3.4 Why choose Relationship-Led Growth (RLG)? 2.1 What is Relationship Intelligence? 2.2 Measuring Relationship Intelligence
4 MAKING THE CASE FOR A RELATIONSHIP INTELLIGENCE PLATFORM
5 CHOOSING MITIBASE - BUSINESS METRICS AND RI
AURA framework
A day in the life of Mitibase 4.1 RoI on your Relationship Intelligence platform 4.2 Positioning a Relationship Intelligence platform for business leaders 4.3 Relationship Intelligence platform: sector-specific use cases 4.4 Common misconceptions about picking a Relationship Intelligence platform 4.5 Bridging the chasm between purchasing and adopting SaaS products 3.1 Five signs your business needs Relationship Intelligence 3.2 Why choose Relationship Intelligence? 3.3 The magic of a Relationship Intelligence platform
A self-learning Relationship Intelligence platform
Relationships are the foundation of a business — whether you call them connections, followers, or friends. Over the decades, we have seen exciting marketing innovations designed to capture and harness the power of relationships — from the wide adoption of digital databases in the 1980s, to Customer Relationship Management platforms in the late 1990s, to the bevy of marketing automation tools today.
One other challenge we face is that it is hard to measure the value of an intangible asset like a relationship. But in our experience, we’ve seen businesses using Relationship Intelligence platforms get to their goals faster. There is also a direct effect on various metrics — from a 37% rise in meetings booked, to a 43% increased pipeline Quarter on Quarter (QoQ), or a 29% rise in revenue QoQ.
Most of these tools continue to remain indispensable to businesses. But where do we go from here? With tools like AI, the nature of relationship management is transforming once again. Relationship Intelligence (RI) tools are a new frontier in the journey of digital innovation in business that began more than half a century ago.
And it is a journey that’s come full circle. Artificial Intelligence-powered tools can automate aggregation, enrichment and analysis of existing customer data, essentially building a ‘business social graph’ of your organisation’s collective network.
In short, it leverages your existing business relationships to uncover massive revenue opportunities. The automation and intelligence aspects are key: it enriches existing data and uncover connections you didn’t know existed.
The Definitive Guide introduces you to various aspects of Relationship Intelligence, how it compares to existing SaaS tools, and the various pathways to business growth it opens up. The guide shows you how Relationship Intelligence fits into various business functions, and also makes a case for industries that can adopt it in the near future.
Relationship Intelligence tools are not very well understood. Perceptive professionals who see value in it have a hard time getting their management onboard. This is understandable: relationships themselves are perceived to be intangible, and Relationship Intelligence as a concept is relatively new. People also don’t appreciate or act on their network because it is not visible. Moreover, most organisations already struggle to realise the investments they have already made in expensive SaaS tools that are hardly used by teams.
The Definitive Guide addresses these and other concerns, and is a great primer before you pick up a RI tool for your business.
In short, it leverages your existing business relationships to uncover massive revenue opportunities. The automation and intelligence aspects are key: it enriches existing data and uncover connections you didn’t know existed.
Relationships are the foundation of all industries. Almost all successful opportunities, deals, and investments can be traced back to a relationship that worked.
ABCs of relationships
Strong relationships present the shortest path to greater revenue. Your organisation’s collective relationships are your best bet of making this happen.
Unfortunately, these massive revenue opportunities are right in your backyard, but remain untapped. When it comes to finding the right connection, we still rely on manual methods like memory, guesswork and serendipity.
But all of that is changing with Relationship Intelligence.
For a while, astronomers found cosmic dust annoying. These galactic plumes often obscured distant stars. This was until astronomers realised they were using the wrong tools. With a little recalibration, they realised the cosmic dust itself held the key to star formation, and unlocking the deep mysteries of the universe.
Relationship data is the cosmic dust of businesses.
CRM and marketing automation software have learned to hoard reams and reams of data. Without the right tools, all this information dissolves into noise.
Relationship Intelligence tools organise, enrich and contextualise relationship data across various digital touch points. This tool synthesises the ‘cosmic dust’ you generate to provide coherent, actionable insights and navigate through the chaos of information present.
