Bill's case study drive

Met a complete (and to his credit, self-confessed) non-sales person today at a first meeting, who’d somehow been put in charge of a small sales team.  They sell Microsoft CRM software as part of their ‘business solutions’ offerings.  It turns out that to keep their status as a MS reseller, they must obtain a case study from every customer delivery.

I read through a handful, and they seem the usual bland, not really insightful, marketing-type productions.  Four generic headings (Customer Profile, Business Challenge, Solution, Benefits) with the typical “weren’t the supplier lovely” quote from the horse’s mouth, which doesn’t say anything.

The one good thing about the process, is that the reseller is made to produce them, so at least the discipline is there.  Although the downside is that they fail to document the real intel that’ll have the most decent impact, so really are a waste of time.  And of course, who wants to buy Microsoft’s business apps anyway?