FI NDI NGS

Advantech India started the A-online sales team to ensure the sales and with the
objectives of develop existing general account business, arise sleeping account business,
transfer potential accounts to key accountants and generate new accounts.

As a part of A-online team, I understood the A-line business nature and mission. This
given me the great insights of the Advantechs online business.

A-online Sales Force Mission

1. Enabling an intelligent plant:-
As a part of Advantech A-online sales team first and
Foremost responsibility is supporting Advantechs mission Enabling an Intelligent
Plant.
Accordingly, Advantech sees five mega missions for the coming golden years:
1. Clustering and replication of the sub amoebic business model
2. In line with market evolution, they will dedicate, focus, and speed up our internal
sectorization
3. They will apply strategies far and wide for market coverage and penetration
4. Te will employ curation and virtual marketing to push evolution in branding and
market communications
5. Te will continue to employ strategic development and investment on a worldwide
scale

Advantech will continue to be a Niche-SBU Cluster Growth Model, continuing to develop
Strategic Business Units (SBUs), so each business unit can serve its unique market and fully
assist its customers. By 2015, they hope to have 50 SBUs deployed.

Advantech will also reexamine its existing business organization and speed up evolution of
its business model. Originally designed on a geographic regional basis, now they are adding
the concept of a sector-driven management model. This organizational refinement will assist
in a better understanding and fulfillment of market demands, and ensure that Advantech
maintains its leadership position in the relevant vertical markets.

In order to respond to the coming network economy, Advantech is adjusting its marketing
model to better satisfy a wide range of customer demands all around the world. The newly
established A-Online platform providing 24/7 service, and in 2012 they roll out a special A-
Online Franchise model to select Channel Partners in China, the Philippines, Vietnam,
Turkey and Mexico.

Advantech helping tame the information explosion by serving as a curator for relevant
industry news--using expert human judgment to aggregate, collate, filter and deliver targeted
data. They are taking a leadership role in the development and application of cyber formats
such as virtual meetings, and use them to push distribution of high-value-added information.
Advantech hoping to help lead the next wave of virtual behavior and consumption.

In 2014, Advantech focusing intently on Russia, India, Indonesia, and Mexico, as well as
enhancing operations in mainland China.

Advantech is proud to be able to play a pivotal role in enabling and investing in intelligent
planet, and looking forward to the progress of the coming golden decade.


2. Develop Biz Model under Internet Economy:-

An Internet economy differs from traditional economy in number of ways including
communication, market segment, distribution costs and price. That is the reason that
Advantech is focusing highly on A-online sales to leverage this internet economy.

The internet is making economic activity more efficient, faster and cheaper and extending
social interaction. Increasingly, the largest productivity gains for business come from using
online networks in same form. They reach through the internet is wide for the
organizations.
They can reach out the more number of clients with t in the small amount of budget and
time with less effort.

2. Expand Advantech Branding Far & Wide:-
They are creating a balanced and attractive spread of businesses in India. The wide
geographic spread of their Indian operations allows them to benefit from growth in
volumes and value in markets over India. They continue to look for opportunities to
strengthen their geographic footprint in both developing and developed of India.
They are developing strong, relevant brand portfolios that to win in the Indian
market. They are seeking to develop attractive brand portfolios that meet consumers'
needs in each of their markets. This includes expanding their offerings to address new
consumer segments, strengthening their mainstream products.
Their aim is to keep enhancing our operational performance through top-line
growth and continuous improvement in costs and productivity. Its also important that they
maintain and advance their reputation, protect their license to trade and develop their
businesses sustainably for the benefit of their stakeholders.
They are leveraging their skills and global scales to capture the Indian market.
Their global spread presents increasing opportunities to gain value from the scale and skills
of the group, not least by leveraging their scale, standardizing their back-office functions
and integrating their front-office systems. They are also benefiting from ongoing
collaboration and the sharing of skills between our businesses.


