This month on Meet the Hiring Managers, we’re chatting with our Commercial Sales Director, Matt Hallett, to talk customer satisfaction, collaboration and caring about the right things.
Tell me about your role within Namos.
I’m the Commercial Sales Director at Namos, working on sales activities within the commercial sector. I bring in services and fees for our services, including implementations, upgrades, managed services, and enhancements, from a Namos point of view. At the same time, we’re working within the Oracle economy, and so we’re developing and supporting Oracle sales alongside that. Every implementation we pursue is alongside Oracle – our role is to make sure that customers understand the technology, but, more importantly, that they understand how that technology is best deployed and used. That’s where Namos come in. Oracle are very good at selling the product, but Namos and Oracle together are particularly good at selling the product with it’s benefits and the business outcomes it creates. My role is to ensure that we have the right pursuits in place – that we’re reaching out to organisations who understand the Oracle / Namos story, who understand what “good” looks like, and ultimately how we can help them achieve it.
Can you talk me through your previous experience?
I’ve been working in Oracle sales for 22 years. In that time I’ve seen the Oracle world change from the heavy lifting required for on-premise implementations to the SaaS world, where deployment is a very different beast! I’ve seen the Oracle marketplace change from the on-premise world of E-Business Suite and the challenges Oracle faced in turning that massive liner around. I joined a small organisation called Mokum Change Management in 2000 – I was employee number 11, and the lone salesperson! It was a fantastic group of people, with 3 inspirational leaders who grew Mokum to over 160 people in the next 15 years. Our reputation grew, and we became the market leader in our sector. During that time, I went from being the lone salesperson to running a team of 8-9 salespeople, all pure Oracle sales specialists. Mokum were acquired by PwC in 2014, and my role changed. I spent 4 years helping PwC grow their Oracle practice, in an environment where direct sales wasn’t the natural fit for their business model. I left after 4 years, before moving to another Oracle partner. I’d worked with Chris Mason and Richard Eltham at Mokum, and we re-joined forces when I joined Namos. Coming to Namos felt like coming back to work in an environment where I’d been happiest. I’ve been here for 2 years now.
What led you to join Namos?
I’d worked with Chris and Rich for many years beforehand. I know that they understand what good looks like, and that they know exactly how to deploy Cloud – moving from an on-premise to a SaaS world, not every Oracle partner does! Namos understands what is important, and that is the customer – it’s not the technology or indeed just how you implement it, it’s what is the customer looking to achieve, and how we can create those outcomes with the correct use of the technology. What is good going to look like for the customer? That was the Mokum view, and now it’s the Namos view. The customer is invariably right! Technology is the enabler; it underpins what an organisation needs to be doing. I know that is how Chris and Rich think, and it is clearly what I was happy to jump on board with..
What do you love about working for Namos?
Namos care about the right things: what is the best thing to do for the customer? What is good going to look like, especially on the day we leave the customer (if indeed, we do leave!) It’s about the long-term view: what will the customer be happy with? What will they remember Namos for? What will they come back to us for? It’s important to have a culture which is based around doing the right thing, shaping the right outcomes, and having a team ethic. There is a brilliant culture in Namos. It gets harder as we get bigger to keep that and not dilute it, but we take pride in our culture of teamwork, collaboration, and trust in our colleagues, and I know for a fact that this ethos quickly becomes apparent to the customer too.
Talk me through the typical roles you recruit for within your team.
I recruit Business Development Specialists from the Oracle world. I look for pure salespeople who are focused on finding the right opportunities, and the right organisations for us to target: do they understand Oracle? Do they have the budget for it? Will they see the value it can add? I look for people who know that we are doing this for a reason: to help the customer out, not to sell any form of technology for the sake of it. As a team, we’re focused on shaping the right behaviours, offering the right solution for the right organisation, and making sure we’re aligned with Oracle and working collaboratively. There’s no point in Namos turning left and Oracle turning right! We’re all in the same boat together.
What qualities would make someone a good fit for your team?
Someone who can collaborate and is genuinely team-focused, who realises that it isn’t all about themselves. There isn’t a salesperson out there who can sell Oracle products without support or input from our SMEs. As I’ve said, it isn’t all about technology, and if someone can understand why we’re looking to sell our solution in the first place, they’ll have a good basis for fitting into the team.
Which aspects of your work are you most passionate about?
Customer satisfaction, doing a good job and knowing that we’ve had an honest and engaging relationship is what it’s all about for me. What satisfies me most is repeat business from an organisation who bought from us for the first time and see the value in using us again to improve their own organisation’s performance. In those cases, we’ve done exactly what was said on the tin, everyone understood what was happening and why, and some honest and open conversations were had.
What does the future look like for your team?
The future looks incredibly positive! We’ve got great stock within Oracle, and the Namos reputation of delivering excellence is solidly out there in the marketplace. Once you have that cornerstone of reliability and positive reputation, going into new areas with Oracle is what I’m looking to do. We’re established in several sectors, but there are more sectors to move into. We want to maintain the sectors we’re in and move into new ones. Our delivery team are great at understanding different sectors, as many of them have worked within them. We take people from an end user capacity – the police force, for example – and they will understand how we best deploy and what matters within that sector. Going into those new sectors keeps me excited for the future!
What advice would you give to candidates starting out in the Oracle world?
You need to have a passion for what you do – otherwise it very quickly mechanically becomes a job, which isn’t going to help you do the hours that are needed to make the role successful. Your customers won’t believe you either. You need passion and sincerity, and a belief in the Oracle product. Without these three things, you won’t get very far. Choose a career that you are passionate about. If you are interested in it, brilliant – if you’re not, it’s not for you. Think long term and focus on creating a good reputation and the rest falls into place a little more easily.
Join us again next month, when we’ll be chatting with our newly appointed HR Business Partner, Larissa Nieuwkoop!
About Namos Solutions
Namos Solutions are an award-winning Oracle OPN Modernised Partner specialising in the implementation and support of ERP, EPM and HCM business solutions, both in the Cloud and on-premise.
Although based in central London, we work wherever our clients need us to be. Many leading organisations located all over the world trust and rely on our expertise to deliver industry-leading business solutions. Namos customers can currently be found in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America and Africa.
For more information, please visit www.namossolutions.com or email info@namossolutions.com.
Follow Namos Solutions at LinkedIn and Twitter.