Relationships + Relevance Revenue =
What is Relationship Intelligence?
Measuring Relationship Intelligence
5,000+ connections on LinkedIn could be boiled down to 50 relationships of real value. On the other hand, just 150 contacts drawn from your business communication like email and calendar could be a gold mine of business opportunities. But how do you measure the value of your business network as a whole?
Tracking business metrics could hold the answer. Organisations using RI observed increased revenue, larger deal sizes, increased deal velocity, and other business KPIs. These metrics — specifically, any change in them — are a ready indicator of the value your business networks are unlocking.
Measuring the value of Relationship Intelligence
Relationships are perceived to be an intangible business asset. And any attempt to quantify relationships is also likely to devalue it — a friend who insists on putting a price on a friendship is unlikely to remain one.
Nearly a century ago, Admen faced a similar challenge with branding. They had a hard time convincing people that a strong brand — an organisation’s goodwill — eventually translated into better business growth. Goodwill was only recognised as a business metric after it was included in balance sheets.
And it only translates to money during mergers and acquisitions, where its calculation becomes straightforward: the value of goodwill is simply the price paid over the fair value of the company.
What usually happens is that there is relationship capital all around but we cannot utilise it. And you always have that feeling that you are sitting on a gold mine but not actually using it.
Chetan
Jog, Co-founder of Glance
An organisation’s relationship network stands at a similar juncture. Like goodwill, it is always in flux, and it is hard to put a price on it. But it holds abundant value.
Relationship Intelligence & your business
Our business relationships are like islands — isolated and cut off from each other. Relationship Intelligence connects these individual islands into a shared network. In such a context, a Relationship Intelligence platform becomes the single source of truth for your organisation’s business relationships.
Automated data capture
Intelligence driven first
Basics of a Relationship Intelligence platform
It would help to think of the Relationship Intelligence platform as an automated, organisation-wide rolodex of collective relationships.
A Relationship Intelligence platform uses automation to organise your existing relationship data stuck in silos. It enriches them by uncovering connections.
A Relationship Intelligence platform unveils the hidden opportunities in your collective network. It analyses the data and provides crucial context that guides your next steps.
Harnessing public information
Strategic business focus
Integrate into existing platforms
AI does not get overwhelmed with vast amounts of data. It scours publiclyavailable data from news portals, company websites, company registration sites to enrich existing customer data.
Relationship Intelligence understands your workflow and generates actionable insights that optimise the work of sales, revenue and business teams. It also solves issues of workflow, process and analytics.
Relationship Intelligence solves pain points in existing sales and revenue enablement software. RI tools should be easy to adopt and seamlessly integrate with existing sales and marketing SaaS platforms.
Five signs your business needs Relationship Intelligence
Often, your collective network remains invisible. Your shared connections go unnoticed. These missed opportunities of leveraging relationships can result in lost revenues.
Not nurturing the right connections
First impressions matter. There are certain connections that help you leapfrog to the front of the line. Not picking the right person for a crucial introduction could be getting in the way of you closing deals.
Miss real-time signals
In the digital age, delayed information has serious business costs. The market is evolving at break-neck speed, and nobody can be expected to keep up with all the new information. A tool that keeps up with real-time updates is a key differentiator.
Incorrect data
We live in the age of noise. Data relevant to your business is almost always wrapped up in junk information. If you are constantly drowning in vast data sets, then you might need a tool that efficiently analyses and sorts out the information.
Misplaced strategy
Multiple platforms, huge ad spends, expensive SaaS tools, but underwhelming traction and business growth. This is the story of most organisations working without effective data-based insights. Without the right strategy, organisations often end up pouring vast resources into dead-ends.
Unused software
The best analogy for spendthrift SaaS expenditure is a home cook with a cupboard full of vegetable peelers but no vegetables to peel. Investing in a unique SaaS solution is essential to stand out from the competition.
Why choose Relationship Intelligence?
A Relationship Intelligence platform is the perfect addition to your existing tech stack. It augments your current solutions.
