O.C. Tanner & Qvidian Drive Engagement
O.C. Tanner helps companies around the globe appreciate people who do great work because celebrating great work inspires people to invent, to create, to discover. And when people are inspired, companies grow. Supporting this bold mission requires unity, energy, effort, and passion from all O.C. Tanner employees, as well as partnerships with like-minded organizations. As a strategic partner, Qvidian supports the O.C. Tanner mission by delivering a significant catalyst to their sales process through smart and customizable SaaS solutions.
BUSINESS DRIVER
When Blake Stillman, Manager of Strategic Proposals, joined O.C. Tanner, Qvidian’s software was available, but it was underutilized—primarily used as a central repository for content. While this usage was an improvement from the previous practices of piecing together old content to respond to RFPs (Requests for Proposals), it was clear to Stillman and other department leaders that Qvidian could help them do so much more. “As we engaged with Qvidian, we realized there’s a much better way to be doing things, much more efficient and much more collaborative,” commented Stillman. As a result, the company appointed a champion to lead a Qvidian task force to adopt more of the system functionality.
APPROACH
Initially, it was the proposal team who utilized Qvidian tools. With their quick success and immediate efficiency gains, they realized that it was essential to get Qvidian into the hands of their sales representatives— an expansive team located in every major metropolitan area in North America and key cities around the world. Previously, this group relied heavily on the proposal team to create all different kinds of documents and proposals. This created a bottleneck as the proposal team had to balance responding to deadline-driven RFPs along with these custom requests.
As the proposal team began to work with Qvidian, they saw glimpses of how much more Qvidian could do for them. As a company, O.C. Tanner believes in embracing best practices, and they applied this belief to their use of Qvidian as well. In the case of the solution rollout, this meant pairing key players from O.C. Tanner— specifically content, software, and sales operations experts—with Qvidian Consulting Services to gain guidance and architecture support.
“O.C. Tanner recognized the value of allocating a proper resource to Qvidian which allowed them to realize a real return on investment,” commented Qvidian Account Manager, Geoff Base-Smith. “They went the extra mile engaging their sales team soliciting feedback on what content they truly wanted and needed. They also secured the involvement and backing of leadership and through the continuous promotion and education of the staff around Qvidian, saw record breaking increases in the use of the system.” Base-Smith continued, “O.C. Tanner helped to dramatically increase the use of Qvidian across the company by engaging Qvidian as a niche resource to capitalize on what’s available and what’s yet to come that would help their company continue to distinguish themselves among their competitors.”
IMPACT
As the proposal team began working with Qvidian, they gained an understanding of the power and potential of the software, including the possibilities for engaging Sales. To aid in the launch, they rolled out campaigns, challenges, and content to gain adoption of the sales force. However, once Sales realized the impact of automated proposals, they were hooked. Their ability to produce self-service documents has empowered the reps and O.C. Tanner in many ways. It has greatly reduced the content bottleneck on the proposal team while enabling sales reps to customize and produce sales documents on demand that they are proud to share with clients. The proposal team is now better positioned to focus on their primary task of responding to RFPs, managing and updating content, as well as undertaking strategic projects that help move the company forward.
Qvidian’s far-reaching impact on O.C. Tanner encompasses each of these solutions:
Content management
Proposal automation
Custom documents
Sales proposals
RFPs
They continue to explore and leverage the flexibility of the system for additional applications such as presentations, business cases, initial concepts, and other documents—many of which they are architecting themselves. The rollout strategy resulted in more than 120 sales reps using Qvidian, a 200% usage increase in less than six months. “We’re really thrilled with those results,” commented Stillman. “More than that, we’re thrilled with the results we’re seeing with clients, the end result.” O.C. Tanner continues to engage Qvidian Consulting Services for guidance and additional bandwidth in managing larger projects.
“We’re in an age now where dynamic, personalized, customized documents are the present and the future for us. We couldn’t be happier with all the ways Qvidian provides to create these,” Stillman remarked. “We’re expanding our business and need solutions that can keep up with our pace of evolution. We’ve made strides towards our goals by fully utilizing the Qvidian solution.”
Download the Case Study Here