According to research from Salesforce, 94% of sales organizations plan to consolidate their tech stacks to boost productivity. So how can you build an efficient tech stack to support sellers and drive success for your team?
Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Win Win Podcast. I am your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully.
Here to discuss this topic is Harmony Johnston-Grant, the principal strategy and program lead at Medtronic. Thank you for joining us, Harmony. I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role.
Harmony Johnston-Grant: Thanks for having me today on the podcast. So yes, I’m Harmony. I’ve been at Medtronic within the diabetes organization for about six and a half years now.
It’s gone very quickly. My main responsibilities are really how we drive strategy through to execution by using Enablement systems and frameworks, such as Highspot, Salesforce, and really driving that collaboration between all of our cross functions so we can quickly translate the needs of our field force and our marketing strategy into our wider programs.
SS: We’re excited to have you here, Harmony. Given your experience in the life sciences industry, what are some of the unique challenges that reps in the industry face and how can enablement help overcome these?
HJ: Definitely. So we need to demonstrate proven clinical outcomes of how technology can improve the standard of care.
And the med-tech landscape is changing and advancing quite quickly, as well as being highly regulated. So there are a lot of differing factors by country, could be due to product availability, healthcare models, regulatory requirements. So all of these can kind of affect how we go to market. So it’s really crucial as a team that we’re agile and able to adapt to bring strategy through to execution quickly.
And this is really where enablement comes in to support our teams throughout their whole journey. So looking at things like their onboarding, um, keeping up to speed with market trends, skills they need. How we enable and support them to go to market. So bringing kind of cross functional teams together to ensure the alignment and then also ensuring that our competencies and key results and metrics are really aligned to our wider strategic goals and objectives.
SS: I think that is phenomenal. And you actually take a consultative approach to understanding and addressing what your reps need. I’d love to understand, how do you go about kind of gathering and incorporating rep feedback into your enablement programs?
HJ: Definitely. So I’m a very big advocate for continuous improvement and I think feedback is really a crucial part of enablement.
So we use a few different models and mechanisms to capture feedback. So one kind of being that we have a field advisory board. So this is where we’ve got representatives from each of our countries and regions that we consult with for any new strategies or programs. So it may be that we run pilots with them, for example, and this is a really great way to validate our insights and get that field feedback.
Another couple of methods are kind of surveys to capture the wider organizational feedback. So they’re really great. For pre and post-program surveys to so you can kind of quantify how things are progressing and then also any new programs that we launch, we make sure that we’ve got that really key foundational support and feedback model in place.
So we have like local champions, for example, who keep us in that close contact. So we know how things are going. And as we’ve got a lot of countries and markets, it’s really good to have that local knowledge and that well-structured cadence of feedback because what may work in one market may not work in another.
I’ll actually share with you later a story about how we use kind of that consultative approach that led us to actually implement Highspot.
SS: Amazing. I think that’s phenomenal advice. Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, a lot of organizations are really thinking about how to drive efficiency and effectiveness by looking at kind of the consolidation of their tech stack.
And I know one of your key focus areas is the creation and management of the sales tech stack. What are some of your best practices for building an efficient tech stack that still meets the needs of your sellers? .
HJ: So there’s a lot of tech on the market. It can be quite hard to keep up, but I think it kind of comes down to a few things that you really need to kind of consider.
So I think one is how you can keep things as simple as possible for your team. So I’m sure many other enablement professionals have heard this. We’ve got too many feeds, too many tools, too many systems. So how can you really drive that simplicity for your end users? I think that’s really as simple as listening to the barriers, their needs.
How can you bring all those features and insights into one place and embed them into their workflow or an existing system so they don’t have to swivel chair between multiple platforms. Really drive those insights into action and bring value. I think another aspect is really what’s the strategic direction of your tech stack and what are your business goals and how can you align the two.
So that’s where it’s really important that you have that internal alignment and vision with all of your customers. Functional teams and IT to understand really, okay, how can we embed our business goals into our tech stack and how our systems can integrate together. And then lastly, I would say, how are you going to actually operationally support the tech stack and what does success look like?
So you can have a great system, but if it’s not implemented and supported correctly, you’re going to lose a buy-in. So thinking about things like how are you going to train your teams?What doess the support model look like? And tech is constantly evolving, so how are you going to ensure that any new developments with your tech are also cascaded to those teams and everyone’s kind of kept up to date?
And then how you align your success metrics with your business goals to really drive that strategy through?
SS: What would you say is the unique value of having an enablement platform to support your go-to-market initiatives?
HJ: Yeah, definitely. So I’ll share the story I mentioned earlier. So previously we were using two separate tools.
So one was our content tool and then our CRM. And what we noticed was the adoption wasn’t really kind of trending where we expected it to be. So we initiated a deep dive process into this. And so we really use that consultative approach to look into the key trends and understand why. So for example, we ran a survey, and we really had kind of one conversation with our field boss and local marketing to really get that contextualization as to what was happening.
