Office 2007
So now that Vista and Office 2007 are upon us, a co-worker and I were discussing whether customers will want to upgrade and he felt they would not. This might be true, however I believe it is my job (perhaps now even more than when I was at Microsoft since now I am actually selling to customers!) to show customers the value of the new products and how they can benefit from them. Microsoft’s people-ready messaging is excellent and true, people ARE the most important part of any business and the hardest to replace. The Microsoft Office System’s goal is to enable people to collaborate and be more productive, and every business can benefit from this. So it is up to us to show customers ways in which these new products can help boost productivity and that’s where they will see the value!
As a simple example of this, look at my Vista gadget to display accounts and contacts. At first the gadget’s usefulness might not be readily apparent beyond the “cool toy” aspect, but think of the benefit to an information worker who needs to find a contact name. Instead of opening MSCRM finding the name, and clicking to open it, they can now find the name and open it with 1 click! The gadget saves them 3-4 clicks and a couple minutes which multiplied over an entire workday and entire workforces, can add up to a lot of saved time, especially in today’s hectic world where seconds matter!
Look for more tips and tricks as I ramp up on Vista and Office 2007.