3. Business Growth via Generate & Nurture Leads :-
Lead generation and nurturing is the process of building a relationship by conducting an
informative dialog that helps qualified prospects who are not yet sales-ready, regardless
of budget, authority, or timing and of ensuring a clean hand-off to sales at the right
time.
Advantech is following the 5 steep lead management process.
3 Step Sales Lead Management System
i.Build a database that includes:
Profile of desired market
Run all maintenance routines to clean data
Append enriched data
Define process to achieve 95%+ accuracy
ii. Contact Validation and Profiling
Define contacts per key player map
Build contact and company profile to support future interactions
Profile should support individual nurturing interactions
iii. Lead generation
Define sales read leads with sales management buy in
Develop self qualifications criteria for use on web and in direct mail
Develop rank and score system to define quality readiness and nurturing levels
Develop messaging and offers to create urgency and advance the prospect
iv. Nurturing Process
Develop groups based on the prospect position buy cycle
Develop a series of touches based on contact data
Attempt to create interactions to accelerate the buy cycle
Use each prospect interaction to deepen the profile i.e. mini surveys
Constantly analyze performance based on the media message and offer
v. Analysis and Improvement
Measure overall fiscal return against plan to evaluate lead generation strategies



This is the mission of the A-online business in Advantech to enhance the business. As a
part of this A-online business team I found the valuable factors like Internet Economy,
Branding, Lead Management Process.



A-online Sales Force Nature:-

As a part of A-online sales I found that, how they are targeting and how they
segmented their target group. This segmentation belongs to not only a Advantech and also
organizations which are into B2B sales.
Briefly they segmented their target group into four groups as System integrators,
Small transactions, General accounts, and System components.

System integrates as Customer:-
A systems integrator (SI) is an individual or business that builds computing systems
for clients by combining hardware and software products from multiple vendors.
Using a systems integrator, a company can align cheaper, pre-configured components
and off-the-shelf software to meet key business goals, as opposed to more expensive,
customized implementations that may require original programming or manufacture
of unique components. Creation of these information systems may include designing
or building a customized architecture or application, integrating it with new or
existing hardware, packaged and custom software, and communications
infrastructure. Some systems integrators working in specialized areas or upgrades
may offer more customization for specific applications.
This is the reason that Advantech A-online team targeting the System Integrators,
through them to reach more number of customers. Even they are providing special
credit options to them to maintain long term business relationship. System Integrates
are the best channels to push the products into the market.
General Accounts: -
In General accounts Advantech A-online sales team deals with directly with
organizations which are in a need of industrial computing components for their
operations. Here in the general accounts customers they are dealing with the small
scale industries and large scale industries are transferring to the key accounts
managers.


Increase Operational Efficiency and Reduce Costs:-
A-Online helps to improve efficiency and reduce costs by automating previously manual,
labor-intensive processes, and providing customer self-service options. This online channel
automates a wide variety of processes that include approving buyer registration, delivering
buyer-specific online catalogs, displaying bulk-based pricing, and automatically enforcing
contractual terms and conditions.
By offloading some tasks to customers and eliminating unnecessary or repetitive tasks, sellers
gain the option to reduce headcount to lower back-office support costs, grow revenue without
adding headcount and refocus workers to higher-value-added activities. In addition, A-Online
channel reduces communications costs for phone and faxing services, while more automation
minimizes errors and rework.

Improve Customer Retention:-
Providing an excellent customer experience plays a key role in customer retention. As A-
Online Insights explains, Fast commoditization of products, soaring buyer expectations and
weak demand are calling for manufacturers to find ways to provide existing customers with
additional value. These trends are increasing the focus on enhancing the customer experience
during the purchase process to add value and improve customer retention.
A-Online platforms help Advantech to improve the customer experience by making it easier
for customers to do business with them, improving their responsiveness and service, and
helping to build Advantech brand.

I. Making it easier to do business:-
B2B e-commerce makes it easier for companies to
implement streamlined purchasing, payment, and inventory processes while providing unique
product assortment, pricing, and business flows. A B2B e-commerce platform can also
dramatically improve and tailor the user experience by allowing vendors to provide rich
pages, targeted dynamic content and sophisticated search capabilities.


II. Improving responsiveness and service:-
If a customer needs assistance during or after the
purchase, A-Online platforms help companies respond quickly and effectively through self-
service, real-time chat, or voice services. Knowledge management capabilities make it easy
for customers or agents to quickly find information about active cases so they can manage
incidents with utmost efficiency. Organizations can resolve issues quickly, and recognize
each customer as an individual to create a stronger, more profitable customer relationship.

III. Building the brand:-
By using an online channel to strengthen relationships with
customers, B2B companies have the opportunity to directly influence customers and establish
a brand preference. Integration between e-commerce and social media such as communities
can reinforce the brand and increase influence with end users. B2B companies can also gather
information about customers in order to better understand and meet their requirements.