And what we found was that conceptually, the idea of the tools was there, but the value wasn’t being realized due to certain barriers. So for example, the content tool wasn’t embedded into their workflow and their CRM. Certain countries hadn’t seen certain pieces of content and local marketing couldn’t see the visibility of what content was being used and how it was landing.
So we kind of took this We took all this feedback and we worked together cross-functionally to really evaluate the tools that we were using. And we identified that we really needed a unified and integrated platform. Use across all devices, really kind of structured the cadence of content and guidance, giving us those insights back as to how things are working.
So this is where Highspot came into play. So we investigated a few different tools, and validated Highspot on the pilot, again, using that kind of feedback approach. And then. So this enabled a more streamlined cadence between all of our teams, making sure we’re speaking the same language, delivering the same message consistently, and that the field force really has everything in one place within their workflow.
So I’d say definitely the unique value for us being such a large organization is really having that collaboration within one unified embedded platform.
SS: I love that. What are, I know one of the key GTM initiatives your team has been focusing on is also supporting the rollout of new technology.
Can you tell us more about this initiative and some of the ways that you’re helping reps better execute?
HJ: So earlier this year, we launched a new product across multiple countries, which packs us in multiple different things. So timings, languages, we even have free languages in certain countries. So there’s a lot to consider and a lot of different teams involved.
So product, clinical, education, marketing, sales, the list goes on. So as an enablement team, we really brought everyone together and worked with all of those internal stakeholders to bring in those assets. Build a sales play. So this covered everything from strategic objectives to messaging for our external stakeholders in line with our sales methodology, bringing in together the content that the teams needed to use and how they should go to market for their respective countries.
So what they needed to really do to be successful with that launch? And then I think an additional benefit of having this consolidated into really one place is that local teams were able to quickly and efficiently then adjust into the local language and add in those local dynamics as well.
SS: Amazing. I love that approach. What are some of the results that you’ve seen from these efforts and do you have any early wins you can share?
HJ: Yeah, definitely. So I would say actually just having everything in one place for our field force has been really beneficial. And then I would say our speed as to how we cadence information in a much more streamlined way.
So for example, with that product launch sales play, that would have been multiple pieces of guidance and content from multiple teams. And now we’ve got one aligned message to support our field force and enable them to go to market. And then lastly, it’s really having that visibility on how our content and guidance is landing.
So utilizing those insights to make improvements and that feedback to have that continuous, I guess, virtual cycle of insights into actions. So it’s definitely a team effort and change management but it can bring a lot of insights and value.
SS: I love that. I love that. Now, on that note, we talked about how rep feedback plays a huge role in the development of your programs.
On the other side, how do you leverage data to evaluate and optimize the impact of your programs?
HJ: Utilizing insights for informed decision making is really embedded into our company culture and I think this really goes hand in hand with feedback because you need that contextualization to make sense of it.
So, for example, we use the OKR and A3 methodology across our diabetes organization. So this ensures that we’ve got key results and success metrics for each of our strategic objectives. So we’re able to see if something isn’t progressing exactly how we expect it to. We have those regular check-ins, but then we can also deep dive into the why.
So like that example I shared with you earlier. We use that data, we use those insights to understand and deep dive into why as to things that aren’t working and then adapt our approach. And I think it’s really important to have and instill this mindset of data-driven insights across your organization as measures should be designed to pull people towards your overall vision.
SS: Last question for you, Harmony. As you’re looking ahead, how do you envision leveraging innovations like AI to enhance your enablement program and continue to optimize your tech stack?
HJ: The potential with AI and technology is very exciting, but I think it’s also easy to get lost in all the possibilities or jump straight into solution mode.
There was a Gartner podcast and they said 72 percent of sellers are overwhelmed by the number of skills required for their job. And 50 percent are overwhelmed by the amount of technology that is needed. So I think this is where it’s really key that our role as enablement is to ensure that our teams are supported and upskilled to use technology and AI.
So the way that we’ve been approaching AI within our team is Really looking into those kind of specific use cases, doing some proof of concepts within our programs and using that consultative approach with our field advisory board. So we can really validate those use cases and realize the value of them.
So for example, lately we’ve been looking into kind of AI sales coaching and adaptive learning, and we’ve run that by our field advisory board to really understand with them, is this going to add value. Is this going to drive that simplification? And then using those insights to shape which direction we’ll go.
I think the last aspect as well is being in such a regulated industry, what’s really crucial is that AI and technology are really underpinned by trust. So using that data in an ethical and compliant way. So it’s also really important to look into those nontechnical considerations with your AI strategy as well.
SS: Phenomenal advice, Harmony. And I’m excited to see what you guys do on that front. Thank you again so much for joining us on this podcast. I really appreciate the time.
HJ: Thanks so much for having me. It’s been lovely.
SS: To our audience, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.
