Home/Global practice/SaaS and technology
Industry practice
The demo is not what stalls the deal
Software companies expanding abroad usually have a product that works and a motion that does not scale across a border, because the committee gets larger and the champion gets less help.
Get a GTM review See the country desks
- Cycle
- 6 to 18 months
- Committee
- 5 to 9 people
- Stalls at
- Security and procurement
- Fix
- Documents, not campaigns
Who is actually in the room
Only one of them has seen your demo.
- The champion. Likes the product and has to defend it internally in a meeting you are not in. Most deals are lost there.
- Security. Has a questionnaire. An unanswered or evasive one ends the evaluation quietly.
- Procurement. Needs comparable vendors and a three-year cost. Vague pricing reads as risk.
- Legal. Wants data processing terms, and cross-border adds residency questions.
- An incumbent vendor's account manager. Working against you, usually quietly and usually more effectively than you realise.
What gets built
Enablement documents rather than campaigns, which is where the stall actually is.
A champion enablement pack
The internal business case, written for them to present. Problem, cost of inaction, why you, implementation, what could go wrong and how it is handled.
Pre-answered security questionnaire
Standard questions completed, certification position stated, data residency clear, honest about gaps.
Your own comparison
Framed on criteria you chose rather than a competitor's matrix.
Three referenceable customers
Briefed and willing to take a call. Worth more than a year of content at this stage.
Total cost over three years
Licence, implementation, support, renewal. Clarity reads as confidence.
Market positioning
For a market where your category may be understood differently. Positioning.
Pipeline stages that match
Security review, procurement, legal, pilot. Sales pipeline.
Stages that reflect an enterprise evaluation
A model that jumps from demo to proposal cannot represent a deal that died in a security review nine weeks in.
Adding the intermediate stages makes the forecast honest and the board conversation manageable.
It also shows you where deals actually stall, which is almost never where the sales team believes.
Questions overseas teams ask
Does your industrial background transfer to software?
The committee dynamics, the long cycle and the enablement work transfer directly. Product-led growth and self-serve funnels do not, and I would not claim otherwise. If your motion is self-serve you want a different consultant.
Should we hire an enterprise seller first?
Usually alongside rather than before. A strong seller with no enablement spends six months building it, which is expensive salesmanship.
How long is an enterprise cycle abroad?
Six to eighteen months, longer where a security review or procurement panel is involved. Planning on domestic mid-market timelines is the standard forecasting error.
Do we need local presence?
For enterprise in most markets, eventually yes. The enablement work is what makes the first few deals possible without it.
What is the last stage a deal reached before it stalled?
If the answer is security or procurement, the fix is a set of documents rather than more pipeline.
Get a GTM review See case studies
Kunal Waghmare · Padmavati Hills, Mokai Vasti, Bavdhan, Pune, Maharashtra 411021, India
office@quiamo.com · +91 90216 02686 · English