Exploring the Presales Process in High-Tech Companies

The presales process takes place before closing the deal between a company and a customer. Presales teams engage with customers to understand their needs and support them in purchasing decisions. Presales employees need to combine both technical and business skills as they communicate with multiple entities, such as customers, sales, technical teams, and others. A well-defined presales process helps companies acquire more customers. Therefore, this study aims to explore the presales process by defining the main activities, stakeholders, and the needed skills to develop a competent presales team. Multiple presales employees from varied experiences, entities, and countries were interviewed to study the presales process. Then, qualitative analysis was applied to the interview responses. Analysis results show the possible scenarios for engaging presales in opportunities and the main presales activities. The study identifies the deliverables from the presales teams, the stakeholders involved in the presales process, and the needed skills that the presales team should acquire to increase the competency of team members.