The Case of Making a Large Sale

Business Marketing : Group 3

Deepak Sasikumar
Robin Bansal
Tejas Shah
Vikas Guleria
Saurabh Wagh

13P019
13P035
13P046
13P056
13P057

How should Carman respond to the invitation of

Q&R executives what he thought of Oracle?
Carman cannot deny about the Oracle as this will show lack of his
understanding about its competitor and Market
Secondly, he must convey to the customer that without
understanding their requirement it is difficult to judge the

suitability of product/vendor to the customer

This will help him get more insights about the customer and
respond better
Finally, he can elaborate with POP and POD with Oracle and
substantiate it with the Gartner Research Report

What features of this particular interaction influence your opinion?

Would your opinion of the right response change if the
circumstances were different?
The fact that Carman did not have any prior knowledge about the requirements or
the current systems of Q&R were a major influence on our opinion
Also, since they were in a trade show where the customer had complete access to
competitor information as well made it imperative for Carman to impress them in
the best possible manner in the first meeting only
The customer was knowledgeable about their requirements and needs but was
not aware of the products available in the market
In the current scenario he was not ready to handle the situation because of lack of
adequate information

However, under a different circumstance when Carman would be more aware of

the customers requirements, he would be in a better position on the competitive
context

How should Carman qualify the prospect? Should he ask Whats your budget?
Should he suppress his curiosity and leave it to the prospect to bring up
information about the size and timing of the opportunity? If he asks for
information, how will he use it?
He shouldnt ask anything about the budget or enter into any kind of monetary
discussions
First, he should gauge the customer- what is their business and how it
functions, what do they currently use and what problems are they facing with
that, and what are their requirements

Based on this data, he can indirectly judge the scale of operations and thus
their budget which can help him estimate the size of business possible with the
company
Thus, he should not ask for the size and timing of the opportunity. Rather, basis
the fact that higher level executives of the company themselves are looking out
for new products, it shows the seriousness and urgency of the company. Thus,
we can better guide the customer towards the right purchase

Evaluate Carmans interactions with the customer up to this point.

Is he doing good job? How effective is Siebel Systems approach?
He missed important information from the customer like number of user of the
system and presence of higher level executives which were critical inputs

During the demonstration, He could have emphasized the important aspects

which were critical to the customer need if he had been able to extract more
relevant information from the customer
Siebel systems approach is definitely effective in the sense that one is able to
collect ample data and then follow a systematic method so that the process
becomes more effective
Also, the emphasis of the approach on building relationships with the
customers and partners is important in determining success
However, the way it is being implemented by the salesman is critical in
determining its success

Put yourself in Zitzners position as he picks up the phone. How

should he handle the conversation? What is his objective in this call?
He should assure them that they would help them in the best possible manner
and partner with them in the implementation of the new system

He should also talk about building long-term relationships with the customer in
terms of maintaining the system and helping the customer whenever needed
His objective should be to assure the client that they are very important to the

company and that no stone would be left unturned in assuring the best possible
service offered to them