Building Significant Revenue with Inbound Marketing from Israel: Pepperi CEO Ofer Yourvexel (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit more about that pivot. What gave you the idea that this pivot is where the opportunity is? Was there any kind of validation that you were able to do? What was the catalyst for that pivot?

Ofer Yourvexel: The catalyst was the product that we had already done on the web that did not require the same level of effort. We saw that this is what’s attracting the customer. It was quite obvious. I must add that the sales process was much easier now. It’s easier to sell an application whose value is immediate to the sales people as opposed to applications where you need to satisfy the entire supply chain.

You want the consumer to use it. You want the store to agree to register the warranty. Then you have the people who were paying us. They were the only ones who would cooperate in that process. Now, we are selling to the people who are getting the benefit and we’re not dependent on third-party to provide the data. It was much easier. Just downloading an app from the app store and using it immediately. There were many indications that led me to believe that this will be a success.

Sramana Mitra: What was the functionality of the app that you put on the app store that sales people started to resonate with?

Ofer Yourvexel: You no longer had to carry those samples in your van and had the ability to present in a beautiful way. Different industries want to present their products in different ways and the catalog was extremely important for this purpose. Then it also had the ability to build order-taking processes.

I didn’t mention it, but in the last 20 years before I joined Amdocs, I was typically VP Marketing and Sales. I was always in enterprise software. The ability to integrate was extremely important. When you run an app like that, the biggest advantage is if those orders and information from the field is getting back into the back office. To build the core integration platform that will integrate to any ERP system was critical as well. These were the starting ones. Later on, we have much more. We have route planning, navigation, CRM activities, merchandising, self-service ordering. It’s a platform. It’s now what it used to be three years ago.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to three years ago. What was your hypothesis? You were trying to equip sales people who were doing in-person sales. You were equipping their iPads with a full catalog and order management system. The sweet spot was people who were doing in-person selling.

Ofer Yourvexel: Yes. Actually, I was shocked in the beginning. It took me six months to realize it. When I realized it, I was very shocked because all my professional life, I’ve always dealt with CRM. I was expecting every customer to have a CRM as well. What I was shocked to find is that none of my customers have CRM. It still is the case. When I say CRM, I do not refer to the service and I do not refer to the marketing. I’m talking about the sales module.

I said, “How come they’re not using CRM?” Then, I realized that the traditional CRM which is all about opportunity management and forecasting is not relevant for them because their sales process is transactional. They go to the same customer that they visited a week ago. They replenish and they sell from the new collection.

Whether it’s fast or slow moving, it’s a faster and shorter sales cycle. The focus is much more on the ERP than on the CRM or in other words, on the product information that typically resides on the ERP system. The laptops or terminals that were there before could not do the job. The iPad opened up an amazing opportunity.  You would find the very large companies in the fast-moving space like food industry using terminals but this is a very small segment. There are so many segments that are not able to use terminals.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Building Significant Revenue with Inbound Marketing from Israel: Pepperi CEO Ofer Yourvexel
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