As much as high-growth technology companies want to believe they can tackle any technology challenge, they may not have the expertise or resources to implement all of their own technology infrastructure. To rapidly expand into new markets and grow their sales volume, these companies overwhelmingly must rely on help from implementation partners. Among customers who have implemented the industry-leading Salesforce platform, for example, a whopping 90 percent report that they rely on third-party partners to lead their implementation, according to Salesforce industry research. 

While many companies acknowledge the value of using an implementation partner for major technology investments, the same can’t be said of Managed Services. Managed Services are long-term, on-call partners contracted to provide expert guidance and support following a major technology investment. Like implementation partners, Managed Services partners help ensure an organization achieves a strong ROI from its technology investments over the long term. Although Managed Services partners are not viewed as essential in the same way that implementation partners are, they really should be. Managed Services are cost-effective, responsive, flexible, scalable, and able to help organizations rapidly grow and evolve over time. And when it comes to sales enablement tools like Salesforce’s CRM (customer relationship management) and CPQ (configure, price, quote) platforms, Managed Services partners are critical to sustaining long-term ROI momentum and maximizing sales opportunities. Let’s explore four key reasons high-growth tech companies should turn to Managed Services partners to help their sales teams sell more:

Managed Services partners ensure changes to sales tools are deployed rapidly

Time is of the essence when a sales team wants to build a new app, reconfigure its workflows, or troubleshoot a problem with its systems. Sales teams need access to a responsive team that can eliminate glitches, unlock new features and efficiencies, introduce new customizations, and scale technology at the rate the organization is growing. However, not all in-house teams are ideally positioned to provide these maintenance and upgrade services; they may not have the skill set or experience to make changes rapidly or correctly, or if they do, they are often too busy to get to these cases in a timely fashion. That’s where a Managed Services partner shines. Managed Services partners have the experience and expertise to adeptly and rapidly deploy changes to sales tools. Managed Services partners understand best practices and know how to avoid pitfalls and risks. 

Managed Services partners ensure sales teams get the training they need

Whenever companies must roll out upgrades and updates to technology infrastructure, there’s a learning curve for all users. For sales teams, this learning curve takes away precious time from actually being able to sell. And many organizations either don’t have the experience and skill or time to be able to design and administer efficient, comprehensive training opportunities for affected teams. Managed Services partners offer a path forward by taking over the responsibility for training end users. Managed Services partners take care of every aspect of training—deciding who needs to be trained and when this training should take place, and scheduling, designing, and administering the training in the most expeditious manner possible. The end result is sales teams don’t have to worry about struggling to use newly upgraded and updated systems.

Managed Services partners ensure sales teams don’t deviate from best practices

Sales teams see technology as a means to an end, and the end is sales. Thus, sales teams’ instinct is to modify and manipulate established technology best practices if it suits their short-term goals for sales. Unfortunately, where in-house IT teams should be the stopgap, we often see them unwittingly go along with the sales team’s misinformed choices. For example, sales teams may modify workflows and configurations on their own that they justify as inconsequential, one-off changes. But suppose the sales team is inadvertently corrupting data streams or improperly modifying sales records. In that case, these practices need to be identified and nipped in the bud—before they cause a ripple effect of long-term, quality-control problems. Managed Services partners have the skills and experience to know when sales teams deviate from best practices, enabling them to serve as gatekeepers and quality-control checkers that keep the organization on track with its long-term sales goals.

Managed Services partners teach sales teams new ways to close more and bigger deals

Modern, cloud-based solutions like Salesforce offer a wide range of features that help sales teams become more effective at selling. Among other things, these features help sales teams identify the most promising leads, prioritize the highest-value customers for service and support, create targeted marketing campaigns for specific groups of customers, and identify cross-sell and upsell recommendations for individual customers. No in-house team can possibly keep up with all of these advances or identify and prioritize all of the features that will maximize utility to the sales team. However, Managed Services partners are expertly positioned to help fill this gap. Managed Services partners can work with sales teams to identify new features that can help them close more and bigger deals. Then, the Managed Services partner can take care of implementing the features and providing the necessary training.

Managed Services partners aren’t as standard in the tech industry as implementation partners, but both types of partners serve similar roles in helping companies maximize the benefits of significant technology investments. When it comes to sales teams, Managed Services partners play an invaluable role in ensuring changes to sales tools get deployed rapidly, that the team gets the training they need to use any new technology, that they aren’t deviating from best practices, and that we are teaching new ways to use the technology to close more and bigger deals. 

Simplus offers a range of flexible, customizable Strategic Managed Services solutions to help tech companies get the support they need to achieve all of their long-term growth goals. To learn more about how Managed Services can become a foundational asset of your business’ growth trajectory, please reach out to us today. We look forward to becoming every bit as valuable to you in a Managed Services role as we do in our implementation partner role.