Generative AI - Changing the World, Key Players and Their Progress

 Generative AI - Changing the World, Key Players and Their Progress - Part One

 

IT and Digital Sales Business Case Drivers - Single Page View

IT Sales Business Case Drivers - Single Page View

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The nature of the IT Industry has evolved in a post-digital era. Today, IT is primarily divided into 2 domains, that is Traditional (inc. legacy) and Digital. 

Traditional technology and domain are about cost management, risk mitigation and functional fulfilment, whereas Digital is about revenue protection and generation (demand generation), taking risks and creating new seamless experiences. 

With this segmentation of IT and its business function in play, the positioning of Sales Business Cases and Calibrating triggers has changed in the Digital Era. 

Key factors to influence are highlighted below: 

• Growth Enabler 
• IT is Linear 
• Digital is Exponential 
• Complexity Resolution 
•  IT is about Predictability 
•  Digital is through Resilience, Adaptability, Scale 
• Competition 
• IT - against the Companies 
• Digital - against the Companies and their Ecosystem 
• Spending 
• IT - CIO driven 
•  Digital - CXO, BU Head and CDO driven 
• Economics 
• IT - Increase in Marginal Cost leads to Increase in Marginal Revenue 
• Digital - minimal increase in Marginal Cost leads to higher Marginal Revenue (true network effects and platform economy to be in play) 
• Pricing 
• IT (Commodity) - Price is the key driver, as long as the Risk of doing business is minimal and Functionality is fulfilled 
• Digital (Premium) - Price is not the key, it is Agility, Scale, Resiliency and CX. 
• Saying “No” to price discounts or relief and being pressurised for work is key to maintaining premium positioning. 
• Insights 
• IT - know their problems and look for bargains, operational insights are valuable.
• Digital - needs Commercial Insights, not Thought Leadership (it's a commodity now).
• Roadmap Know How 
• IT - IT Strategy is driven via Business Strategy. 
• Digital - Corporate Strategy spectrum and then Business Strategy. 
• Commercial Engagement 
• IT - MSA or BSA driven 
• Digital - 30 to 40% reduction on MSA or a skeleton of MSA being leveraged, in some cases non-existent

first published on Linkedin 

Source: Gartner

Future of Telecom Network - Smart and Intelligent

 

Weekend Reading

 My predictions on Macro Economic View of Australia FY23

How Humans and AI are Collaborating 

The B2B Lead Gen Stumbling Blocks and How to Overcome Them

Given the complex nature of B2B lead generation, it goes without saying that there are plenty of stumbling blocks that can hinder lead gen efforts. With this in mind, we’re diving into the common pain points marketers experience when filling the funnel while offering solutions that lead to better marketing results.
1. Marketing Without a Cohesive Lead Generation Strategy 

2. Marketers are Focusing on Lead Quantity Instead of Quality 

3. There are Gaps in Content Marketing Efforts 

4. Content Marketing Isn’t Aligned with the B2B Buyer Journey 

5. Marketing Efforts Aren’t Consistently Optimised 

B2B buyers Transparency make Vendor Purchase Easier

Research has shown that nearly two-thirds (65%) of B2B buyers felt vendors placed more emphasis on selling than they did on listening to their needs. Because of this, buyers are turning to other non-vendor-controlled sources such as user reviews, free trials and product demos to investigate the cons before making a purchase. To get ahead of this, vendors should be more forthcoming and listen to what their buyers are telling them. By highlighting their weaknesses, they may actually start to make more sales.

What is your customer's Unique Value Story

Supercharging the executive summary 

The most important part of any sales proposal is, of course, the executive summary. It’s likely to be read by stakeholders with the significant decision or approval authority who won’t go into all the detail. And some of those stakeholders may not have been involved in the previous discussions. Some may even be questioning “why do we need to do this at all?”
This is where an executive summary that deals with your customer’s three critical questions: why change, why you and why now? can be such a powerful selling tool. Summarising the customer’s unique value story in your executive summary not only promotes your organisation, it also promotes the need for change and reinforces the benefits of urgent action.

How to Influence your Buyers for Cloud App Modernisation

How to Influence your Buyers for Cloud Application Modernisation

Cloud Offerings for Application Modernisation

Buyers Persona Mapping with Cloud Offerings for Application Modernisation to execute the Sales Strategy 

Persona Mapping from - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus

Weekend Reading

Digital Business Ecosystem Under The Hood 

In an ecosystem, we typically see three types of horizontal business models emerge - Aggregators, Integrators, and Infrastructures - which may be distinguished based on their position in the value chain. Additionally, firms may specialise and act as capability providers.

