Koen Bogaert
Senior Product Marketing Manager
2020 put everyone to the test. Organizations were forced to rely more heavily on technology to optimize operations, and many completely pivoted how they did business in a remote-first world.
Sales enablement practitioners in particular were challenged to give sellers the content, skills and knowledge needed to drive engaging buying experiences — all in a virtual environment.
The best sales enablement leaders realize there’s more to it than simply deploying technology. A sales enablement platform has to work seamlessly with how organizations operate regardless of business operating conditions.
And Microsoft’s suite of collaboration tools has been an important player in the new way of working. In fact, the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world, put 80,000 students online in just three days in early 2020 using Microsoft Teams.
This digital transformation has led to staggering figures for Microsoft Teams:
- Microsoft Teams skyrocketed in popularity during the lockdown and now has more than 115 million daily active users
- In the past quarter, Microsoft Teams users generated more than five billion meeting minutes in a single day
- People have been turning on video in Teams meetings two times more than before the pandemic
Microsoft continues to improve Teams, shipping more than 100 new capabilities in the last six months.
For those companies that rely on the Microsoft ecosystem, Showpad’s deep and extensive integration is an important differentiator. Whether it’s sharing from Sharepoint’s content repository or capturing sales actions in Dynamics CRM — all automatically via Showpad — you’re assured a well organized and data-driven go-to-market approach.
Showpad extends integration with Microsoft stack
With their increased use of Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft products, it’s no surprise Showpad customers wanted to further integrate with Microsoft’s technology stack.
Showpad’s enablement platform integrates across the Microsoft ecosystem.
MeetingIQ support for Microsoft Teams
With virtual conversations the new status quo, Showpad’s conversational intelligence functionality, Meeting IQ, has become a key component of customers’ sales enablement efforts.
MeetingIQ records and transcribes video sales calls so sales reps can view and learn from their calls directly in Showpad, and share them among peers and managers for actionable feedback.
Building on our experience integrating with Zoom, Webex, and GoToMeeting, we recently expanded MeetingIQ’s video calling breadth by adding support for Microsoft Teams. All sales calls scheduled in your Outlook calendar with prospects or customers are automatically recorded.
Now, whether you hold your online meetings with Teams or with other conference providers like Zoom, Webex and GoToMeeting, you’re assured every call is captured, analyzed and shared as needed. Coaching moments are always just a click away.
Showpad CRM support for Microsoft Dynamics
A benefit of sales enablement technology like Showpad’s is its integration with CRM systems where all content sharing and communication is automatically logged to the proper account in the CRM. Reps won’t worry about updating CRMs, and managers are assured every opportunity-related action is captured.
A deep CRM integration with Showpad provides content engagement metrics that yield important insights into how content is viewed and shared across opportunities. As a result, sellers better understand buyer interest and engagement level.
Showpad integrates with Microsoft Dynamics to help sellers become more efficient in their everyday work and get visibility into the activities that move deals forward.
Share content from Sharepoint
Organizations gain marketing efficiency by automating content management with the SharePoint Connector which automatically syncs new and updated content from Microsoft content repositories to Showpad. SharePoint administrators get visibility into the assets being used. And adding content metadata through tags is simplified, as the existing Sharepoint tags are used via the sync with Showpad.
Showpad desktop Windows app
To facilitate an easy to use interface for Microsoft Windows users, Showpad is available as a Microsoft Windows app. Available in the Microsoft App Store, Showpad Desktop has all the functionality of the Showpad web version but with extra capabilities such as offline email drafting with links to relevant content that will be sent when the user is back online.
Showpad Desktop Windows App users are welcomed by a home screen with important enablement information and content recommendations.
Showpad email integration with Microsoft Outlook
More than ever, go-to-market teams are aware that buyers are inundated with information overload during work days filled with video calls, emails and virtual meetings. Sellers can stand out by sharing relevant, personalized pieces of content that move deals forward, versus sending a content avalanche that could disengage buyers and even worse, push prospects to a competitor.
Today, email remains an important conversation tool in the buying process. It’s even more powerful when combined with branded, virtual deal rooms like Showpad’s Shared Spaces, where all deal communication and content can be easily coordinated and tracked, rather than buried in lots of one-off emails.
But proximity of relevant content is key and that’s where Microsoft Outlook comes in.
Using Showpad’s Outlook plugin, sales reps can easily find and share the latest content with buyers directly from Outlook, whether it’s marketing-approved assets or personalized, customized files — all without leaving their email clients.
Sales teams typically waste too much time on administrative tasks rather than actively selling. By automatically capturing sales data such as deal-specific Outlook email, content shares and buyer engagement with such content, data quality is improved and user adoption of Microsoft Dynamics is significantly higher, leading to smarter decision making and deal cycle acceleration.
Leverage Microsoft for identity and access management
To make application access easier and faster, Showpad offers a SAML-based Single Sign-On (SSO) service, compatible with Microsoft Azure ID, allowing users to use their organization’s credentials to access Showpad. This streamlines the login experience by requiring fewer usernames and passwords because there’s only one account to remember.
Fast and easy technology adoption for better buyer experiences
For Microsoft users, the more an enablement tool is embedded in your Microsoft stack, the faster the adoption. Buyers want both a great digital experience and a great human experience. Showpad delivers the experience with an out-of-the-box solution, integrated with your current sales tools. The human experience is covered by your team, and supported by our comprehensive platform.
The ways B2B teams go to market today, from content sharing and deal collaboration, to onboarding, training and coaching, could not have been imagined even a few years ago.
Now, you can manage thousands of users, content assets and 24×7 communication all in one place, while your go-to-market team can rely on the tools they’re familiar with to deliver a compelling and game changing buying experience.