The magic of a Relationship Intelligence platform
A Relationship Intelligence platform stands at the intersection of various SaaS tools. It can integrate with existing sales enablement and marketing tools to enrich their capabilities and multiply their impact.
Analytical
Automated Enriched Integrated
We probably have a few thousand connections. But the greater the number of connections, the harder it is to reach them. Good and deep relationships are key to getting business and repeat business as well.
I think nurturing these relationships further is really important. Sudhanwa Rajukar, Co-Founder of Coreview Systems
Automated
Reduce manual effort
Relationship Intelligence automates contact and deal data capture. It also captures contact information from every email, meeting, and calendar invite, including retroactive information dating back to the start of your inbox.
Ensure business continuity
Retaining your team’s contact history. This means surfacing every interaction your team has had—dating back to the start of their inboxes—so you have a more complete picture of your data.
Automate LinkedIn contacts data capture Gather relevant LinkedIn connections’ data automatically.
Enriched
Analytical
Enrich your internal data
RI automatically enriches your contacts data (people and companies) with contextual info — demographic and firmographic data.
Get greater context for every deal
RI accesses key industry data with ease, expanding your team’s access to relevant industry data — business relationships, technographic data, financials, and news.
Derive insights to find, manage, and close deals
RI enhances existing data and provides insights into your business relationships and customer interactions to find, manage, and close deals.
Discover new opportunities
RI rates your relationship network based on interactions which can open doors to new opportunities.
Uncover your extended network
RI harnesses your shared network to access thousands of new untapped relationships — not just of your colleagues and team members — but also clients, partners, vendors, prospects, and competitors.
Explore interconnectedness in your network
See how your clients, partners, vendors, prospects, competitors, and the people you do business with are related to one another to discover hidden opportunities.
Integrated
Integrate your tech stack with automated Relationship Intelligence
Leverage native and custom integrations to connect with apps your team uses every day — CRM, sales enablement tools, email marketing platforms, etc.
Why choose Relationship-Led Growth?
Businesses are under a constant pressure to create or remain a market authority. They adopt various growth strategies towards this — Market-Led, Product-Led, or Sales-Led — which are effort intensive, unsustainable, and put a lot of pressure on companies to innovate. What's more, they are highly replicable and perishable.
Adopting Relationship-Led Growth (RLG) gives you a long-term sustainable advantage.
That's because your relationships are unique to you. And this Definitive Guide shows you how your relationships can become your business moat, helping you retain a competitive edge in the long run.
Your relationships are scattered all over the place. Something that connects all these dots and points us in the right direction — that would be a marketer’s dream.
Vishwas Mahajan, Founder of Whizible
Making the case for a Relationship Intelligence platform
Relationship Intelligence platform: Pathways of
growth
Most businesses operate at two levels: a formal economy of revenue, profits and bottom lines, and a parallel 'relationship economy'. Meeting a business acquaintance for coffee or a round of golf, or catching up with an old colleague over lunch all form part of this.
The meeting might be a one-off, or evolve into a casual friendship. The person might become part of your larger business network. But it is hard to put a finger on when all of these investments in relationships will translate into a sale or a deal.
That's because the relationship economy is not very well-understood, and relationships — the key currency in this economy — are rarely well tracked.
Relationship Intelligence is changing that. Here's how RI unlocks a few broad pathways to business growth.
Data automation
The opt-in database of RI provides you with high-quality data that can multiply the effectiveness of your marketing automation tools.
It eliminates the manual entry of information, and centralises all relationship data in one place. People across teams get access to real-time, updated and complete data.
Sales opportunities
Relationship Intelligence tools can get you access to new prospects hidden in your collective network.
Every new connection added to your network multiplies your reach, providing you with fresh leads.
You can gauge customer intent better to find hot prospects, with reduced time to close leads.
Targeted marketing
RI tools allow you access to better quality prospects, allowing you to market to your niche audience.
Relationship Intelligence screens your relationship network to create a warm, tailor-made audience. This can help customise and fine-tune your marketing efforts with the right context, intel or scoop.
