Red Hat Tames Sales Content Sprawl

Red Hat, provider of open source software solutions to enterprises worldwide, sought to integrate scattered, inconsistent processes for managing sales content. The company faced difficulties in effectively organizing and managing thousands of pieces of sales content. Fielding a worldwide sales force in 85 global offices across 35 countries, the company counted more than 2,000 sales reps among its 9,000 employees.

The company faced difficulties in effectively organizing and managing thousands of pieces of sales content.

Content was scattered across different locations in multiple languages and diverse formats, making it difficult for a sales rep to find needed content and to select what was most relevant and effective in a given situation.

Because there was no unified approach to content, the company also lacked a way to analyze data and get insight into content usage and value. Thus, marketing didn’t have a clear view of content performance. The team found it difficult to determine what content best engaged prospective customers, and they struggled to prioritize creation of the content that sales needed. The sales and marketing teams sought better alignment around relevant content, and they acknowledged the need to optimize their content investments and their use of content through the sales cycle.

These difficulties were compounded by an abundance of pre-existing sales tools that further complicated content management for both sales reps and marketers. Content existed in many different systems, making it a multi-step process for reps to find important documents and for marketers to understand how content was performing.

Red Hat realized the need to rein in content sprawl in the service of better sales performance and set out to find a solution. In search of a platform to effectively unify all relevant sales and marketing content, the company did a thorough analysis of internal requirements and needs, vetting more than 15 vendors.

Ultimately, Red Hat chose Highspot because its robust and flexible feature set met the company’s needs for a complete platform by providing easy content discovery, ample integration opportunities, and customer engagement. The Highspot solution also provided the analytics Red Hat needed to identify the impact of specific content on sales conversions. Lastly, like Red Hat, Highspot shared a commitment to open source.

During launch, a number of change management and thorough training measures helped ensure the project’s success and return on investment. Efforts included engaging with sales leadership to field validation, delivering web-based training, organizing “train the trainer” initiatives, running internal promotions, and encouraging grassroots rallies. An in-depth readiness plan ensured all users would be supported and included in regional and online training.

With Highspot at the core, Red Hat launched the “Red Hat Content Hub.” The process involved more than 13 internal teams spanning sales, marketing, and IT, all working together to implement the solution and deliver it on schedule. With Highspot, more than 3,000 pieces of Red Hat content were collected into a central location that was easy for sellers to access and use. The Content Hub deployed to more than 2,700 users who were effectively trained and well-prepared to use the solution.

Because Highspot integrates with Salesforce.com, all content found in Highspot is also accessible directly within the CRM — while also being readily available in Highspot’s standalone web and mobile environments, so sellers can engage with buyers no matter where they are. Red Hat supported the effort with internal user training designed to drive adoption of Highspot and yield an even faster return on the company’s investment.

The Highspot solution successfully unified all relevant content, making it possible to manage large volumes of content and gather data and insights into their performance.

With Highspot, more than 3,000 pieces of Red Hat content were collected into a central location that was easy for sellers to access and use.

This makes it possible for the marketing team to continually refine and optimize content, improve alignment between sales and marketing, and drive more sales through content mapped to buyers’ needs.