise Sales Easy. In the past 12 years, from a little-known start-up software company to becoming the only CRM company shortlisted in the Gartner SFA Magic Quadrant for many years in a row, the achievements that are easy to achieve in sales and the pitfalls that have been stepped on are also very representative among Chinese SaaS companies.
For a company, there are too many key nodes worth sorting out in 12 years. In the past few years, "Intelligent Evolution Theory" has also had many interviews and contacts with SalesEasy. What kind of SaaS company is SalesEasy? How did you grow step by step to where you are today?
Just like "There are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers", this article does not talk about complicated narratives, but only shares a few moments that impressed the author.
The picture comes from photo network
Moment One: The Energy of an Entrepreneur
On a hot afternoon in August 2018, during an interview at the Fuxing International Center in Beijing, the author first met Shi Yanze (Allan), the founder and CEO of SalesEasy.
In the following years, in many meetings and interviews, the author found that Allan seemed to have no change except for a few gray hairs.
He's still the quintessential entrepreneur at his best—enthusiastic, very chatty, perpetually energetic, as if he's ready for an important meeting with a big client.
Where does Allan's energy come from?
In an interview in 2021, the author asked Allan: Why start a business? How do you manage energy on a daily basis? He replied:
"It may be about life purpose, that is, why are you alive? When you leave, do you hope that the world will be different because of you?"
"One of the biggest challenges in starting a business may be physical and mental strength. Exercise is actually the basis for ensuring energy."
"Entrepreneurship is not easy. If you don't have the enthusiasm for this matter itself, it will be difficult for you to persist."
"Let all the external environment not have too much influence on your heart and emotions, all of which may be the inner practice of an entrepreneur that is invisible to everyone."
At that time, just in time to hear a speech given by the Chinese captain, Allan also wrote down his thoughts on leadership in Moments: “These leadership skills in times of crisis are also applicable to business operations: years of experience in professionalism, a healthy body And great mental strength, love of tenacity, responsibility and empathy and luck!"
Allan in the early stage of entrepreneurship, the picture is from the official WeChat of SalesEasy
Moment 2: There are no shortcuts at the enterprise level
Many people don’t know that the company registered at the time of Sales Easy was PeopleSoft Interactive, which reflects the original intention of Sales Easy to change the traditional CRM through Internet technologies such as mobile and social networking, and let CRM return to the center of “people and relationships”. Let enterprises and customers interact more closely and deeply.
In 2011, the era of 4G and smartphones had just begun, and the wave of mobile Internet was still rising rapidly. Few people paid attention to the toB field. This year, Allan, who has nearly 20 years of experience in corporate services, has changed from an executive of a top 500 foreign company to an entrepreneur in the toB field.
"Should we focus on a certain vertical industry, or should we make a general product, like Salesforce and Siebel, and we finally chose the latter."
Choosing a path is only the first step. Time goes back to many years ago, and the outside world tends to underestimate the difficulty and long cycle of CRM software.
"Why can't China make Salesforce?"
"General CRM has been in business for so many years, why is it moving so slowly?"
……
In the early days of entrepreneurship, SalesEasy was constantly asked such questions. Behind this is actually the core constraint that Chinese SaaS companies generally face, including the maturity of the Chinese SaaS market, and the demand for a large number of differentiated and customized software in various industries.
"If you don't come to this field, it may be difficult to understand. In fact, the industry's approach requires strong platform capabilities, and then extends to vertical industries, combining industry capabilities with the underlying platform architecture. This is the way to break the game. ’” Allan told Intelligent Evolution in a previous interview.
The early trials and tribulations made Allan realize early on that in order to achieve large-scale growth, CRM companies must cross three mountains:
First, how to leap from SME customers to medium and large customers;
Second, how to leap from a single product to a multi-product and integrated product system;
Third, how to leap from general CRM to vertical industry CRM.
"There are no shortcuts at the enterprise level" is a sentence that Allan agrees with very much. How to cross, Sales Yi must polish his own diamond.
Beijing Fuxing International Center Office, salesman Yi Zeng has spent 5 years here
Moment 3: Only diamonds can do porcelain work
"During the development of SalesEasy, what key decisions did we make right to get to where we are today?"
"I think the first major decision is that we invested in the PaaS platform in 2015." In an interview, Allan's blurted answer is enough to prove the importance of the PaaS platform.
2015 is considered by many to be the first year of SaaS in China. In that year, the number and amount of investment and financing in the SaaS field surged. When the market was at its most turbulent, Sales Yi made a difficult but very correct decision-to develop a PaaS platform.
Whether it can serve large customers is a threshold for the strength of a software company. For a long time in the past, the CRM selection of large domestic enterprises was almost monopolized by foreign brands.
"It's not so much that we choose foreign brands, it's better to say that we couldn't find domestic brands. We have never used local brands. Do you know that if I decide to choose Sales Yi, I have my head on the waistband of my trousers." The IT director of a large enterprise once said this to Allan.
Doing PaaS requires a lot of R&D investment and strategic focus, which is especially difficult for start-up companies.
"If there is a cash outflow problem during the period, there is actually a big risk. But if we don't do this, it will never be possible to solve this problem (serving medium and large customers)." Allan said.
In 2016, SalesEasy's PaaS platform was officially launched, and in the following years, it continued to improve its flexible configuration and customization capabilities. This diamond has also made SalesEasy one of the few CRM companies in China that have the ability to serve large-scale enterprises.
Sales Easy released the PaaS platform in 2016, the picture comes from the official WeChat of Sales Easy
Moment 4: Eliminate disputes and integrate
"If you only care about sales, it should be called sales automation. If you only care about service, it should be called customer service automation. Only when the customer life cycle is opened up, from marketing to customer conversion, to the digitization of the whole process of after-sales service, can it be called customer relationship management. "
The integrated transformation that began in 2017 is another difficult but correct decision of SalesEasy.