Grow the Business:-

The top goal of Advantech as many other companies has shifted from cutting costs to
growing revenue. Advantech found that their ability to reach new customers and enter new
markets is limited because of the high costs of maintaining and supporting a direct sales
force.
Here A-Online helps bridge the gap between the desire to grow the business and budget
constraints. A-Online supports business growth by helping target companies.

I. Speed time-to-market for new products:-
A-Online solutions are streamlined the product
introduction cycle. For example, Advantech can publish online product catalogs faster by
eliminating the time-consuming process of printing hard copies. Advantech can also
announce products online, rather than having to visit to multiple cities for a product roll-out.

II. Reduce risks and costs of entering new markets:-
Opening a new A-Online sales team
over the internet allows Advantech to market their products to new geographies and
industries at a fraction of the cost of establishing a direct presence in the targeted market.

III. Leverage the existing sales force:-
Even when customers are serviced directly,
account teams are often unable to uncover all of the potential opportunities in the account. A-
online allows the sales force to offload routine activities so they can focus on building
relationships, uncovering new opportunities, and nurturing complex deals that require more
personal interaction.


IV. Find up-selling and cross-selling opportunities:-
By analyzing the information that A-
Online solutions provide, suppliers can more easily determine which products or services are
likely to appeal to which customers. They can then use cross-selling and up-selling
techniques, in addition to automated recommendation solutions, to direct buyers to additional
products they might want or needed.

V. Offer customers their preferred channel:-
Many customers prefer not to interact with a
sales representative. Companies need a multichannel approach that includes e-commerce and
a standard sales force to allow customers to use their preferred channel. Moreover, a good e-
commerce channel brings in additional customers regardless of whether those customers want
to transact solely in the online channel. For example, customers may research a solution
online before discussing it with the sales team.


Deliver the Right Information to Customers:-
The number and complexity of products
has been exploding due to tight competition, increasing product variations based on customer
requirements, and the need to comply with safety and environmental regulations. The growth
in products is exacerbated by decreasing product lifecycles. Because information about all of
these products is typically scattered across multiple enterprise systems, suppliers have a
difficult time making consistent product information available internally and across the value
chain.
A-Online platform aggregates product
information into a central repository that provides a single, consistent, accurate, up-to-date
version of the truth to customers and connected channels on demand, regardless of which
back-office system contains any part of this information. In addition, A-Online platforms
offer personalization capabilities that can display the right information about the right product
to each customer based on factors such as past history, geography, and so on. By establishing
itself as the best and easiest source of information, Advantech site becomes a valuable tool
that enhances sales and satisfaction.

Deliver a Compelling Experience Similar to Online Consumer Sites:-
One overriding trend in
the technology market today is that consumer products are setting the standards in innovation,
while enterprise technology vendors follow their lead. This is certainly the case in the online
market. Distributors and customers alike have become accustomed to stellar online
experiences in their lives as consumers. Hallmarks of the consumer experience include rich
and interactive displays, personalized product recommendations and promotions and plenty
of content to guide customers.
Business buyers
increasingly demand a similar experience as they access information and place orders in the
B2B environment. Forrester Research notes, Customer expectations are being set by best-of-
breed e-commerce sites: Shoppers quickly transfer their expectations from these sites to all
sites they shop and expect similarly robust, rich, informative, responsive, and personalized
experiences. A modern online platform like A-Online incorporates innovations from the
consumer world to provide a superior customer experience to clients.
Upgrading A-Online Platform:-
Advantech, that choose to adopt A-Online platform will
increasingly benefit as the economy continues to improve over time. Conversely, B2B
companies that fail to adopt such strategies are likely to fall significantly behind their
competitors. As Manufacturing Insights reports, Manufacturers are more likely to emerge in
a position of strength from the economic downturn if they put in place an effective B2B e-
commerce strategy. This will give them the ability to face intense competition from home and
abroad, as well as gain the responsiveness and reliability that is essential in this sector.
Advantech has succeeded in this issue by utilizing and operate A-Online perfectly with
continues updating new strategies.


