According to research by EPFL university, 73% of start-ups need to pivot to a different market over time. The sector first targeted by a tech company rarely stays the focus forever, and so it was with PSI. 

Before we stepped into sales software we worked with pharmaceuticals, trading excess stock to prevent pharmaceutical waste. It wasn’t long before we saw the need for improved sales applications in that industry, and the first one we designed transformed a pharma company’s manual, slow processes and made their customer acquisition much more efficient. This would be an ongoing theme for many years to come. 

 

Honing in on telco, utility and sales software 

We were soon doing the same for mobile technology projects, and after experimenting with a number of different directions, we found our stride in 2010 when we overhauled sales processes with Miller Brown and Eir, Ireland’s largest telco operator. 

“The PSI platform was an instant improvement,” says Mark Higgins, Eir’s Head of Field & Affiliate Sales. “Not only are our reps better equipped, but I now have instant insight into sales. I can see which bundles are selling well, which regions are hitting their targets and the progress of orders. All in real time.” 

We had found our sweet spot so we honed in on it. Over the next 12 years we designed and provided sales software solutions for telco and utility. Our 1.0 platform evolved to service these industries with increasing focus.  

 

Tearing down and building up to multichannel sales 

“Over a long period of time, technology that is built up like this becomes quite unmanageable,” says David Costello, CEO of PSI. “So we took a clean slate and rebuilt the platform to deliver everything we’d learned how to deliver, but in an efficient and scalable way – switching to web technology enabled us to support multichannel sales more effectively.” 

At this stage our solution was matured, omnichannel, and could be configured with our domain expertise. These are some of the aspects that made us appeal to Ogi, an ISP and managed IT services company that is transforming Wales’ digital landscape. 

“It’s very unusual to go out to market, as a start-up business, with a sophisticated automated sales process,” says Sally-Anne Skinner, Chief Revenue Officer at Ogi. “This is what we have with PSI.”  

 

How we stayed agile 

Part of the reason we were able to get this far has been our ability to pivot and keep on the frontfoot of evolving sales software and the needs of our customers. 

“We’re privately owned and we’re not VC backed,” says David, “so we don’t have funding that’s driving us down a particular path. This has enabled us to focus on a niche market and be agile in responding to what our customers want.”

This agility was key for SSE Airtricity, a leading green energy company, who had to respond fast during the pandemic to enable their business to deliver more with the same resources. They also needed to stay agile for future product updates. 

“Time is a major factor in this,” says Ernest Asensio, Retail Efficiency & Systems Manager of SSE Airtricity. “We needed to respond to changing requirements both initially from dialling up web functionality for business units, but also recurring as these business units would have a lot of frequent product changes… PSI Touchstone enables us to respond quicker and easier to save resources across multiple departments.” 

 

A long term solution for fast omnichannel sales 

 “We don’t just build and walk away,” says David. “We become an integral part of customer experience processes for our clients, and we constantly evolve these processes to do more with them.” 

This is the case with Eir, who switched to PSI to manage their customer acquisition and onboarding in 2010. Usually, if a company stayed with a legacy system for long, they would have to take on the difficulties of moving the tech forward, along with the costs of the almost inevitable rebuild. Instead, Eir simply kept telling us what they needed and we kept evolving the system for them. And when we saw the opportunity to rebuild, we absorbed that cost. 

“The simplicity of the system should not be ignored either,” says the Sales Director of Eir. “The PSI interface is simple, data is easily accessible, and the customer sign-up wizard is straightforward. This means that our reps can give more of their attention to clients, further smoothing the sales process and raising the quality of service we give them.” 

PSI’s initial pivot to sales software and telco and utility onboarding was a result of listening to the market – and we’re still listening now. We’re paying attention to the market and to our clients, following the good ideas to deliver something of value.  

To see what the latest version of our multichannel sales software can achieve for ambitious organisations, our work with Ogi is a prime example. Alexander Breverton, Ogi’s Telesales Manager adds, “PSI enables us to complete a quick sale in 10-15 mins from start to finish. This probably would have taken a couple of days in our previous out-of-the-box solution.” 

 To learn more about how we created this tailored solution in just a few months, see our case study on Ogi’s multichannel sales software.