Winning big deals can make or break a company. Here's how to ensure it "makes" you.
For many small businesses, the world of big contracts is completely alien. Yet, at some point, growth-oriented businesses have to take a step up in scale and start working with major companies on bigger deals.
So how do you actually work with larger customers and partners? There are a wide range of things to bear in mind. First, you need to look at your own processes, and see that they satisfy the needs of the customer. For example, when working with public sector bodies, it's very likely you'll need some kind of environmental policy if you want to get the contract.
Second, you need to ensure that your systems - especially technology - can work with those of your potential customer, and cope with their needs. This can include the simple things that you might easily miss out - for example, ensuring that you have the phone line capacity to deal with the business.
There are many more aspects to working with larger customers and partners, which you'll need to consider. BT and Cisco recently hosted a round-table event which brought together experts on small business issues to discuss what large organisations look for when working with smaller companies - and what small business can do to maximise the chances of getting the deal. A video from the event has now been posted on BT Business Insight, and can be found here.