Modern A Online Platform:-
Today, many B2B companies use outdated, homegrown
systems, or e-commerce platforms from vendors that are inadequate to meet todays
requirements. For example, a legacy B2B-only e-commerce package that focused more on
product configuration features may have solved that one challenge, but without the ability to
easily and quickly provide a compelling user experience and deliver relevant, personalized
content, it is nearly useless in todays market. Homegrown systems often lack a great deal of
functionality, as internal resources are stretched too far to keep up with market expectations
across a wide range of requirements. Simple ordering portals have limited functionality that
does not meet todays requirements for online experience. Many of these systems lack the
scalability to meet customer demand with acceptable performance, and almost all of them
lack the flexibility to allow companies to change functionality in response to evolving
customer needs.
In contrast, A-Online platform makes it just as easy for industrial customers to make
purchases online as it is for consumers. A-Online able to differentiate by the characteristics of
the following:

#. Core B2B e-commerce capabilities
#. Segmentation and personalization
#. B2C merchandising and marketing capabilities

I. Core B2B E-Commerce Capabilities:-
Although B2B e-commerce sites are similar to
B2C sites, B2B requirements are often more complex. As a result, organizations will need an
e-commerce site that is capable of addressing unique B2B e-commerce requirements that are
not often part of B2C e-commerce.
According to Advantech, -Online platform provides the following:
Integration: - A-Online platform has typical required complex integrations with
existing enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and
inventory as well as customer data and contract related information.
Support for different business models in the demand chain: - Advantech in
requirement of a single e-commerce platform to support distributors and direct B2C channels.
In this way, A-Online becomes a B2B2C. To support these channels, A-Online platform
offers strong catalog management, promotions management, content management, and order
management.
Cross-channel content management: - Advantech required a great deal of content to
support the sales process, as well as online catalogs. A-Online platform has capability to
manage this content across all channels.
Support for complex workflows and client self-management: - A-Online has self-
service access to a much more complex range of information than is typically required from
retail-focused solutions. Examples include access to order approvals, order history, order
sheets, replenishment cycles, contract terms, multiple-ship-to management, customer
establishment, and purchase authorizations.

II. Segmentation and Personalization:-
Advantech site become more content rich and
complex, Advantech A-Online need to help customers find the right information and
products. Visitors also expect to see relevant information without the clutter of content that is
meaningless to them. Here Advantech A-Online achieved that objective through
personalization the information by e-mails and dedicated calls.
A-Online platform that supports customized versions of the Edms for different customers
based on role, location, customized catalogs, and assortments make it easier for customers to
get the information they need and place orders that comply with their contracts.
Segmentation and personalization capabilities allowed Advantech to target customers with
effective content, such as useful information, and promotions that help drive the business. To
deliver this level of personalization, A-Online platform created the detailed customer profiles
that include data such as role, customer size, business unit, buying cycle stage, purchase
history, account history, Website and call center interactions, and demographic information.
A-Online platform can use these profiles to dynamically segment customers and personalize
the content presented to them. Businesses automatically match the right offer to the right
person at exactly the right time. The result: more sales, larger transaction sizes, and stronger
customer loyalty towards Advantech.


III.B2C Merchandising and Marketing Capabilities:-
While A-Online platforms address
complex business requirements, customers are looking for the engaging customer experience
found on B2C sites. To deliver the experience customers expect, A-Online platform started
supporting sophisticated merchandising and marketing capabilities.

Merchandising: - B2C environments provide customers with the offers and products
most likely to interest them through merchandising capabilities, automated recommendations,
and sophisticated search. A B2B e-commerce platform should also enable merchandisers to
perform essential merchandising activities without assistance from developers. The site
should support flexible scenarios that react to visitor and other events and take merchant-
defined actions that will enhance the customer experience, increase order sizes, and provide
useful information about the customer for future action. This kind of customer self drive
atmosphere has in Advantech official site.
The B2B e-commerce site should be able to observe visitor behavior and automatically
deliver relevant recommendations based on factors such as demographics, buying history, or
the behavior of other visitors. User-generated content can enable buyers to use relevant
postings to guide purchase decisions. For this A-Online tem is working to provide and
enhance the experience.
Advanced search capabilities are helping customers browse the site more effectively as well
as provide by any other companies a valuable merchandising tool. While natural-language
search is now expected for any e-commerce site, more-sophisticated capabilities such as
guided navigation allow visitors to zero in on the products based on criteria that make sense
to each visitor. A-Online platform with advanced search and merchandising capabilities able
to deliver more-relevant results by prioritizing search results, redirecting visitors based on the
search terms, and excluding results based on the type of customer or other properties. With
these capabilities, Advantech have the tools they are able to quickly direct customers to the
most-attractive and most-relevant products, driving revenues, and decreasing inventory
expenses.

