Interview with Anamika Gupta

hi this is Bob Samuels fan of tech
connective tech connector is a
marketplace and campaign management
platform of Best of Breed account based
marketing and lead generation solutions
we’ve partnered with the b2b sales and
market exchange to bring you wisdom from
leading account based marketing thought
leaders to that end I’m happy to
introduce you to an amiga gupta head of
account based marketing and deal based
marketing at Fujitsu America
Anamika it’s a pleasure to speak with
you how are you today I’m good I’m good
it’s been it’s the end of the week it’s
a Friday and I’m leaving on vacation so
absolutely happy so yeah it’s all going
good thank you it’s great I’m glad
you’re going on vacation sweet it’s a
good time for it and and thank you for
taking the time before you leave to have
this interview I’m looking forward to
your input I understand that you’re
going to be presenting your ideas about
how to how to do a BM for enterprises of
scale at the b2b MX and I think that’s
really great panel discussions thank you
so to start can you give a little bit of
a background about you know you were
your background in particular how you
gonna face with a BM in the path sure
sure so I have been doing I mean let me
start with the with a kind of a know
where we are you always started I’ve
been doing marketing for past decade and
a half so with my various rules and to
multiple organizations afters like
various facets of marketing which
literally has helped me in my journey
until now right from horizontal
marketing to vertical marketing to
geography marketing Alliance marketing
and now to a B M right which brings
everything together and that’s the best
I love it here
so building I have built or ABM for a
few larger organizations my last extent
was with Capgemini where I built the
Arabian practice from scratch and then
now for Fujitsu so for Fujitsu America I
had their account based marketing in DBM
which is steel based marketing it’s been
a Europe success of establishing and
running ABM for Fujitsu I would say it
definitely was not a smooth journey
right I mean we all understand how IBM
could go so I also just like everybody
did face few bumps on the road but as
expected but I should say half my job
was done but sales and business
leadership buy-in into the concept of a
BIA right before I joined that was
already there so I I definitely feel
that half my job was done there even to
me and even to me is a culture it’s a
mindset right so in fact it is it is
very very essential for one to two first
kind of define what ABM is in a true
sense for him or her in the organization
and I did the same in all the
organization where I’ve tried to
establish ABM I definitely have put my
effort to us was defining what is ABM
and also creating that culture and the
mindset which which does take some good
amount of time working with your sales
very very closely so that’s and brief
about me and what I have gone through
with Zambia does that answer your
question
beautiful wonderful yeah absolutely so
so I think I think you when we spoke
earlier you talked about how you know
you need to start right off the bat
which you need to define what ABM is
what for you for the what are the goals
and objectives you want different people
define at different ways also the target
audience sometimes was defined as
bringing in new process and the other is
working with existing clients and maybe
getting deeper into the relationships
with with howdy how do you define a VM a
very good question and I love where we
are going with this so you you
absolutely hit the nail right abiam
Trudy has become the most many belated
terms in marketing right just like you
know a couple of years back it was
pretty
predictive analytics right how people
use to you to the predictive analytics
read by thing and I kind of really
compare that so in my mind I think iBM
has been abused by marketers
organizations and vendor alike all of
them kind of looking to end business by
misrepresenting altering and repackaging
more targeted demand generation
marketing and positioning that is ABM so
as I was speaking before with you is as
you kind of as we take that approach of
getting a VM into an organization and
starting from scratch establishing the
framework and approach it is very
sensual to define what is true ABM what
is a BIA mean to you in your
organization and and it will defer based
on your organizational goal because if
you understand your what is the
organization goal you will understand
what its what type of you need to bring
in and maybe avium is not the is not the
right way to go at that point I’m not
necessarily a beam is the answer for all
the all the things we do right they
could they may be like targeted demand
generation is the right answer so it
needs to be first determined that what
my organization goal is how marketing
because my major question when I kind of
do these kind of activities is how
marketing or my team can help sales
Excel that’s my basic question when I
answer that I kind of like from there I
move towards that how what could be what
is that I need to bring in to help sales
kind of Excel so what is that approach
what is that framework right so going
back to the original like what is ABM
and I’m gonna actually read this
statement because this is where I
believe it I believe it literally will
have a couple of very important points
and I’ll kind of reiterate that as I was
speaking that a stratum I’m kind of
reading that a statement account based
marketing is a long-term strategy
approach I mean in both long-term
strategic approach that requires
marketing and sales to work as partners
not you’re not just together but
absolutely as a partner to achieve one
common goal and that one
common goal could be either open doors
or deep tingly engagement into given
accounts in the shin in a simple term if
I can say land or expand right or land
and expand either or both together in