Five Anxieties of Tech CEO

• The first is dealing with increasing individual and team performance. Technology moves at such a rapid pace that is challenging to keep up with evolving new concepts. 
• The second is with doing more with less – either with resources (people and budgets) or time to meet the company goals. 
•  Most technology organisations have developed specializations over the years and the CEO experiences the third anxiety of leveraging with partner organisations as specializations are all over. 
• Often, either the organization, the investors or the board has a new vision, and the CEO now needs to deal with the fourth anxiety of how to synchronize one’s execution with a new vision. 
•  Finally, the technology world has grown global and technology teams take the job to where the talent is. This now means managing and leading the global workforce, the fifth anxiety.

Want More Deals - Teach your Sales Rep to Write

Why B2B Marketers Must Stop using the Jargon

“Don’t hope to impress customers with the language they won’t understand. Instead, impress them with how much you understand them,” the post said. “The reality is that jargon varies so much from organization to organization – and even from department to department inside of an organization – that it’s always better to speak in plain terms than to risk fanciful obscurity.”

Replacing the Sales Funnel with Flywheel 
Using a flywheel to describe a business allows us to focus on how to capture, store and release our own energy, as measured in traffic and leads, free sign-ups, new customers, and the enthusiasm of existing customers. It’s got a sense of leverage and momentum. 

The metaphor also accounts for the loss of energy, where lost users and customers work against our momentum and slow our growth. 

The two dynamics that make our flywheel spin fast: are force and friction.  

Persona Mapping - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales

Excerpt from my upcoming book at amazon.com - "Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales" 

How a Sponsoring Executive of Action Centric (Fire) Persona and Calm and Stable Persona (Earth) will engage with others. 

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Sponsoring Executive

An executive sponsor is a person in the management or an executive team responsible for driving the outcome of a proposed solution to resolve a business problem. In business-to-business sales, an executive sponsor can be on either side, at the buyer's or the seller's end. 

At the buyer's end, it is primarily someone who has a keen interest in resolving a business problem or is a decision-maker and strongly influences the outcome of a sales transaction. 

At the seller's end, it is primarily someone keen on growing the business by investing capital and resources.

  

Following are the key responsibilities of an executive sponsor at the buyer's end:

• Prepare and own the business case

• Engage and work with other sponsors and stakeholders in positioning and selling the business case internally and externally with suppliers

• Recommend or assist in the go-to-market approach

• Govern the communication with stakeholders

• Govern the risks and the outcome of the business case 

Let us explore how a sponsoring executive at the buyer's end engages with the internal and external stakeholders by applying the elemental attributes learned in previous sections.

Fire – Action 

Sponsoring Executive

• Business Case Preparation

o they are seeking a futuristic and innovative roadmap or a solution, preferably for short and mid-term 

o a lot of data points are provided for analysis and problem definition

o budget allocation will be generous and is eager to allocate work   

• Go to Market Approach 

o fond of an audience and connecting with higher authorities means they employ a top-down strategy

o being time-consuming, a mechanism like RFP is least appealing 

o they reach out to innovative and agile (swift in delivery) suppliers, or internal teams for selling the business case

    

• Positioning 

o growth-oriented – being passionate for innovation and driven by future trends with the intent of growing the business, their initiatives are positioned as growth-oriented

• Engagement

o being open and honest, they interact with honesty and transparency, loses cool if the opposite side is not transparent

o the sharpness of fire is reflected in their sharpshooting style of conversation, and they have no hidden agenda

o they are competitive and use charm to impress upon stakeholders 

• Communication  

o timely, quick and action-oriented

o they lack depth in conversation, like to take control of the conversation 

o they use data-driven insights and visuals to communicate  

• Governance   

o they exert pressure on stakeholders by repeatedly chasing activity progress 

o they seek action and quick wins 

o they are tolerant and considerate but will have failures or lapses in execution provided the information for the root cause is shared transparently

The book is on promotion for a limited time only.

Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - V

Excerpt from my upcoming book at amazon.com - "Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales" 

How a Marketing Manager will engage with others 

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B2B Sales Stakeholders and Their Activities

The sales team or a sales representative, engages various internal and external stakeholders, with the intent of growing the business underpinned by positioning a compelling product or a service. The following list gives a good view of various stakeholders engaged by the sales team or a representative.

● the internal marketing and corporate strategy team for research, positioning, and pricing 

● internal product engineering or service design team 

● internal legal service team for defining contractual agreements, terms, and conditions

● procurement at the buyer’s end

● sponsoring C-level executives like CEO, CFO, CIO, CDO and their team members at buyer’s end

● internal HR, legal, quality, security and sales team  

● and others like a third-party product or service partner 

These stakeholders will vary with vertical, geography, type and size of a prospective buyer like an SME or a global player. This is not an exhaustive list but highlights the magnitude of complexity and multiplicity involved in executing sales and business development activity. 

With the intent of supporting a sales team or a representative, different activities at each stage of the value chain are executed by various stakeholders, some in parallel and some in sequence. 

