Kypro is a 15-year old company that offers other companies integrated management solutions. Founded in Uruguay as a software factory, it recently opened new offices in Mexico and expanded its services into software marketing coupled with consultancy services. Their sales management offer responds to many of their clients’ needs, who – following the financial crisis – needed to boost their sales without further increasing costs.
In summary, Kypro is based on an innovative model since, on the one hand it's a software factory and on the other hand it operates in management consultancy. They market technological solutions that – together with their methodology and integrated service – are aimed at increasing productivity and sales through consultancy in management, IT and administrative processes, plus tailor-made developments. In view of all this GXnews interviewed Simón Fuhrman, one of the company’s directors, to share with the Community this particular mix that makes Kypro's services such an interesting experience for the companies in the region.
— Kypro’s main aim is to work together with technology companies and help them sell more or expand to new territories. Tell us about the expansion from the software factory the company was in the beginning to the integrated management service it offers today.
— The transition came with a shift in direction: rather than just offering what we produced, we started complementing it with what the market needed. We understood that technological solutions must go hand in hand with the right strategy and vice-versa. When a company acquires a sales module, it obtains the technology but … what sales processes will this technology support? It usually happens that the company’s processes need to be improved or that they have not even been defined. Companies also need functional consultants (accountants, MBAs, etc.) who will help them define these processes supported by the technology they’ve purchased.
Although we started out as software developers, the economic context drove us to expand our services. At the time, we could see that, in order to be able to grow in a difficult context, companies needed to increase their sales while at the same time they lacked a sales methodology that would produce the desired results.
Another factor that contributed to the way we are today was the research we carried out before opening our offices in Mexico. This fieldwork was an interesting experience since we discovered that companies need much more than ERP – they also need things such as production systems and information analysis or quality management.
Therefore, at present, Kypro works with IT companies but, at the same time, relies on an interdisciplinary work team that offers consultancy and management. Furthermore, of all the areas where we offer services, Sales carries the largest demand these days.
— Could you describe integrated management in general?
— When we start working with a company, we try to understand what their needs are and we usually find some business and some management needs that encompass different corporate areas, such as marketing, processes, human resources, logistics and finance. From there, we devise an integrated plan relying on the work of our own consultants or through partners. For the Product area we also have partners that combine our KP Management ERP and the technology area. In order to do this, apart from our own staff, we have about 20 partners in the technologies area and 10 in the consultancy sector.
— An increase in sales without a cost increase is one of KP Sales Management main aims. How is such a difficult balance achieved?
— KP Sales Management is Kypro’s main consultancy product. As you just pointed out, it seeks a sales boost.
It would happen to us that different companies would show an interest in our products or services but they’d say they couldn’t hire us because their sales had fallen due to market changes, mainly due to the crisis. When this started to sound too familiar to us, we started to consolidate our sales consultancy, which we had already been offering for a few years by then. How is such a difficult balance achieved? We started using a methodology based on the identification of the steps to be followed in order to achieve a sales process rather than an enlargement of the sales structure or an increase in the costs necessary for actually achieving those sales levels. The answer to this question combines three components: processes, people and technology. This is the mix that enables us to achieve the desired sales objectives.
It’s worth noting that all this must be supported by a corporate strategy, from which the business strategy is derived, which in turn generates the desired sales. Although this may seem natural, this strategic alignment is seldom found.
In the sales processes area, we aim at understanding consumers and decision makers, understanding their motivations. In this sense, we apply different market research methodologies (semiguided interviews, focus groups) with actual, potential and former customers. It is from there that we obtain the required market knowledge. We then elaborate a Sales Value Proposition that will necessarily be embedded in all the process' tools – its differential factor provided by the sales force. This enables us to put the communication tools in place. These seek to standardize the corporate “speech,” and to provide the approach speech used by the company’s sale force with consistency. Other tools elaborated at this stage include the business agenda, indicators, etc. We help the company build these tools so that they can generate contacts, meetings, proposals and sales.
This methodology seeks to define the steps required in order to reach the desired sales objectives through target markets, segmentation and systematization. This way, Kypro can fulfill its role as a consultant that helps the client generate business capabilities. However, we can also work for the client and instead of giving them the tools, we can set up sales for them, for instance, in other countries.
While we do work closely with Marketing, our proposal does not include Public Relations, Media and so on; rather, our work is defined as a “Go to Market” strategy.
In the People area, our starting point is the understanding that the structure must respond to the strategy, that is, “tell me where you're heading and I'll tell you who you need.” In this sense, we help our clients evaluate and train their staff. In addition, we also take care of the recruiting process. Naturally, the complete development of these areas gives way to the intelligent implementation of the required technology. When we finally lead people to the required level and start achieving the company's sales objectives, the moment comes when Excel or other Office tools cannot continue to be used in an unsophisticated way. It’s the right moment to introduce CRM, BI, etc. Here’s when technology will allow for management, analysis and decision making.
— You’ve developed methodologies for a large number of companies. Do you have, on average, any specific management indicators that may show the actual sales increases achieved?
— Yes, of course. On average, we’ve helped our clients achieve the following monthly increases:
· Contacts generated:40 to 360
· Sales meetings:10 to 70
· Proposals generated:8 to 32
Through these increases, on average, the companies that work with our integrated service have achieved annual increases of 70% in their number of customers and 30% in their invoicing. However, there are also cases where the annual invoicing increase has been over 100%. This poses other challenges regarding how to manage growth and maintain the quality delivered – we have partners who help us with the rest of our clients’ processes in order to deal with this.
KP Integrated Management and GeneXus |
KP Integrated Management – an ideal ERP for the management and control of information that empowers decision making – is among their technological products. As stated in their web site, KP Management’s main development tool is GeneXus because “it allows for the design and implementation of multiplatform software, enabling the incremental development of each application, with great adaptability for the incorporation of future technologies.” Therefore, KP's design allows for a swift understanding and an accurate management without the need for previous knowledge.
What are the advantages you've found in working with GeneXus?
There are technological and business advantages. Regarding technologies, the fact that you can quickly migrate to the Web and integrate other technologies is a great advantage. The fact that it’s easily scalable is an additional benefit.
In the business area specifically, working with GeneXus offers access to a significant technological community. This means that community members may become partners whose services we can offer our clients, and they can offer our services as well.
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