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Discovery Assessment Survey Prospective Client: _________________ Contact Name: ___________________ Acumen/C3 HINT: Utilize the Pre Call Planning Tool prior to your sales call Pre-select and mark which questions you plan to use during your call Use this Discovery Assessment during each sales call, write down what you hear on this tool and use the information in the Solution Recommendation Assessment/ Worksheet. TIP: Please review the HCS Resource Guide; specifically the HCS TCO Tool Kit, BE6K Data Sheet General Questioning: Executive Questions

1. How does the executive team view the issues of technology to the value of business strategy/operations?

2. How is your organization positioned for the future, from an IT perspective and market competitive positioning?

3. Are mergers/acquisitions occurring within your company/industry? How will they impact your business?

4. Are there competitive organizations/situations coming into your market? Who are they?

5. How have competitive mergers and acquisitions changed the way your organization approaches the marketplace and its business strategy?

6. What are your top 4 strategic objectives or goals for your organization? For This year and the next three years?

ACCELERATION TIPS Utilize BE6K Data Sheet for opportunities that do

not qualify for HCS, based upon discovery.

Please review the HCS Resource Guide; specifically the HCS TCO Tool Kit, HCS Partner Autovod, HCS Fact Sheet, HCS Reseller Call Script, HCS End User presentation, & HCS TCO Toolkit

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7. What business challenges do you face in achieving those business goals?

8. Have you budgeted for those business goals?

9. What priorities would you focus on if you had additional funds?

10. What are your plans for redirecting technology investments to increase ROI/ to your competitive advantage?

11. What are your frustrations, based upon your past experience with technology

and other IT consulting organizations?

12. Which one of these general 5 categories are most important to you in reaching your business objectives or goals:

____ Operational Efficiency ____ Cost Containment ____ Customer Responsiveness ____ Revenue Growth _____ Increase of Market Share _____ Capital Financing

13. From your perspective: how would you rank the following statements, 1-5, 1=highest Need “I Need To”: (read all 5 before allowing the prospective to answer) ___ Be Productive ___ Connect Employee’s & Offices ___ Work From Anywhere ___ Secure My Business ___ Serve Customers Better

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I “Need To” Drill Down Questions

HINT: based upon the rankings from question number “10”, for the top 1, 2, 3 ranked I Needs To’s, ask the following questions. Connect Employees & Offices Customer Needs Every person counts in business. It’s essential to make it easy for employees to stay productive and keep in touch with customers and colleagues, in or out of the office. Trigger Questions ● Can you easily and securely share information electronically with remote offices and employees without incurring high communications charges? ● Can you provide your employees with secure access—anytime, anywhere—to the information and tools they need to do their jobs? ● If not, what are the consequences of their inability to access vital business data and applications? ◦ Are employees missing important deadlines? ◦ Is it harder to deliver products or services on time? ◦ Is it difficult to respond to customers in a timely manner? ◦ Are workers hampered by the need to manually enter and reenter work orders? ● What are the costs of this lack of timely access? ◦ How many opportunities are lost due to delays in responding to customers? ◦ Are sales calls unproductive because of incorrect or insufficient information?

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Secure My Business Customer Needs Business owners are concerned about information being stolen, networks hacked externally and internally. Trigger Questions

1. Are you confident that your computers and data are safe from theft or loss?

2. Are sensitive files safe from unauthorized employees?

3. Do you have an official policy for network and data security, one that is monitored, enforced and updated on a regular basis?

4. What would the ramifications be if company assets were compromised?

5. Have you calculated how much revenue you lose when your network or Website is down?

Work from Anywhere Customer Needs Smart companies rely on their personalized customer service and their ability to meet tough deadlines. These competitive advantages require bringing together the right people to quickly resolve problems and make things happen. Trigger Questions ● Can you provide your employees with secure access—anytime, anywhere—to the information and tools they need to do their jobs? ● If not, what are the consequences of the inability to access vital business data and applications? ◦ How many opportunities are lost due to delays in responding to customers? ◦ Are sales or service calls unproductive because of incorrect or insufficient information?

