Professional Development

• Sales Targets & Tactics
  Attendees will experience the theory, strategies and techniques suppliers use to sustain value-based pricing programs. By understanding supplier programs, clients involved in IT procurement develop the framework necessary to implement a value-based approach to buying that aligns internal teams to neutralize and outmaneuver the sellers at their own game. This session is recommended for all clients as an introduction to value-based pricing systems and to build awareness of how they can utilize the ClearEdge program to support their efforts.
• Managing Uncertainty
  Uncertainty is one of the strategies buyers can use to gain leverage from their suppliers in any IT transaction. There is a gap between the competitive pricing for which clients are able to acquire technology in a new supplier relationship and the higher pricing that results over time as vendor solutions become standard within an organization. This course will provide the foundation and strategies needed to maintain supplier uncertainty in your procurement process.
• Creating Leverage
  To develop an execution plan for a spending event, buyers need to profile the key points of influence, motivation, risk and reward from which a supplier attains leverage over the buyer, as well as those from which the buyer gains leverage over the supplier. This session explores how to create and take advantage of leverage while neutralizing the supplier's advantages, to capture the most value from a spending engagement.
• Complex Enterprise Agreements
  This session guides clients through techniques to evaluate the cost and value of long-term financial structures vs. Business as Usual (BAU) pricing to shape a deal based on your priorities - not those of the seller. You'll learn how to develop a BAU, work off your numbers and use the downside sales risk of short-term transactions to improve your pricing.
• Controlling the Compelling Event
  Identifying critical information upfront and building an effective messaging campaign enables buyers to maximize leverage. Sales teams invest considerable effort identifying your business drivers, budget, timetable and cost of not solving a problem to minimize uncertainty and capture the most value for their solution. This session offers techniques to ensure internal teams communicate the right messages and define the "compelling event" to drive more competitive pricing and value.
• Managing Supplier Incumbency
  Once established, IT standards produce a "Pricing Gap" that forces customers to pay above-market pricing. This session is designed to help buyers understand how suppliers maintain and strengthen standards inside a customer environment and examines techniques to redefine franchise commitments to reduce short- and long-term costs.
• V.A.L.U.E.^TM Guide Fundamentals
  This course guides your team through the principles and processes of the ClearEdge V.A.L.U.E.^TM Guide methodology. Your team will learn how to build a more strategic, long-term view of your IT spend, identify risk and opportunity and strengthen alignment, information control and execution across the buying cycle to cut costs and maximize value. ClearEdge will guide you through reviews of your own spend events to experience the methodology in your own context.
• Meet your Counterpart
  This workshop taps the ClearEdge team's decades of sales executive experience to give buyers an inside view of how supplier sales organizations run deals and maximize the long-term return on client relationships. You'll learn what really motivates sales representatives and how organizations harness their strengths and influence their behavior to increase profit margins over the long-term. The insights offered are highlighted by real-life examples from the field.
• Category Workshops
  These workshops focus on using the V.A.L.U.E. Guide framework to execute spend events in the major IT solution categories - from mainframe to business applications, network to storage. The focus is on how deals are structured, controlling compelling events, managing competitive dynamics and techniques for creating leverage. You'll also evaluate your deals in comparison to peer organizations.