1. Selling Advanced Analytics: The Basics
8/6/2018 7:27 PM
Selling Advanced Analytics: The Basics
Final assignment:
Preparing to engage with your first Advanced Analytics prospect
© 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

2. Important note
The final assignment will be submitted for peer review which includes both Microsoft FTEs and partners.
The final assignment is based on your own real-world sales prospect.
Please do not share the name of your customer nor any other information that would identify the specific customer in your final assignment.

3. Logistics
First, here are some logistics about how the Final Assignment and Peer Review work.
The Final Assignment is required to pass the course. To pass the Final Assignment, earn at least 105 points out of a possible 150 points.
Want to know how your Final Assignment will be scored? Review the handout titled, Peer Review Instructions and Scoring.
You must submit your Final Assignment by 9:00am Pacific Time on Monday, April 3, During the fifth week (April 3 – 10), your Final Assignment will be reviewed by five other participants, and you too will be asked to review and rate five other final assignments.
Assignments submitted after the due date and time will not be accepted for Peer Review and will not receive any points. If you submit your assignment on time, but do not complete your Peer Reviews by the review due date and time, your own assignment points earned will be reduced to 50% of their value.  
Let’s get started!

4. Here is your mission.
You will have an opportunity to prepare your initial approach for a new Advanced Analytics sales opportunity.
During this final assignment, you will:
Identify a specific prospect (without naming them) that you believe has an Advanced Analytics opportunity.
Research and summarize potential use cases, both horizontal and industry-specific, that will be relevant to this prospect.
List the questions you will use to broaden your knowledge of their organization, their analytics team, specific use case(s), IT environment, and directions.
Based on what you know or expect to find, build a PowerPoint deck to briefly recommend one of the targeted Advanced Analytics scenarios.

5. Steps
You will have approximately 2-hours during Week 4 to complete this required final assignment.
Review this PowerPoint deck for the complete instructions.
Complete Parts A – D in the following slides. Please do not share the name of your customer nor any other information that would identify the specific customer in your final assignment.
Save this deck as a PDF. Return to the assignment in the course and upload the PDF. Each participant individually uploads a copy of their PDF to receive points for the assignment. Do not identify yourself in the final assignment or in the filename that you upload to keep the process anonymous.
After the final assignment period closes at the end of Week 4, you will be invited to anonymously evaluate a few of your peers’ final assignments during Week 5. This is a required step to receive a passing score on your final assignment.

6. Instructions: Part A—Identify a prospect
Identify a specific prospect (without naming them) that you believe has an Advanced Analytics opportunity.
On the following slides, describe the customer organization.
What is their industry?
What is their business unit or division?
What is their function within the business unit or division?
What is the role of the individual who is your initial contact?
What is this person’s relationship to the analytics team [LoB, data scientist, IT (various), application dev, user, and so forth]?
Sketch a map of the advanced analytics team and the likely influencers you have identified.
Please do not share the name of your customer nor any other information that would identify the specific customer in your final assignment.

7. My Prospect [for confidentiality, please do not list prospect’s real name]
What is their industry?
What is their business unit or division?
What is their function within the business unit or division?

8. My Prospect [for confidentiality, please do not list prospect’s real name]
What is the role of the individual who is your initial contact?
What is this person’s relationship to the analytics team [LoB, data scientist, IT (various), application dev, user, and so forth]?

9. My Prospect [for confidentiality, please do not list prospect’s real name]
Sketch a map of the advanced analytics team and the likely influencers you have identified.

10. Instructions: Part B—Research potential use cases
Research and summarize potential use cases, both horizontal and industry-specific, that will be relevant to this prospect.
On the following slides, describe your use case research.
List the pain points in order of priority.
List the aspirations being sought.
What use cases have your contacts already expressed?
Describe how these use cases address pain points or pursue aspirations.  
Are these use cases specific and related to business metrics?  If so, list them.
If not, then describe your approach to questioning your contacts to develop a more business-focused use case.
If no use cases have been identified or you believe they have additional use cases, then describe your approach to researching use cases you can present or use to stimulate further discussion.
Please do not share the name of your customer nor any other information that would identify the specific customer in your final assignment.

11. Use Cases List the pain points in order of priority.
List the aspirations being sought.

12. Use Cases What use cases have your contacts already expressed?
Describe how these use cases address pain points or pursue aspirations.  

13. Use Cases
Are these use cases specific and related to business metrics?  If so, list them.
If not, then describe your approach to questioning your contacts to develop a more business-focused use case.

14. Use Cases
If no use cases have been identified or you believe they have additional use cases, then describe your approach to researching use cases you can present or use to stimulate further discussion.

15. Instructions: Part C—List the questions
List the questions you will use to broaden your knowledge of their organization, their analytics team, specific use case(s), IT environment, and directions that will shape an initial Microsoft analytics proposal.
Your goal is to explain how you will pursue this prospect with questions that help you to complete identification of the decision making team, deepen understanding of the use case and infrastructure, and prepare you to scope your initial proposal. (Hint:  Imagine your sales manager is asking for your plans and the scope of your initial solution proposal.)
Please do not share the name of your customer nor any other information that would identify the specific customer in your final assignment.

16. Question List
List your questions…

17. Instructions: Part D—Recommend a targeted Advanced Analytics scenario
Based on what you know or expect to find, target your audience and build a PowerPoint deck to briefly recommend one of the targeted Advanced Analytics scenarios.
Begin the deck with hidden slides that describe the anticipated target audience for the presentation. Who would you attempt to present the solution to? What factors lead to the proposed solution? What action do you want them to take?
Keep your PowerPoint deck to a 15 minute discussion with your prospect suggesting one or more of the Microsoft Advanced Analytics product lines for your prospect’s use case. Select slides from the PowerPoint decks referenced in course materials, and modify or augment as appropriate to prepare your presentation.

18. Presentation
Insert slides.

19. © 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved
© 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.