Revenue
RI shortens the sales cycle, increases the sales pipeline and provides upselling opportunity along with targeted marketing.
RI integrates sales, marketing and optimises customer success functions.
All this collectively accelerates revenue.
Marrying business goals with RI
ROI on your Relationship Intelligence platform
Even in the fast-paced world of business, the value of Relationship Intelligence is proven and measurable. more warm introduction paths discovered 7x increase in opportunities pipeline 4x increase in revenue growth Quarter on Quarter 29% increase in number of contacts 20x increase in meetings per rep 37% increase in pipeline Quarter on Quarter 43%
And one of the learnings that I have had in my career is that the best opportunities can actually come in the most unpredictable ways, and from the most unpredictable places.
Makarand
Khatavkar, Founder of myTsugi
Positioning a Relationship Intelligence platform for business leaders
Revenue
Ensure productivity in teams, centralizes your team’s data, and build relationships, allowing people to generate more sales conversations and revenue.
Ensure prioritisation of tasks.
Measure the strength of your relationships, track any changes in your network, and direct sales activities.
Replicate successful outcomes.
Maps sales outcomes to your relationship network, and create a straightforward path to more revenue.
Sales
Whether it is entering contact details or research, automation allows your sales team to focus on tasks that matter.
Every lead closed becomes part of your network, uncovering new opportunities.
Provides crucial context for prospective leads.
Marketing
Use your organisation’s collective network to provide a 20x warmer database that improves campaign performance.
Automate data enrichment which can help with market segmentation.
Maximise ROI of your network.
Extract valuable relationship information from your current digital touchpoints to derive maximum ROI.
Build and nurture new relationships. C-suite
Strategic HR
For specialised functions and niche HR sectors like talent hunting, Relationship Intelligence can narrow down the search, increase the talent pipeline and shorten the time-to-hire.
Relationship Intelligence:
A brave new frontier
For decades, the bank passbook was a covenant of trust. And regular bank visits for its periodic updation — every week or month — represented a renewal of the public’s faith in the banks. Then, in the early 2000s, one of the big four private banks in India caused ripples when they levied (short–lived) charges for bank visits. This policy, designed to promote digital adoption, was deemed ‘customer unfriendly’ by traditional banks and their customers.
Two decades on, the seamlessness of a bank's digital interface and reliability of its digital infrastructure are indispensable to good customer relationships. The passbook — once a generation's covenant of trust — has turned into another generation's chore. And the banks who were early movers on the digital front are now miles ahead of their peers.
To reiterate the point, relationships are at the core of every business. Like digitisation in the banking space, Relationship Intelligence is a brave new frontier for many traditional sectors where relationships play a key role. How these businesses adapt to change now will directly affect their future.
Relationship Intelligence platform: Sector-specific use cases
Enterprise SaaS
With Enterprise SaaS, deal sizes often run into hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. The sales cycles are long, and the decision-making is complex and non-standard.
Here, RI can help you discover the decision-making structure of the company. RI analysis tools can provide crucial context and information that allows you to tailor your approach.
With such large amounts involved, Enterprise SaaS companies are also risk averse when it comes to new deals. So a warm introduction can help you close the deal faster.
Venture Capital / Private Equity
IT Services and Consulting
Venture Capital is a crowded space — with a glut of money and few takers. Most VC fund managers are fighting on two fronts — getting startups on board and expanding the base of limited partners.
This requires them to constantly keep track of their network of entrepreneurs, and gain immense credibility in the network of HNIs.
Warm introductions, relationship network mapping, and data automation all add immense value to the workflow of VC companies.
Like Enterprise SaaS, IT Services and Consulting companies involve big-ticket deals. But these behemoths are often hesitant to change vendors, because of the complications in shifting service providers and the stringent and byzantine regulations to be navigated. So getting leads is hard.
Then, there are layers of decision makers, and a huge marathon of a sales cycle. RI tools are able to add value by tracking various relationships and uncovering connections in the network.
They also uncover shorter paths by which you can move your deals forward.
In pursuing sales, we have tried multiple options, done a number of things. But we found the most effective way is tapping into our own network.