the high-growth accounts right it’s a
few things it’s a long-term strategic
approach marking in sales has to work as
partners with one common goal in the
high-growth accounts right so there are
four key points into what is ABM in fact
as as per ITSM a you know only eight
percent free market exclusively
practices ABM bites true definition so I
always think of ABM is a is a kind of a
journey and the key to success is
understanding customers and their
maturity to imbibe the change and then
take them on that journey right this
will this will build trust and
confidence along the way is
strengthening relationship and creating
conversations needed to win pick
together so as I was saying this is a
long-term journey that’s when you tried
this that’s that’s where the most of the
time is taken when you when you bring
ABM approach into your organization in
understanding first of all who is my
right set of the accounts I need to go
after because not every account you
would like to touch right you really
need to know who is the right account
who has got the propensity to by not
just that but propensity to buy from
your organization and that’s how you
define what my right set of accounts are
when you define that you you need to
understand you’re not gonna go like in
every buying Center right it like you
know it’s just you know in your first
shot you’re gonna find out what is the
buying Center where my first distant
will be so you’re not you’re gonna put
you will find that out working with your
sales very closely and then you will
target that particular buying center to
to achieve what you’re looking for right
so it’s like understanding your audience
understand what the challenges are what
they’re facing how how in my case I
think Fujitsu can help them right and
then
and then you decide and then you kind of
think about engagement so engagement
comes as a third step for me like how
now how I can engage that audience
engagement could be I mean people talk
about you know emails and retargeting
and targeting but these are in my mind
these are some of just some of the
puzzle pieces which fits in the bigger
piece of that engagement puzzle when you
put together it all depends on how your
customer is going to digest information
how can you grab their attention right
because if if I don’t know if you if you
may have heard you know the our
attention spam has has actually been
shorter than goldfish now one of the
story kind of proved that right it was
it was 12 in the year 2000 and it has
come down to eight seconds today so
that’s kind of a tension of spam you’re
talking about with the audience so you
really need to understand what is your
or if you if I really need to get my
attention in spam of my audience I need
to understand them right aside what they
are looking for what is that what will
help them win not just me but what will
help them win what kind of challenges
they’re facing and is this the right
time to target so it’s the right time
right messaging to the right contacts
right that’s that’s what matters and
that’s when you decide what could be the
engagement approach in this particular
context once you do that now it’s all
about the reporting so it’s kind of a
reporting is probably this fourth or the
fifth step into that entire rating
process well that’s wonderful so I guess
the tricky thing to me is how do you
know what what their their key their key
challenges are do you ask them do you do
do surveys do you you you look at their
behavior and third party first party
yeah in fact we are in a very good world
right now we have so much of
technological advancements right which
we can which we can just go ahead and
just leverage
um you know there are a couple of ways
we do that right now is one is
absolutely the most important one is the
sales insights itself because in your
existing account your sales is much
closer to your clients and they have
much better insights which which really
can help you in the process the other
one is the market intelligence so my
company has got a very large market
intelligence group in house and they
help us in my research as well which is
mostly secondary research it’s not a
primary search mostly secondary research
involved in there that’s that’s the
second one and the third which we are
moving towards because and I’ll give you
the the probably one of the cases is if
you’re trying to do a BM into let’s say
top ten accounts into your organization
it is very easy to to spend time into
each one of them and understanding them
one by one and you know what’s going on
and you live with your third party data
you live with your market intelligence
you leverage your sales insights but
when that if you’re trying to move from
that nine to ten accounts to let’s say
50 accounts or 100 accounts right
because you’re if you’re moving from one
to one ATM to one to fee or one-to-many
that your structure if you know right
you you really need to kind of you know
bring in the right technology to help
you to scale there to know so that’s
where I think the technology comes up
right which will help with the intended
are the signals and you know which can
help you to scale into all these
accounts so in my mind technology is
absolutely essential but but it’s it’s
more it becomes more more important as
you kind of move towards the hybrid the
structure of Abyan so it makes sense so
how do you identify the specific people
within the prospect company or the
target company and you have the
different personas and I imagine they’re
you know there’s a whole buying
committee and each one of them has their
own pain points or their own
focus yes very good question sir they
definitely do have and it does not an
easy process to identify them so we do
use right now we we we are in the
process of getting the right technology
a stack based on you know where what
exactly is gonna fit into our jutsu
txtag because you know we have some
already but not in terms of the
