Enterprise Social Network to Engage its Distribution Network: Summary of the Breakfast Conference on 2014-06-11

On Wednesday, June 11, 2014, Incenteev and Lecko hosted a Breakfast Conference on the theme “How to sustainably increase the performance of your distribution network with an Enterprise Social Network?”, based on the exclusive testimony of Audric Chauveau from Yara France. Although the various strikes that day made it difficult for some to travel and even forced others to cancel their attendance, the event was a success both in terms of the quality of the presentations and attendees, and the ideal setting for this type of professional meeting.

For those who were unable to attend, let’s recap the morning’s events.

After breakfast in our VIP room on the rooftop terrace, the conference began with a presentation by Simon Vandendriessche, General Manager of Incenteev.

The Introduction of Incenteev: the Benefit of an Enterprise Social Network for Engaging its Sales Force

Simon presents the company and explains that Incenteev was born from 2 visions:

• The first, which consists of thinking that enterprise software should be as simple and ergonomic as consumer software
• The second, which notes that salespeople have always been motivated in the same way: with the stick and the carrot, and adds that this must necessarily change

These respective visions of Simon Vandendriessche and Roland Massenet allowed them to co-found Incenteev, the first Social Collaborative Platform for engaging sales teams and boosting business.

The benefits provided by the Incenteev tool are numerous:

• Motivate and foster loyalty around a common goal
• Promote growth: help each individual progress
• Share expertise and talents
• Bring field personnel closer to decision-makers

The Expert View of Lecko Consultancy: Focus on the Socialization of Business Processes

After this brief presentation, Guillaume Guerin from Lecko consultancy (organization consulting and transformation solutions provider) spoke, explaining that ‘socializing business processes is an added value of ESNs, and particularly of Incenteev‘.

The Lecko representative explains that organizations are experiencing significant changes such as the erosion of the economic model, the evolution of the competitive environment, or the evolution of consumption patterns (collaborative consumption, online commerce and services, crowdfunding, etc.)

Why these changes? Lecko first highlights over-information, which quickly renders information management methods obsolete. Then, it notes that the new knowledge economy as well as the new organizational capacity create ‘pressure on performance’ and also reveal the limits of hierarchical organization.

Today in France, the Enterprise Social Network market is booming: SaaS license sales for ESN solutions increased from €6M in 2010 to €40M in 2013.

ESNs must fulfill a triple promise, but this is not always successful. This triple promise is:

• Transversality : Offer new communication channels within the company, between people and between departments, to communicate and collaborate transversally and no longer solely according to traditional hierarchy.
• Process: Rely on employees’ business processes to implement and facilitate the daily work of specific professions.
• Individual and Collective Productivity: in addition to collective performance linked to collaboration and transversality, the Individual also enhances their personal productivity thanks to the Enterprise Social Network: they benefit from the sharing of best practices and the knowledge of other employees, they organize themselves better and tend to perform.

At the beginning of ESNs, the primary expected benefit was a long-term benefit for the company: increasing growth. However, this approach fails to convince users. Indeed, for company employees, what matters most is the short-term benefit for them. This is why Incenteev relies on a ‘business process’ approach to offer additional value to its offering. An Enterprise Social Network based on a business process experiences better adoption.

Lecko explains that management styles are evolving and adopting a new sociability based on discussion, transparency, digital identity, etc. So, according to Lecko, how should one govern their transformation project? First, it is necessary to develop uses on a cultural 1.0 ground, then to evolve business strategies, and finally to integrate into the social IS.

The Testimony of Audric Chauveau from Yara France: the Implementation of an ESN to Engage its Distribution Network

It is now the turn of Audric Chauveau, Digital Development Manager at Yara France, to speak. Yara is a Norwegian company (a global leader in the chemical industry for farmers) that conducts sales in over 120 countries and has nearly 10,500 employees worldwide. In France, the company is a leader in the supply of nitrogen fertilizers and works with distributors: 3,200 cooperatives and 300 private traders. 20 clients represent 70% of the volume. Audric Chauveau reviews the implementation of the Incenteev ESN to engage its distributors and the various stages of this process:

A Specific Challenge

Yara France’s sales representatives are often only in contact with the buyers of their client-distributors, which is why messages passed do not reach the distributor’s sales representatives. This results in the sales representative’s inability to answer questions from the distributors’ technical sales representatives, and difficulty in defending their products and providing solutions. Yara’s challenge, before implementing its Enterprise Social Network, was therefore “How to create connection and added value with our clients’ technical sales representatives?”.

A Preparatory Client Segmentation Phase

“What explains the success of Incenteev’s implementation with our clients is notably the preparatory analysis phase we carried out,” recounts Audric Chauveau. Before embarking on the ESN adventure, “we proceeded with a segmentation and analysis of our 30 main clients based on numerous criteria. We then identified 4 partner clients.” Yara’s initial objective was to strengthen the connection by exchanging and sharing in a privileged manner with the technical sales representatives of these 4 partner companies. “Our solution was the implementation of an Enterprise Social Network dedicated to this sales population,” adds Audric.

The Launch of the Incenteev Platform

Yara first chose a ‘pilot’ client. Then they presented the tool to the buyer of this distributor and then to their entire team. The client was immediately hooked! Indeed, in addition to helping increase sales of Yara products by making sales representatives more effective, the platform also helps them internally engage the sales force and push information. They immediately saw a strong interest in it. “The launch was immediate; we very quickly saw the first interactions and exchanges with the team.”

Deployment to other Distributors

After this first success, Yara deployed Incenteev to a second client and should have it implemented with its 4 ‘partner’ clients by the end of 2014.

Incenteev and Yara seem to be an effective and lasting collaboration.

Questions Asked to the Speakers

It’s Q&A time. Here are some questions asked during the conference:

• “How to convince the client to implement it in their premises and thus get in touch with all their sales representatives?”

Audric Chauveau admits that they themselves thought it wouldn’t be well-received by their clients. But in reality, it’s the opposite! However, it’s essential to first conduct thorough preparatory segmentation to choose the right clients. Then, the project and the value it can also bring them in internally engaging their team must be clearly presented.

• In a way, haven’t you replaced your sales representatives with a tool?

Audric Chauveau: “No, not at all. The sales representative often has a limited ability to visit the client, or is only in contact with purchasing. With this tool, we simply help them multiply their means and contacts with their client.”

• Does the implementation of Incenteev ‘work’ with other tools or existing installations?

Simon and Audric reply, “No, it’s SaaS, so it’s completely independent.”

• What internal resources are used to engage the network?

The Digital Development Manager of Yara France explains that it doesn’t represent a large time investment for engagement, but that it is truly necessary. At Yara, the people involved on the platform are distributed among marketing personnel, agronomists, sales representatives, etc.

A few more exchanges and the conference ended, giving way to discussion over a final coffee.

For issues related to internal sales force, watch the Viareport interview here