Marketing: -
A-Online platforms that have campaign management tools can leverage
customer information to enable sale team to develop and execute a successful marketing
strategy. Sales team members are able to create relevant, personalized, multistage outbound
and service e-mail marketing campaigns that take advantage of segmentation and targeting.
Sales team then is able to measure the effectiveness of campaigns by viewing results. Sales
team members are also able to perform multivariate testing of marketing promotions, online
product segmentation strategies and functionality to determine return on investment and to
maximize results.




















Findings In Sales Approach:-


New Prospect Finding: -
A-Online sales team finds new prospects through mainly through
three channels. They are outbound activities, inbound activities and live chat.
Here in outbound activities, sales team make calls and e-mailing to
customers which are provided in the data base. This data base includes the existing customers
and new targeted customers. Sales team try to push the new products and up-gradation as per
the requirement by the calls and e-mails. This allows sales team to awake the sleeping
accounts. For the new targeted customers, sales team starts targeting by the customized e-
mails and then interacts over the calls to understand the customer requirement and prospect to
provide the reliable information and products.
In inbound activities, sales team responds the incoming calls and e-
mails of the customers regarding products enquiry. Here sales team try to pushes the products
by using cross-selling and up-sealing strategies.
In live chatting, customers who are looking for the assistance to
find the required product in Advantech website are interacted with sales team. Here sales
team members try to understand the requirement and specifications of the customers. In this
Order
opportunity
Fact Finding
Qualified Contacts
New Prospect
stage sales team try to get the inputs as much as possible to understand the customer
prospective, affordability, future requirement and quality of enquiry.
Qualified Contacts: -
In this stage sales team filters the qualified leads from new
prospects based on the various parameters like affordability, future requirement,
quality of enquiry and etc. Here sales team evaluates the customers to take the
conversation to the next level of sales by make them understanding the value,
advantages of dealing with Advantech.

Fact Finding: -
Fact finding is the real stage to prove the sales person to prove
himself. Here, in this stage each sales person has to understand the requirement of
customer from minor level to provide the product with accurate specifications. In this
stage sales person also have to estimate the customer affordability to buy the
Advantech products. Because Advantech products prices are 20%-30% more higher
than the most of the competitors products due to the latest technology and value
addition. If the sales person fails in fact finding, the chances of getting right customer
to close the deal also become narrower.

Opportunity: -
When sales person passes from the stage of fact finding and customer
in interest of taking the product, then sales person declares as a opportunity. In
opportunity level sales person gives the price quotation of the regards, if the customer
is satisfied with quoted price, then it goes to next level otherwise negotiation takes
place between the sales person and the customer until come to the win-win position.
Here Sales person considers the quantity and value of product, customer loyalty
towards Advantech, chances of re-purchases.

Order: -
After customer passes through the four stages, Sales person gets the order to
place the Advantech product to customer. Initially customer releases the Purchas
order (P.O), then sales person gives the Bill of Material (B.O.M). Then payment had
done as per the understanding between the sales person and the customer. Most of the
times customers prefers to have credit facility, it provided by the sales person based
on the quantity and value of product, customer loyalty towards Advantech, chances of
re-purchases.
















What I have learnt so far from A-Online: -




Time management: -
As a part of A-Online sales I have to manage the different activities like
sales outbound activities, inbound activities, tracking the customer delivers and etc. It
requires a good planning of daily activities as per the time availability. To fulfill all the roles
and responsibilities I have to manage available time and other recourses in effective manner.

Leadership/ Accountability: -
As a part of team and as a team player, in a situation
have to take a initiation and leadership. As a part of A-Online sales team I toke the
initiation to provide the validated new customer data base. Here I have to accountable
to provide the equal amount data to entire team. Accountability and responsibility
gives the great and good insights to understand the business.


Time management
Leadership/ Accountability
Communication
Adaptability
Communication: -
As a part of A-Online sales, I have to interact with different kind
of customers from various parts of India. To understand the customer requirement and
specifications, I should understand the customer language and intention. For that I
need a good communication and listening skills. Here communicating in English and
knowing the customer regional languages also plays a important role. Because some
of the customers couldnt communicate their requirement in common medium
English. In those situations knowing ability in communicating customer language
gives the edge to get the business.

Adaptability: -
Adaptability is a critical quality that i understand keenly in this project. With
high changes in technology, diversity of Advantechs products, Advantech need employees
who are open to new ideas, flexible enough to work through challenging issues, and generally
able to cope when things don't go as planned.
Advantech is having a vast range of products and certainly new working
atmosphere for me, I made self comfortable and adaptable to the working culture.