real-time you know intense which we can
get so that’s that’s what is in works
right now but in our one-to-one ABM
activity right now we work very very
closely with the sales and a market
intelligence to understand that buying
center and who we actually need to
target so we we actually do their social
profiling who is working on word what
kind of challenges is a very in-depth
study which goes in there along with
sales to understand that buying center
and the people who we need to target so
you mentioned technology so you also
mentioned your your I guess you’re using
some and your and your researching and
going to get more what kind of
technology are you enjoying right now
and what are what are some of the things
that are catching your eyes as things
you’ll be wanting to look to expand it
to use we have some very basic because
because of the kind of a B&B are running
this is very high touch very personal
one to one maybe M into our job you know
accounts which is which actually brings
eighty percent of our business so our
effort into these accounts is very very
you know I would say not so much
technology but you know personal effort
which goes in there working with the
sales right but we are in the process
with the success of our with a one-year
success within Fujitsu we are seeing the
demands so we we are getting pushed to
move towards you know more of the hybrid
restructure because we need to add more
accounts so I’m trying to move from one
to want to want to few that’s my next
step within the organization but the
large number of accounts which is coming
and so that’s where I’m looking forward
to at take a stag the right tech stack
which will help us
into into the sales enablement which is
in my mind relationship then engagement
which is reputation and the next which
is analytics which is revenue so
relationship repetition and revenue
together which can help me bind that
together and give me one single Wii U
and help me make similar seamless and
make this process seamless is what I’m
looking for
so my researcher on technology is more
to words if you understand every
technology is important every technology
is awesome
what’s there in our tech stack for ABM
but but we do need to look at the
technology in a way that what’s gonna
work in my you know culture and in the
mindset which my organization is the way
we consume technology and what kind of
goal we are looking out for right so
it’s it’s it’s been it’s been couple of
months that I have been talking to
multiple vendors and understanding you
know what’s gonna fit into frigid sue
organization with the current tech stack
we have and how the the new tech stack
is going to talk to the current tech
stack which is not too many but it’s
still they are very important one of
them is our CRM which is which is
Salesforce right it’s very very
important to be kind of talking to the
sales where which is the single source
of truth for us so yeah my focus is more
to us bringing the right technology
which is which is gonna fit into our
Fujitsu organization make sense so of
course is a key part of it so it’s got
to interface with that at the end of the
day so what do you see as far as
challenges food issues obviously a
global company GDP our castle and now
California’s can be having their own
privacy regulations it’s what are you
seeing is the challenge of those as far
as affecting your outreach
sure that it is definitely impacting us
at some level but not as much as that
because our effort is not targeted
demand generation we are not going to
the masses right it is it is an ABM and
this is a one-to-one ABM so here is
weird we are serving existing clients we
do already have their opt-ins right they
know us we know them and if we have to
reach out to the new buying centers we
we know the process because you know
every come every organization every
enterprise is different so for example
in most of the companies we go through
the procurement because that’s a gateway
but then we fall in with the process to
kind of make sure that if we have to
target the new bind Center what could be
our could be a process the most
important bit which I love is like into
existing clients you can find our
sponsor and when you have your sponsor
from the client side it helps you kind
of you know go deeper you know and make
it much more relevant for that
particular client without having worried
about these kind of laws because now
you’ll find there by n to have us go in
front of them and until more about rigid
so like how big in UPS upsell or
cross-sell so I think it doesn’t it is
in fact as as much as it will it would
impact the you know targeted imagine
marketing right right exactly because
you already dealing with people you have
a relationship and they’ve got a
business interest of listening so that
makes perfect sense
thank you yeah but that said it doesn’t
mean that we can we we don’t have to we
do have to follow so we do look at those
policies and we do keep all of those in
my interest to make sure that we are
following you know every benefit as we
as we do the reach out and kind of make
sure that that’s kind of compliant
because make sense so as far as reaching
out what kind of channels or means you
reach out the I assume your reach out by
email maybe you call folks do you do any
kind of programmatic or any kind of
targeted display for for your target
accounts maybe a different web presence
when they come to your site with any
and special channels that you use to
communicate we use a lot of high-tech
marketing strategy right because this is
this is an account again this is
one-to-one approach in our current
scenario and as we move towards want to
feel will introduce more of those
targeting and retargeting in ads and
everything else and there but because
this is one to one approach RF it is
very very high touch marketing strategy
into those accounts this is this is very
very personalized very relevant very
