How pre-IPO companies can meet global revenue targets

When companies look to enter an Initial Public Offering (IPO), revenue targets are of course crucial for potential investors. An area that can be especially challenging can be requirements to generate a certain percentage of revenue outside of local markets. This is considered to demonstrate long term growth potential and validate a successful IPO. For example, many private equity or venture capitalists require at least 30% of revenue to be generated in EMEA before considering investment.

When faced with the challenge of expanding pipeline generation in international markets, companies often struggle to grow as quickly and efficiently as needed.

Launching into new international markets can be a costly mistake if not done correctly. Expansion comes with a high possibility of brand damage if you launch without the right data, sales structure, and customer focus in place.

Common challenges faced by pre-IPO companies include:

Lack of efficient sales structure to enable growth

International expansion requires a stable sales structure to facilitate growth. This calls for an experienced sales team, reliable and extensive data, and HR resources to support a large, international team. Training will be required to ensure a consistent customer experience and to absorb local feedback. Many companies will struggle to scale all these resources in an efficient manner.

Shortage of resources to localize outreach and offering

When expanding into global markets, it is hugely beneficial to have a localized outreach strategy. This requires multi-lingual resources and BDRs who are familiar with their target markets. It is a huge investment to onboard and ramp the necessary BDR resources to facilitate effective international outreach. Companies often face challenges with legal and regulatory compliance in new, unfamiliar markets which can create reputational and financial risks.

Limited experience handling larger enterprise accounts

Growing pipeline and revenue generation will often require working with large enterprise accounts. However, these companies will often have a complicated organization structure and procurement processes. Smaller companies who are only beginning to grow internationally may not have the resources in-house or procedures in place to support such large accounts.  As well as excellent cross-market coordination between BDRs working in different regions on the same accounts, there is also a requirement for company and contact information, as well as market insights to support their initial outreach

Taking these challenges into consideration, companies must consider whether it is feasible to grow their internal resources, or if they should partner with an agency with an established presence in their target market.

How outsourcing your sales team can help you IPO

Global B2B sales and marketing agency BNZSA can help streamline pipeline generation from day one. Our Virtual Teams have helped our clients to scale up rapidly and meet the targets required for a successful IPO. Virtual Teams can help address the following needs:

Speed and Scalability

Virtual Teams give you access to all the resources you require, at the moment that you need them. At BNZSA we have BDRs speaking 26 languages from 48 countries, meaning that you can reach EMEA, APAC and the Americas from Day 1, with the cultural awareness you need to adapt your outreach strategy to local markets. Working with an outsourced sales team allows you to scale BDR outreach and adjust and rotate resources as you require. This means you only pay for what you need without the need to invest in internal recruitment, training or employee holidays.

High Quality

A consistent and customer-obsessed experience will be essential to your brand’s reputation in new markets. Our Virtual Teams receive rigorous training and are subject to quality control for every single lead generated in any market. We invest heavily in our training programmes to ensure deep understanding of technical products – Intel’s Marc Beckers develops our IT training courses, supported by Head of Learning & Development Alvaro Aldana who brings experience in scaling consistently from Starbucks. This emphasis on quality at every stage means that our Warm HandoverTM process, which is unique to the market, boasts a 70% conversion rate.

Experience with large enterprises 

BNZSA’s Virtual Team of BDRs are experienced in tackling global enterprises and building relationships across departments and regions to secure revenue. They are supported by industry-leading data team who help map out the global decision-making matrix and enrich with contact information. Our Decision Science practice provides actionable insights about their prospective customers and to anticipate when customers have a need for a certain product or service. Using these insights, digital campaigns can warm and engage stakeholders around an enterprise, leaving the BDRs available to focus on the key decision makers.

Preparing for IPO can be a nerve-wracking moment for leadership team, and it’s tempting to hold all revenue-generating activities close to home. However, choosing the right strategic partner to help you meet your goals can relieve some of the risks and pressures, enabling you to focus on areas such as product that will ensure your ongoing success post-IPO.

Best Practices to Drive Effective Demand Generation in EMEA

For companies that are not based in EMEA, landing, and expanding into this territory is often considered a key milestone for global expansion.

