$4.$ Scenario: You are meeting with a customer and asking some questions as part of your discovery efforts. In the room are the head of IT operations, and the lead DevOps engineer.

In response to a question about what they need in an application platform, the lead DevOps engineer says:

$$Red Hat OpenShift is quite opinionated. We prefer to build our own platform.$$

You have already acknowledged the objection.

Question: Which $2$ clarifying questions would help you gain more information about this objection and help you position a response?

$($Choose all correct answers$)$

Do you need a service mesh?

Are you using serverless technologies?

What advantages do you feel come with building your own platform?

What concerns you about Red Hat OpenShift$$s more opinionated approach?

$5.$ Scenario: You are a senior technical seller who is mentoring a more junior seller. They have asked you to accompany them on a customer engagement to observe and provide feedback. The junior seller is delivering a technical pitch on Red Hat OpenShift.

During the customer meeting the customer raises an objection: $$Honestly$,$ Red Hat OpenShift looks way too complex for what we require. You covered a lot of features that I do not think we need. At this stage I feel that Kubernetes is probably OK for our needs today. Red Hat OpenShift will just complicate things.$$

After the meeting the junior seller asks you how you would respond to this objection.

Specifically, they want to know how you would acknowledge this objection.

Question: Which of the choices below would be a good acknowledgement for this objection?

$$I understand.$$

$$Technical complexity can definitely make things harder for a team, and it would be frustrating to pay for capabilities and features you do not use.$$

$$In our experience Kubernetes is not enough.$$

$$Red Hat OpenShift is not complex, not when compared to what you will have to manage with Kubernetes$.$

$6.$ Scenario: You are meeting with the Lead Developer and Head of the IT Operations team at your customer.

They have an existing Kubernetes environment built upon $1$ of the freely available, minimalist Kubernetes distributions. They have customized it with a number of additional components.

You are pitching the value of Red Hat OpenShift. In response to your pitch they say:

$$Look$,$ we already have an existing Kubernetes environment. It works fine for us$.$ Red Hat OpenShift would be a change that gives us something we already have.$$

Question: Of the choices below, what would be the strongest way to acknowledge this objection?

$($Choose all correct answers$)$

$$I am glad to hear your current environment is working for you. Any proposed change can incur cost, so it should generate real, tangible benefits for the team and organization.$$

$$It is important to maintain your freedom to pivot to new vendors or technologies if you choose to do so$,$ and avoiding technology lock$-$in is key to maintaining that freedom.$$

$$Technical complexity can make things harder for a team, particularly when elements of the platform provide no perceived value for the team.$$

$$Making full use of the technologies that you have chosen to invest in is crucial to generating a meaningful return on the investment in those technologies.$$