vlerick sales conference: selling in the digital era/media/corporate/pdf-general/devarangar… ·...

VLERICK SALES CONFERENCE: SELLING IN THE DIGITAL ERA

PROF DR DEVA RANGARAJAN

© Vlerick Business School

AGENDA

Improve & Align Sales Activity with the Informed Customer (0900-1030)

The Omni-channel Imperative (1100-1230)

Disruptive selling – How technology is changing the world and how sales organisations sell and organise themselves to create value (1330-1500)

Framework for Customer Success: Sales Relationship Process Matrix (1530-1700)

Prof Dr Deva Rangarajan2

OUR RESEARCH



CHALLENGES FACING SALES MANAGERS

Six things keeping sales executives up at night:

Source: Neil Rackham session at the Global Sales Science Institute meet- Milan 2011

1. The end of the “better mouse-trap” model




2. The death of Face2Face (F2F) transactional selling




3. Unsustainable hybrid sales force




4. The ever extending sales cycle




5. The increase of RFP selling




6. Skyrocketing costs of chasing an opportunity

OUR RESEARCH



STUDY 1: VLERICK SALES BAROMETER

List of 40 questions

Focus on procurement trends, structuring the sales effort, role of marketing, sales force enablement, sales force performance management


DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS

12

35

32

18

SME

Multi-National

Other

85

7015


TRENDS IN PROCUREMENT:

13

33,2

3,43,6

3,84

Traditional cold calling

approaches do not work

Sales Cycle times are

becoming longer

Social Selling

Online Searchers

TCO focus

Value adding sales visit

3,3

3,6

3,6

3,8

3,8

3,9

On a scale from 1 to 5


STRUCTURING THE SALES EFFORT

14

2,8 3 3,2 3,4 3,6 3,8

Clear guidelines about when to work with indirect

sales

Clear idea about the pains of every member of the

decision making unit in the customer’s organization.

We clearly differentiate our sales approach based

on the complexity of the sales process.

An exact understanding of the needs of every

customer segment

We clearly link every feature of our solution

(product + value added services) to the specific

need of the customer?

An understanding of the specific sales process per

customer segment.

Clear and easy to understand criteria for

segmenting customers

3,15

3,20

3,31

3,40

3,43

3,54

3,76



MARKETING NEEDS TO PLAY A MORE STRATEGIC ROLE IN:

15

3,70 3,80 3,90 4,00 4,10 4,20

Developing customer specific

content

Track and monitor customer

activity on digital channels

Customer segmentation

Mapping customer journeys and

pain points

Lead generation and qualification

4,14

4,08

4,01

3,95

3,87

Averages on a scale from 1 to 5


SALES FORCE ENABLEMENT

16

2,7 2,8 2,9 3 3,1 3,2

Internal support team to create

customer value propositions

Easy to implement account planning

processes

Qualified leads are put in the CRM

system

We have an education system in

place ot train us on hi-tech tools

We have an easy to use CRM tool

Lead generation by marketing

department

We have tools to deliver latest

content at customer’s premises

Easy to access call management

tools

2,9

2,9

3

3,1

3,1

3,2

3,2

3,2



SUGGESTIONS

Over resource the best opportunities

Take opportunity selection out of the hands of the salespeople

Involve marketing and marketing tools in opportunity selection

Push transactional opportunities to cheaper channels

Develop clear strategies to manage multichannel marketing efforts

Upgrade the sales enablement efforts

Equip your sales managers to deal with managing the sales force during this transition


STUDY 2: DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS USAGE BY B2B CUSTOMERS

Ecommerce SaaS (A)

Security (B)

Furniture (C)

Telco (D) Healthcare (E)

Total of contacts 536 + 13813 = 14349

200 + 504 = 704

3299 + 5511 = 8810

6321 7700

Questionnairewas sent

13390 580 8541 6310 6519

Dates whenquestionnairewas sent

6.10.2015;13.11.-17.11.2015

23.10.,3.11., 11.11., 18.11.

9.10.-13.10.2015

9.10.-12.10.2015

9.10.-12.10.2015

Respondingperiod

6.10.2015-9.12.2015

23.10.2015-29.11.2015

9.10.2015-17.11.2015

9.10.2015-13.11.2015

9.10.2015-24.11.2015

Responses 710 41 763 276 568


RESPONSE RATE

Invitation to participate was sent to 35 340 email addresses

Approximately 7690 was not reached (invalidemail address etc.)

Approximately 27650 were reached

Response rate approximately 8,5%

Total of responses received 2358


USE OF DIGITAL TOOLS BEFORE AND AFTERTHE PURCHASE

During information search before the purchasedecision respondents rate search engine, website, online payment system and email as the most important digital tools.

After the purchase decision email, online payment system and website are rated as themost important digital tools among B2B customers.


IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL TOOLS

0

1

2

3

4

54,0 3,9 3,8 3,7

3,1 3,0 3,0 2,8 2,7 2,6 2,5 2,4 2,3 2,2 2,1 2,0

3,3 3,43,6 3,7

3,02,8

3,23,0

2,5 2,4 2,4 2,3 2,2 2,1 2,1 1,9

Before purchase After purchase


STUDY 3: KRALJIC MATRIX AND THE MARKETING MESSAGE


WE NEED YOUR HELP

Research Study 1: Best practices in complex selling situations

Research Study 2: Understanding the impact of social media on integrated marketing communication of B2B companies

Research Study 3: Vlerick-SAS forecasting maturity model


THANK YOU!

EMAIL: [email protected] IN: BE.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/DEVARANGARAJANWEB: HTTP://WWW.VLERICK.COM/SEC

mailto:[email protected]

vlerick sales conference: selling in the digital era/media/corporate/pdf-general/devarangar… ·...

Documents