Technical Win

SA Technical Win

A Technical Win for a GitLab Solutions Architect is more than just a successful demo. It’s about achieving technical validation and building profound confidence within the customer’s technical stakeholder group that GitLab is the optimal and sustainable technical solution to meet their specific needs, address their pain points, and align with their strategic technical roadmap.

Definition: Technical Win for GitLab Solutions Architecture

A Technical Win is achieved when the customer’s key technical stakeholders (e.g., engineering leads, architects, DevOps engineers, security specialists) formally:

1. Validate Technical Fit & Feasibility: They confirm that GitLab’s capabilities demonstrably meet or exceed the required capabilities, operational workflows, and security standards necessary to solve their specific pain points, provide the expected quantifiable value, and drive their desired outcomes. This includes understanding how GitLab integrates with their existing ecosystem and how it solves their specific, identified technical challenges.
2. Gain Confidence & Trust in GitLab: They express a high level of confidence in GitLab’s technical solution and the the ability for GitLab to partner on their success. This often stems from successful technical deep-dives, demos, effective objection handling, and/or a successful Proof of Value (POV) or SA validated technical evaluation.
3. Identify GitLab as the Preferred Solution: They see GitLab as the clear leader or the most advantageous technical choice compared to alternative solutions or their current state, understanding the unique value proposition of GitLab.
4. Mitigate Technical Risk: Any technical concerns, objections, or perceived implementation risks have been successfully addressed, neutralized, or clearly defined with a mitigation plan that matches the significance of the concern/objection/risk.
5. Establish a Technical Champion: A key technical stakeholder within the customer organization emerges as an internal advocate for GitLab, actively championing the solution within their peer group and higher-level technical management.

What a Technical Win IS (and IS NOT)

A Technical Win IS:

• Customer-centric validation: The customer’s technical team believes the solution with address their pain points and drive their desired outcomes.
• Problem-solving focused: GitLab is seen as the answer to the specific pain points they are looking to address.
• Foundation for the commercial close: It removes technical blockers for the Sales team.
• Documented alignment: Clear understanding and agreement on the technical solution. This is provided in a POV readout and often as part of a Customer Success Plan.

A Technical Win IS NOT:

• The financial close: It’s possible to get a technical win and lose the sales opportunity based on non technical factors (e.g., budget, organizational changes, etc., poor business qaulification, etc.)
• Just a feature demonstration: It goes beyond showing features to proving direct relevance and value.
• Simply checking off a requirements list: It involves understanding why a requirement exists and demonstrating how GitLab uniquely addresses it.
• Ignoring technical concerns: It means proactively addressing and resolving them.
• Simply executing an activity or activities defined by GitLab It’s a process of building trust and customer-validation throughout the consideration phases of the customer journey. Specifically, Scoping and Evaluation.

Possible Indications of a Technical Win

The following are common indicators that a technical win may have been achieved. It’s possible to have some of these indicators and not yet the technical win. These indicators to not replace the formal definition of a technical win, above.

• Verbal or written confirmation from technical leads: Examples: “This looks like it will solve our problem,” or “We’re confident GitLab can handle X.”
• Active engagement in solution design: Technical teams eagerly participate in discussions on implementation, architecture, and migration.
• Reduced number/intensity of technical objections: Concerns shift from “if” to “how.”
• Customer technical team becomes an internal advocate: They start defending GitLab’s position internally.
• Successful completion of POV/Evaluation criteria: If a POV is executed, its technical objectives are met and validated by the customer.
• Clear next technical steps defined and agreed upon: Moving to integration planning, phased rollout discussions, PS scoping.
• Positive feedback to the Account Executive: The technical team communicates their confidence to their sales counterpart.