This study examines the determinants of pre-sales success in business-to-business cybersecurity solution sales at PT AT. A qualitative, interpretivist, abductive single-case design was used with individual sales opportunities as sub-units of analysis. Evidence combined written responses and confirmed interview notes from eight informants, an internal dataset of 78 opportunities, and detailed tracing of 14 opportunities. Most opportunities never reached technical testing. Of the 78 opportunities examined, 71.79% stopped before any technical evaluation took place, while only 6.41% were ultimately realized. Early-stage failures rarely stemmed from a single cause. Instead, they reflected two layers of barriers. One consisted of conditions that appeared across product categories, including low urgency, needs that had not been adequately validated, budget constraints, and incomplete stakeholder mapping. The other was more specific to the category being sold, including market unfamiliarity, incumbent lock-in, and commercial decision considerations. Proof-of-Concept success depended not on the absence of scope change, but on separating agreed core criteria from additional scenarios. Relationship strength, institutional credibility, customer readiness, role clarity, and information quality across functions also shaped outcomes. The study proposes a four-element process model comprising a qualification gate, differentiated approaches by barrier type, a structured PoC criteria protocol, and systematic lost-deal logging. The model is evidence-based but has not yet been implemented or empirically evaluated.
 

B2B cybersecurity, pre-sales, solution selling, Proof of Concept, organizational buying, qualitative case study