As industry analysts we at Everest Group listen to endless PowerPoint deck presentations from service providers. They should provide information about what separates a provider from its competitors. But in reality, they just all merge together and lose relevance. Providers need to focus on a little less talk and a lot more action. Here are several reasons why the decks become irrelevant.
Providers think they’re being clever when they bring PowerPoint presentations displaying a framework to existing or potential customers. My observance is there are three problems from a customer’s perspective:
- It’s impolite to force a customer to put your framework to their business problem.
- Customers and industry analysts see dozens of PowerPoint frameworks. So it’s not impactful to show them yet another framework. It’s like water trickling over a stone — it takes a long time to make an impact.
- Most customer executives problem solve by relating to a real-life story. But it’s a very painful process to try to take a highly conceptual framework and apply it to a customer’s real-life situation.
So what’s the remedy? It’s simple: let’s make a pact and do away with frameworks. My advice to providers is to just use concrete real examples in presentations. And it will be doubly valuable because none of your competitors are doing it.
Photo credit: Steven Depolo
