While the company has been building momentum on its own, Braineet CEO, Jonathan Livescault, said that connecting with Microsoft GTM Services has accelerated the pace of their success and quickly led to concrete results.” As an enterprise software as a service (SaaS) company, co-selling with Microsoft brings us outstanding credibility and value,” he said. “Working with Microsoft GTM Services over the past two years has helped Braineet nearly double its revenue and has generated wins with eight new and loyal enterprise clients, including Renault, EDF, Engie, and Galeries Lafayette. We also shortened our sales cycle by 20 percent on these wins.”
Livescault explained how Braineet works with sales teams at Microsoft. “We work closely with different sales teams in Paris and are starting to liaise with international teams in the United States. and in the United Kingdom as well,” he said. “Microsoft account managers include Braineet in their offering spectrum when collaborative innovation is at stake before co-selling it with a Braineet executive. We win business together because Braineet fits very well in Microsoft’s environment in a booming market.”
Earlier this year, Microsoft teams introduced Braineet to the French utility company EDF, which needed to better listen to their employees. Braineet adapted fast by launching its new solution, ‘Braineet for Employees’ for internal crowdsourcing. EDF’s Shared Services Department (SSD), the key support department within the EDF group, chose Braineet because they wanted to better align with the actual needs of their employees.
With seven departments involved in the project, the Braineet for Employees platform enabled every department to manage its different challenges from their own customized dashboard, assess relevant ideas, and track their progress. With more than 800 ideas generated, and a wealth of knowledge and best practices shared, the project has been a genuine success for EDF. “We are working closely with EDF to enable them to fully capture their employees' intelligence, and to get the agility to bring their ideas to life,” Livescault said. “Microsoft GTM Services connected us with EDF, so we appreciate the collaboration on this win, as well as many others.”
Livescault noted that the first win implemented by EDF a few weeks after their use of Braineet was about Office 365. “The most upvoted idea from EDF’s employees was ‘What if we enabled the email recall function in Outlook 2016?’ For some reason it was disabled by the IT department,” he said. “They implemented this quickly and improved employees’ experience with Office.”
Braineet and Microsoft also worked together to help another French electric utility company, Engie. “On another win with Microsoft, we are enabling Engie to directly integrate their fully-fledged and customized ideation platform into their customer interface to crowdsource better solutions with their customers,” Livescault said. “Microsoft helped by reassuring the sponsors during the buying process.”
For Livescault, the benefits of working with Microsoft GTM Services are clear. “Braineet benefits from Microsoft’s unique network and expertise in the B2B software landscape,” he said. “This co-selling partnership enables us to talk to more executives in more companies, at a faster pace than if we had been on our own.”