timely into those accounts and it’s
created only for as a small as our
audience of 10 people or at max 25
people right and it has kind of created
went there with their intent and I made
this point to us they start of this
conversation conversation that you need
to understand how your clients digest
information so it’s not so much about
the technology it’s not so much about
the digital it’s not so much about the
marketing flashiness of like how edgy or
your reach out is or how cool it is it
doesn’t matter
till the time is like if you understand
how your clients digest the information
so in some of the cases my clients love
to see the emails so we kind of have
more of the component of females and
some from they just hate emails right
it’s like I just can’t have so many
emails in my email box right so usually
we try to bring in like you know we go
from hologram to virtual reality
augmented reality in a very high touch
Direct Mail we also incorporate some of
the very targeted digital in social
media right all of those things come
into the picture but the mix of all of
these is dependent on how that
particular group of audience is going to
digest information and how I can grab
their attention that’s my key focus
versus the what channel yep so your
presentations on how to do the ABM
Enterprise at scale so did I assume that
that a that talks about going from the
one to one – what – the one to few to
the one to many outlets
so how does that change your strategy
how does your technology change with
what is it what is the what are the key
things that you need to do to be able to
get to the one-to-many if you will with
the limited resources I guess yeah
that’s one of my presentation and I
would start with by saying that I still
kind of believe in that 80% of revenue
comes from my 20% of my clients right
and what that constitute of even if I
you know if when I understand that who
are my those 20% of my clients and what
maturity level they are in and that’s
when I kind of decide you know which is
structure which ABM tier they needs to
be fit then so you know per my sales
structure which is praying you right now
and we are working to assess we kind of
you know put them into the category of
strategy grow and develop right so and
those are the one which brings my which
forms my property most of my twenty
percent of my clients right so if I have
to give services to all of those
enterprise level clients it’s more about
you know we are established at one to
one we were going to go with what we are
doing right now which is high touch and
very very personalized approach into
those accounts but as we move down to is
once you feel one-to-many as optimizing
a being to scale it will be through the
right set of technological into our ABM
tech stack and that’s what is in
discussion right now so I would be
talking more towards like you know what
producer is showing at the enterprise
level accounts and how we plan to scale
this to include more number of accounts
by introducing that hybrid ABM to
restructure and we would as I said we
would do this by bringing a
hand-selected set of tools not too many
not too less but something which will
work into my organization with the
mindset and the culture we have with
with how sales consumes and how they
kind of use these technologies and we
will to bring those in and and and put
that into place so that we can scale
effectively okay so this is very good
I’m enjoying this so I’ve got one one
last set of questions about a suite
of missing things but can you tell me a
bit about what’s her prediction of how
things are heading you’ve had some
experience in the past the baby and
these seeking changes with technology
the intelligence the privacy issues and
so forth what do you see as going
forward in a year and five years from
now how is that pictured and it’s going
to be as far as the APM as a mindset of
the culture idiom is a marathon and will
be a mass versus a sprint right so
there’s no shortcut to have been
delivering success but and but you know
which you can scale EBM by bringing
right use of technology so in my mind as
I get to the predictions part of it in
my mind AI is and will help IBM scale
effectively in a true sense right and
this is why I say that like building and
delivering a truly personalized
insightful experience for 8 to 10
accounts is feasible but as you grow
that number to 50 or 100 it’s hard to
build relevant messages and campaigns
without more in-depth knowledge on the
account
no human can cost-effectively do that
much research right so at that’s where
AI supported ABM can deliver that
one-to-one experience add a scale by
converting data into insights and action
so different companies are at different
maturity level and the journey to
leverage AI but yeah I would play a
critical role in a scaling Avia and
business should in my mind I think my
prediction will be like or my
recommendation to my colleagues would be
that business should start evaluating
that their current and future state now
and gain leadership commitment and
secure budget approvals you know and
identify gaps and areas for which
capabilities can be built in-house or a
partnership to be forged with leading
vendors that can help realize but you
need to start thinking about AI into
your ATM to connect so the AI would were
basically looking to AI to deliver
actionable insight so that you can
create that one-to-one experience in a
more to scale than then you could
otherwise I do believe that yes
beautiful this is great so I want to get
you off on the vacation but there’s
anything else that any words of wisdom
that that you can share now of the way
that looks will continue at the event no
I love this conversation today thanks
for having me here and I look forward to
seeing you at the conference do
beautiful it’s a pleasure thank you for
taking the time and sharing your wisdom
and I look forward to seeing if there’d
be two BMX next month
take care