Thursday, August 15, 2013

Using LinkedIn To Research Expertise In An Organization

We all know that LinkedIn is very useful for recruiters to find talent. LinkedIn can also be of help when you research customers and partners. For example, before I talk to customers about the SAP SuccessFactors solutions, I spend the time learning about their landscape. For example if I search for "SAP PI" and "Customer Name" in LinkedIn, I get a fairly good idea of their SAP PI expertise. I also search for other integration technology names to find out if they use other technologies. For example "BizTalk" and "Customer Name" gives me a pretty good idea about their usage of such technologies. If I need to understand the version of software they are in I search for "EhP5" and "Customer Name". Such quick searches sometimes save me several days of work and multiple email communications.

When I talk to customers, I openly tell them that I did this search and found out that they have expertise in these areas. Customers appreciate the fact I did my homework and add more insight. If I am wrong they correct me and provide additional information. It makes the conversation center around my customer's problems rather than the products my company wants to sell. It works. Give it a try.

This is a result based on a quick search I did about SAP customer and partner Infosys.






No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...