Ajay Deshmukh, Co-Founder of Acumna Consulting
Common misconceptions about picking a Relationship Intelligence platform
“We already have a sales and marketing tech stack in place”
A Relationship Intelligence platform can seamlessly integrate with existing sales and marketing tech stack and make them more efficient. They won’t replace them outright but can enrich and enhance them for their optimal use.
“We have a very niche market/audience”
This is an ideal scenario for Relationship Intelligence tools, which offer you a picture of the true relationships in your network. It uncovers high quality prospects that can greatly enhance your targeted marketing efforts.
“We are a huge team and adapting a new tool into our existing workflow is a challenge”
A Relationship Intelligence platform can automate a lot of tasks, and reduce your work effort. This means there is no additional work beyond the initial set-up. Once it gets running, it is able to adapt new information and deliver clear actionable insights.
“Our organisation’s business functions have very diverse objectives”
Relationship Intelligence tools can be customised to work on the objectives of a business function or individual teams. This can deliver tailored results that can optimise workflows and increase efficiency across different verticals.
Since Relationship Intelligence is a relatively new concept, people might have a hard time getting teammates or the management onboard. Here’s a few common scenarios you might encounter.
“We don’t have the bandwidth to pick up a new tool”
The managed-services model will help your organisation hit the ground running, while customising the Relationship Intelligence platform to your organisation’s workflow.
Bridging the chasm between purchasing and adopting SaaS products
We are in a state of SaaS sprawl. Companies are increasingly adopting Saas products, but their usage is falling. Some studies suggest that across organisations, less than 45% of apps are used on a regular basis. Less than 17% of people use SaaS products daily. Only 14% use it once a week.
There are lots of reasons this has happened — the boom in demand for cloud-based services, a Product-Led Growth strategy, and increased acceptance of subscriber churn. But the important question is, will your Relationship Intelligence tool lie unused like other SaaS products on your desk, largely ignored until the subscription has to be renewed?
An adoption and accountability manager, who helps set-up and promote the adoption of the product, could be a key differentiator in the space.
For those evangelizing the importance of Relationship-Led Growth, a managed services model (MSaaS) makes sense.
This means that along with automation and intelligence, you get in-person support that should help you start using the RI product quickly.
All this is done so you can hit the ground running, with as little friction as possible.
When we deal with larger organisations as customers... there are different people at different levels; there are decision-makers, there are influencers and there are end-users. So building a relationship with all of them is key.
Makarand Vaidya, Co-Founder of Coreview Systems
The benefits of a MSaaS model outweigh the costs, and is something service providers should seriously think of.
Better integration with existing workflows
Ondemand training and workshops
Greater support in resolving queries Explore bespoke use cases Consulting and coaching for internal teams
Choosing
So we’ve learned about the concept of Relationship-Led Growth. Only, this isn’t just a concept. It’s here and now. Mitibase is a self-learning AI that accelerates revenue. It is a Relationship Intelligence tool that puts your business network in autopilot. It puts your connections to work by putting them into context.
Mitibase is the shortest path to greater revenue
AURA framework
Automates
aggregation, enrichment, and contextualization of relationship data from emails, calendars, LinkedIn, and CRM across the organisation.
Unveils
hidden low-hanging revenue opportunities, connection paths, intel, and scoops to close them faster.
Recommends
the right next steps with signals, alerts, new opportunities, and new connection paths.
Accelerates
adoption of this intelligence with intuitive workflows and smart integrations.
The AURA framework presents a new way of unlocking value from your connections
A self-learning Relationship Intelligence platform
Build
(Knowledge graph and network)
Publicly available data
Understand Discover
(Graph analytics and network science)
(Opportunities)
Map Deep Learn Response
Email, calendar, CRM, LinkedIn, spreadsheets, contact books.
3rd
party sources
Mitibase data & knowledge base A self-organizing business graph
New opportunities, signal and scoops, relationship intel, next best action, analytics
Mitibase enables companies to sync, map, and understand relationship data from CRMs, social networks, communication streams, publicly available data, and 3rd party sources.
