As someone who transitioned from a Marketing Customer facing role to an Operation Sales Role and over a decade of Community Management under my belt, I am beset with a new challenge. 

My Team is the Enterprise Analytics Group (EAG)  that supports Sales operations. Its a really cool space to be in, because the Sales Org is your community, you see the Revenue reports, learn what white space means in Sales terms, as well as pipeline and margin. It’s a frenetic environment. In my area  I look after the EMEA Sales community delivering reports, working with reps, Project Managers and Executives to build new reports with decision science tools and Big Data to help Sales predict, anticipate and to overall improve the opportunities for Sales people. Analytics is a cutting edge place to be. I work with Analysts and Data Scientists, and we utilize a very cool Data Lake where we explore investigate and design based on the needs of our Sales community.

I have probably over described  what we do, but not many people outside of our org know what we do or the value we create. With me being the “noob” on the team, but with  Community Management experience, I play to my strengths and am working to build community as part of that value proposition of the Enterprise Analytics Group.  I have learned in my brief time here, that the Sales persona, is somewhat different from the customer persona. They need to know where they need to make next sale, that they are getting their correct commission and all the intel that gives them the pipeline to pursue. And they need it yesterday!  And with the complexities of reporting and dashboards, as well as doing the sales job, time is a premium. Its under these circumstances I am working on building our Community which is inside We have a lot of Lurkers but limited engagement. It’s crucial that we change this as  the community is a major force as part of the overall value proposition.

As I have also recently graduated University College Cork with an MSc in Data Business with an emphasis on human centred Design Research and Agile Methodology, I’m working with my team of data scientists, analysts and program Managers to look up from the operational onslaught and start to look at what we deliver from a human centred perspective and focus on our value proposition. To me its really important to understand your value proposition to the business no matter where you are in the organisation.

(Aleaxander Osterwalds Business Model Canvas)

As a result of my driving this within our team, we have successfully envisioned an Osterwald Business Model Canvas.  We are now developing a Strategyser Value Proposition Canvas  to really understand the value proposition and the Customer Segment. We are focusing on understanding our community members needs, the pains, the gains, the job description. By doing this we start to further understand our value proposition and are going to be able to pivot our offerings based on what we understand is required to make the community successful.

This takes time, and patience, a difficult thing on an operations environment. Its not without its challenges, typically status quo bias, cultural and diversity problems, in terms of geographic dispersal of people and roles of the community members. But its still worth doing the research, It’s still worth understanding your users hierarchy of needs and it so important to know, speak about an emphasise your value proposition to the business, and yes that means down to the dollars and cents (or pick your currency) of revenue your piece of the business generates. And Community (like this one here) has to be at the centre of that value proposition.

In any event, that’s  my story and thoughts as I get stuck into my new role.  if you want to know more about the things I discussed here, please reach out message or comment on this post. I’d love to hear from you and share how I and my team are shaping our community and value proposition.