Many private equity or venture capitalists require up to 30% of total revenue to be generated from EMEA before considering investment and having customers in EMEA is certainly a key factor when preparing for an initial public offering (IPO).

However, breaking into EMEA can be fraught with challenges if you are not familiar with the market and the various nuances between each country you are looking to expand into. As well as different languages to consider, each region tends to purchase products and services slightly differently. Some require a lot of consultation and support, while others buy on price point or feature sets.

For example, before Dell became one of the biggest channel companies in the world and had a direct go-to-market strategy, it had a challenging time selling against Compaq in Germany, because many German buyers purchased their technology products and services via their reseller partners. There are also the time zone pain points that initially often have to be managed from the other side of the globe and of course the privacy implications of the general data protection regulation (GDPR) that regulates the region.

In this article, BNZSA’s Chief Product Office, Saurabh Rastogi sets out his top tips to advise companies that are looking to expand into the EMEA region.

Demonstrate Local Capability

For a region as diverse as EMEA, with huge differences in culture, languages, and time zones, it is essential to demonstrate and leverage local capability. This includes developing marketing strategies in local languages and the need to acquire local phone numbers and email addresses, with consent, and having Business Development Representatives (BDRs) who are not just native speakers but who speak local dialects and understand how to navigate cultural norms.

While hiring locally and setting up a presence in the region would be a sensible strategy to address the EMEA market, it takes time to recruit the right staff and while the territory is not generating revenue it eats into other budgets that have to support it. This is why working with a local partner that can add instant resources and presence can make sure that your product or service does not get lost in translation.

Source Data Optimally

Having local compliant data is also a key element to successfully expanding in EMEA, but overall, the available data is much more fragmented than other regions, and you may have to turn to multiple data providers to build out your full universe. This can end up becoming a huge drain on resources – not only are the upfront costs higher, but they also end up recurring as you try to keep the database up to date with intent data, technographics, firmographics and buying committee details. You also need a wide-ranging skillset to keep on top of the strategy and architecture.

So, choosing a local data partner who can access all of these sources, as well as build and maintain the database for you can relieve a lot of this pressure.

Be Aware of Lead Generation Differences

To get your message out and to access the data on EMEA users often leads many companies to partner with specialist B2B publishers. But like data, this network is also fragmented and the data they have is often out of date and based on old circulation data. Publishers typically do not hire huge data teams to make sure their data is up to date and rely on their users to correctly fill in forms for subscriptions to newsletters and other content.

And because no one publisher has a 360 view of the entire EMEA B2B landscape, companies often end up working either directly or via agencies with multiple publishers, which increases costs and management time. There is also a high level of lead outsourcing from those publishers because they haven’t made the right investments in data and data management. In many cases, the leads that companies believe have been purchased using the publisher’s database are often sourced via a third party that a company might not have a relationship with or has the ability to scrutinise for quality or compliance. Therefore, understanding and adapting to these differences is crucial.

Recognise Different Decision-Making Styles

As previously mentioned, decisions in EMEA are made in different ways and no one size fits all approach is effective. Relative preferences for phone versus email or in person vs digitally vary too, as does speed of decision making. It’s also worth noting that the usual organisational differences apply too – some decisions are handled regionally whilst others come from HQ.

It's also worth considering advice from local partners or consultants that are more familiar with these structures and styles.

Ensure Total Compliance with Legislation

As we have said, legislation impacting demand generation in EMEA is very different from other regions and there are heavy penalties for violations. Ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations in each country is crucial. Adapting to employment law can also be challenging when you’re taking risks in new markets – hiring and letting people go can be expensive.

So again, working with a local partner who takes on these risks and responsibilities on a company’s behalf can often be a good investment and can save a lot of money in the long run while a company's presence is growing.

Learn more about demand generation in EMEA 

At BNZSA, we’ve helped many companies enter EMEA and scale to their next level. To learn more, tune in to a webinar with Saurabh and our partner Slintel on Wednesday 21 September at 11.00 AM ET, where you will hear us discuss all of the above and share some key take aways. Sign up here to learn more.