At that time, many domestic CRM companies only provided a certain type of tools, and were only responsible for one part of the CRM process, and were unable to open up data islands in sales, marketing, service and other links.
To open up the whole chain in the CRM field, SalesEasy must expand from the initial sales cloud to multiple product lines, develop marketing cloud, service cloud, partner cloud, intelligent analysis cloud, etc., covering the complete business cycle of customers.
"I have always firmly believed that in the field of CRM, these fragmented solutions cannot ultimately meet the needs of customers. Even until a few years ago, there were some disputes within the company. But looking at it now, no one has questioned this anymore. That's what happened," Allan said.
Soon, the integration capability helped SalesEase make great achievements. In 2017, relying on the customization capabilities and integrated product capabilities of the PaaS platform, SalesEasy helped Guozhi Shengu Group build a sales and service integration platform, which runs through Shengu customer management, projects, customer service and secondary sales The whole process has opened up a complete L2C (lead to cash) chain.
After years of iterations, the integration capabilities of SalesEasy have been further improved. In addition to the integration of marketing services, it also covers the integration of B (dealer) & C (consumer), online and offline integration, which supports Sales Easy to become the only one in China that can support three types of customer acquisition: direct sales, channel distribution and private domain. Mode CRM service provider.
Moment Five: Shortlisted in the Gartner Quadrant
Persist in doing the hard and right things, and good results will follow.
In 2017, Gartner objectively surveyed more than 130 suppliers and their customers around the world, and finally selected 16 products from 15 suppliers. SalesEase became the only Chinese CRM company selected in the Gartner SFA Magic Quadrant.
Since then, SalesEasy has been selected into the Gartner SFA Magic Quadrant for six consecutive years, and it is still the only CRM company selected in China. In the 2021 report, SalesEasy's mobile terminal capabilities are far ahead of Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft, ranking second in the world.
Moment 6: "Poor boy" successfully held hands with "Bai Fumei"
In 2020, at the SalesEngage brand strategy conference, Hikvision, Lenovo, Shengu Group, Shanghai Electric, and Didi Group will be the SalesEase platform, and they are all major customers of SalesEase.
"Before I started my business, I was serving Lenovo. At that time, I didn't think that a big customer like Lenovo would become a customer of Salesyi today. A tall dream lover, but the family is not the right one, and it really takes 10 years to hold hands." Allan's emotion at the press conference infected many guests present.
After the breakthrough from zero to one, the ability and experience of Sales Easy to serve large enterprises has been continuously upgraded, and the scale growth from one to one hundred has started. Of course, this process has not been smooth sailing.
"Large enterprises directly use complex business scenarios to test. I will throw out the most difficult scenarios. Your domestic companies will try it and realize the same scenario for me. Can you do it? The more we serve them, the more we The more you know your own gap, how to quickly iterate and improve.”
In the process of serving large enterprises, under the test of truly complex scenarios, SalesEasy has continuously refined its ability to refine product depth and flexibility, and strives to be not only usable but also easy to use when replacing international brands.
In 2020, it took only three months for Salesforce to successfully switch the main functions of the CRM business of Hikvision, a leading security company, from Salesforce to the Salesforce platform, effectively supporting the normal operation of its overseas business.
In 2021, SalesEase will complete the replacement of the Schneider Electric CRM system in only 7 months. SalesEasy not only takes over the digital functions of the original Salesforce and Oracle, but also achieves an experience that exceeds expectations in terms of service response speed, mobile experience, and more flexible self-service of user reports.
The ability to serve large customers has also accelerated the pace of sales going overseas. At present, SalesEasy has deployed data centers in Southeast Asia and Europe, completed GDPR compliance certification, and successfully assisted Liugong International, Hikvision, GoodWe, BGI and other companies in their overseas business management.
Moment 7: Seeing the essence through the "air outlet"
In 2021, taking advantage of the private domain, SCRM will become a hot track for capital, and dozens of SCRM companies will suddenly emerge in the market, and voices such as "SCRM will subvert traditional CRM" can be seen from time to time. This year, SalesEasy also released SCRM products.
"Those who don't know SalesEasy may think that you are following the trend. Social is a channel to connect customers, and the bottom layer of SCRM cannot be separated from the essence of customer relationship, so there is no essential difference between SCRM and CRM."
In September 2021, at a media communication meeting, Allan said this in the face of many media questions surrounding SCRM.
In the hustle and bustle of the market, Allan shared another calm point of view to the media, that is, whether it is a SCRM company or a CRM company, if it cannot overcome the three mountains of large customers, integration and vertical industries, it will not be able to achieve large-scale growth.
Facts have verified his view. The turmoil of the last round of SCRM passed quickly. Today, the renewal rate of small SCRM companies that cannot provide industry capabilities is declining, and survival is difficult. Top SCRM companies have already begun to tackle the tough problems of PaaS capabilities.
"Essentially, I don't think SCRM is a new thing for SalesEasy. In the DNA, using social and mobile to empower the connection between enterprises and customers is the original intention of SalesEase." Allan said.
write at the end
After 12 years, Sales Easy has stood at a new starting point.
Twelve years later, the external environment of Chinese SaaS companies also presents new opportunities.
When digital transformation becomes the starting point for enterprises to refine their operations, when AI technology brings new changes to enterprise-level software, when domestic software wins more and more markets and reputation, when the popularity of technology soars...
Sales Easy will also usher in the best era.
END
This article is the original work of "Intelligent Evolution".