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● Are you concerned about spiraling network and telecommunication costs? Serve Customers Better Customer Needs Business communication is moving faster than ever, and customers expect quick responses. The more quickly a business can respond to questions and return calls, the more satisfied its customers will be. Trigger Questions ● Can you give your customers quick, easy access to the person who can best address their needs? ● Are your employees able to access important customer service and support information at any time and from any location? ● Are you missing revenue or losing customers because of missed calls or long hold times? ● Does your ability to respond to customers suffer when employees are working outside the office? ● Do you have customer relationship management (CRM) software to store, track, and manage customer records? ◦ Would it help your business if your employees could access customer records instantly whenever a customer called?

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Be More Productive Customer Needs Today’s customers expect immediate responses to questions and problems when they contact a business. To deliver service anytime, anywhere, employees need easy, immediate access to the right people and information. Trigger Questions ● Are your employees missing important deadlines because they do not have access to business information when they are outside the office? ● Could you improve your business processes if customers and business partners were able to reach your employees regardless of location? ● How much time do your employees spend trying to access information from multiple locations to serve customers and make informed decisions? ● Are you concerned that customer service could suffer because your employees cannot meet customers’ needs efficiently?

Continuing Questions 14. What are your plans for increasing the competitive nature of your organization? 15. What are your current barriers to reaching those goals?

16. Why do your clients do business with your organization?

17. If you had a magic wand, what would you change in your organization?

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18. How has your business/industry changed in the last 12 months?

19. What changes do you see in your business and marketplace in the next 24 months? 20. Have you considered how to proactively address and manage the current and

emerging regulatory requirements for information security or within your industry? (pre call planning)

21. What types of regulatory statues force security issues?

22. Improving customer service and making business more convenient is a critical success factor for many businesses, why would improving customer service be important to your organization?

23. Integrating voice, video and data networks can create new ways to implement applications to improve customer service. Have you considered this approach?

24. What group of your employees would gain the most productivity with better, faster access to information?

25. Saving money in the any business is critical for your efficiency ratio. How much are paying for your existing PBX, Long Distance and toll charges and any other communication services such as teleconferencing or video conferencing?

26. How do you know when you have a security breach in your network?

27. What is your strategic direction regarding IT Platforms?

28. What are your current frustrations in achieving your IT objectives?

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29. What are the top corporate IT objectives for the next 24 months?

30. What are your current plans for utilizing IT professional services Company's for the next 1-3 years?

31. Who else is involved in the decision process?

32. How do you evaluate your outsourced consulting partners?

33. What is important to you in choosing an IS partner?

34. What is your decision criteria in selecting an IS professional services firm?

35. Does the executive team understand the current challenges/issues and would they typically endorse efforts to improve them?

36. What or who is driving this initiative and why is it important to the organization?

37. Where do you see your IT organization in 3 years in relationship to its existing support structure and corporate focus?

38. How long have you been in this present role?

39. How is this decision process conducted or how has it successfully been accomplished in the past?

40. Based upon our past conversations, “on a scale of 1-5”, 5 being high, how do we rank compared to others you might be considering

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Specific Business Projects. 41. Can you describe the Vision, Goals, and Scope of this project?

42. How will you judge the success of this project?

43. What is the Business Case or Business drivers or problem you are going to solve?

44. What are the known risks to the project at this time?

45. When do you want to begin the Project?

46. When do you want to have the various projects fully implemented?

47. What are the decision criteria for this project? 48. What is your strategic direction regarding IS Platforms, in particular, those related

to Voice?

49. What other types of Cisco products have you implemented or are planning to implement?

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50. What are their current and future concerns about protecting your assets and employees?

51. Have you experienced a loss due to a breach in security? Are they experiencing theft

or shrinkage of inventories?

52. Are you concerned with providing your clients and employees with assurance and security?

53. Do you have multiple sites that require total system integration?

54. How do your rate the reliability of your networks? Do you feel you may need assistance in implementing network management?

55. Based upon your merger/growth plans, would you be interested in our firm performing a network assessment, prepare a design, plan an upgrade, implement a network upgrade, operate and/or optimize networks.

Summary Sales Qualification Questions: *Who is making the decision? *Who is involved in the decision process? *What is the decision process? *What are their decision criteria? *What other alternatives are they considering?

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*Do they have a budget? Amount$$$? *When would they like the project to begin? *When would they like the project to be implemented? *Describe the proposed project: *Describe the project's Goals/Objectives *Describe the Business Case Goals/Objectives Proposal Due Date: ________ ACTION ITEMS: