Photo: Rackspace Technology. Credit: Pexels
True global experts in multi-cloud solutions, the company has more than 6,000 “Rackers” across four continents, most of whom are engineers dedicated to innovating and creating multi-cloud solutions for their customers.
Following the unpredictable adjustments and changes for consumers and businesses in 2020, a series of challenges are emerging that impact major industries. Rackspace Technology, aware of the importance for its sales team to be able to adapt to these challenges, has relied on Opinno to map them and create a common knowledge base that makes it possible to adapt quickly and benefit from a reality that is constantly changing.
“Rackspace’s sales team is focused on their commercial and customer service work, so they have little time to keep abreast of all the new trends and opportunities that can improve their performance and that of their customers,” says Miguel Ángel Foces, Project Manager at Opinno. “In the first contacts, it was clear that the idea was to launch a research project on new services in which the findings should be presented to the client in real time. These spaces, where the customer has given his vision on the developments, have been one of the keys to ensure a correct and effective approach that allows the commercial team to improve sales skills in 5 industries.”
The research has been centered around Latin America, with a clear focus on the three markets in which the brand operates: Mexico, Colombia and Chile. The work started at the beginning of 2021 and lasted until mid-March.
During this period, we carried out a cross-sectional analysis of 5 key industries: retail, industrial production, finance, media and entertainment, and transportation and travel, analyzing each of them in detail.
As is almost always the case, the most important thing is to know how to ask the right questions. Under the suggestive title “Questions that keep us awake at night,” we worked together with the client to define the key points of the study. From the realization of the challenges and trends for each industrial sector, the identification of the focuses and objections to investment in cloud technologies, their regulatory aspects, the cultural changes of digital transformation and the strategic responses of industries to the COVID-19 pandemic.
To facilitate a prompt response from the sales team to new technological opportunities in the fields of security, artificial intelligence, and others, we decided to jointly create a series of use cases. In general, the relationship between marketing and sales has been enriched, relying on the vision of the sales team, and creating spaces for collaboration between the two departments.
More than 700 studies, articles and news items analyzed have allowed us to create 5 sector-wide news reports on cloud technology services as well as a general report that includes all the associated information and bibliography.
“What I like most about the collaboration with Opinno is that the project was about desk research, they went far beyond that and worked closely with the technical and sales team to make sure that they understood our value proposition and ensured that the information they delivered was useful, even providing us with additional tools that made it easier to consult and use the information,” says Liliana Durán, Product Marketing Manager at Rackspace.
At Opinno, we are proud to see once again how an initial tentative approach, enriched by regular contact with the client, is the most effective approach for this type of study. The key is to align often. Soon, without a screen in between.
