For many firms, cloud-based content management and training delivery tools are just another expense, a fact of doing business. Thanks to a new move from Convey Services, however, the former expense of such tools could be a new revenue stream just by turning to Convey's new Platform as a Profit Center (PaaPC) system.
The PaaPC system allows users to take training materials and similar matter and open them up to outside users, allowing businesses to let other businesses use their training materials for a price. This is also useful for suppliers with a need to connect to sales agents, or those who want information about a company's products and services, essentially telling the potential customer everything—or at least everything it's willing to make public—the company would tell a sales rep.
Convey's PaaPC allows companies to shrink the time-to-value proposition, making what was an expense in the custom software and training materials developed into a development expense that can eventually turn into a profit. Convey Solutions CEO Carolyn Bradfield elaborated “Suppliers upload content, training and events to the platform, add promotional graphics, create calls to action and form direct relationships with agents and sales partners. In addition to channel sales groups, other key market verticals that have a defined audience can use Platform as a Profit Center to market memberships, advertising and online subscriptions.”
Essentially, with Convey's PaaPC, companies can turn training materials into a marketable product line. While not everyone will be interested in such a product—no one wants to know, for example, the secrets of the company that's dead last in the market—and not everyone will be willing to fork over every bit of information a company has about selling, it's still an idea that's worth pursuing. After all, the company that's ahead in the market can offer up a few morsels of its key sales methods, which other companies might well be willing to pay for. Naturally, not every secret finds its way into the mix, but the companies that do get a new way to access revenue. Throw in the ability to more rapidly disseminate information internally, and the picture improves.
Taking what's already on hand and turning it into a revenue stream is just smart business. It's not necessarily new; regular people have done this for years in the form of yard sales and private blogs. Convey's offering, however, allows an easier way for businesses to engage in that breed of smart business, and will likely represent some new product offerings in the near term.
Edited by Maurice Nagle