Let’s explore how a Marketing Manager will engage in various activities with its stakeholders at the seller's or buyers' end by applying the lens of five elemental attributes.  

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Next: Coming up 

• Cheat Sheet for Sales Planning and Execution using Five Elements   
• How a Procurement Executive will Engage
• How B2B Sales are different in Service vs Product 

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Previous articles can be read here

• Part 4 on How a Sponsoring Executive will engage can be read here
• Part 3 on Negotiation Styles in B2B Sales can be read here 
• Part 2 on Persona Mapping in B2B Sales can be read here 
• Part 1 on Marrying Elements of Nature with B2B Sales can be read here

Sales Trigger Spectrum with Cloud Adoption Curve - 2022

Evolution of Cloud Adoption Curve, its Type and Sales Trigger Spectrum

Weekend Reading

 

• B2B Suppliers need to upgrade their Channels for Ease of Sales 
• Leadership Mantra
• The salesperson who drives you crazy
• How to be professional in Virtual meetings
• Aligning Sales and Marketing

Weekend Reading

• Write a sales proposal
• B2B marketers using a review site for sales strategy
• Signs of Market Fix
• Collaborate when you don't have a consensus 
• Differentiate your brand with Customer Experience  

Weekend Reading

• Will DAOs Replace Corporations
• Story of Indian Economy
• 86% of B2B Content Consumption Takes Place Outside the C-Suite
• Best Continuous Discovery Teams
• How to move faster in marketing
• Build your insight capabilities to leapfrog the competition
• Russia and Ukraine - Security Service Providers Must Be Ready  

Early B2B Deciders

 Persona of B2B Early Deciders are following:

• Younger millennials, with more responsibility. 
•  Employed in larger, enterprise-scale companies that are growing fast. 
•  Technophiles who spend more on IT. 
•  Decisive, authoritative, and deliberate. 
•  Promoters of customer experience (CX), innovation, and brand.

Source: Forrester Blog

Selling After the Pandemic - Moving from Products to Services

Sourced from HBR April 2021

 

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Rethink Customer Segmentation Among large B2B companies, the most common way to organize a sales force is by the size and potential of the customers. Enterprise accounts are typically the customers with the highest headcount (and the largest number of seat licenses); as such, they are the highest priority and are handled by the best salespeople. 

Restructure the Sales Organization Rethinking customer segmentation focuses on the question: Who are the company’s target customers? Once they are identified, the sales organization must focus on how to sell to them. The traditional sales process typically involves generating leads, qualifying prospects, demonstrating products, and closing sales. Many salespeople have spent decades learning and implementing- ing that routine. A consumption-based model requires a different process. 

Use SalesForce Management Instruments to Drive the Right Behavior Setting a strategy, segmenting the customer base, and creating the right organizational structure are big-picture requisites to a successful transformation of the sales function. To influence how salespeople interact with customers and targets on a day-to-day basis, sales managers must use the set of tools I call sales force management instruments: Hiring the right people, training and managing their performance effectively, and compensating them in a way that aligns their incentives with company strategy. 

As more organizations shift their sales strategy toward consumption-based pricing and SaaS models, they must recognize the complexity of the transformation they are attempting. They are changing all the variables in the formula “how to sell what to whom.” To increase their odds of success, firms must be ready to rethink their sales management and strategy the same way they reengineer their products. 

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B2B Sales - NPS Fallacy for Growth

 B2B Sales - NPS Fallacy for Growth

Source: Gartner.com

Weekend Reading

 

• Technology Crossing the Chasm
• How to Identify Growth Opportunities
• How to Price SAAS Product
• Strategy for Startups
• The Shift in the Future of B2B Pricing

Weekend Reading

 

• Sales is broken?
• How to get feedback from your team
• Why Buyers are disrupting the sales process
• Who is your customer
• CMO and CIO partnership in Digital Transformation
• Tips for scaling product
• Apples decade of Success

“No CEO in history has created as much total shareholder value as Mr Cook. When he took over the company had a market value of $349bn. Today it is worth $2.5trn, more than any other listed firm ever. Under his aegis annual sales surged from $108bn in 2011 to $274bn last year. Net profit more than doubled to $57bn, overtaking Saudi Aramco’s oil-fuelled earnings and turning Apple into the world’s most profitable company. Less widely noticed, during his tenure the “Apple economy”—its annual revenue plus everything other companies make on one of its platforms—has grown sevenfold to more than $1trn.

Weekend Reading

 

• Want more deals then teach your reps how to write 
• Digital Transformation success lies beyond Technology 
• How Content Drives the Customer Journey
• Sales - Stop giving COVID Excuses
• Ambiguous times are no time for ambiguous leadership
• Strategy without tactics is a dream

Weekend Reading

 

• Less is more with Sales Proposal
• The New Elements of Digital Transformation
• Trends B2B Sales Leader Must Address 
• CMO's Exerting Influence
• FAST vs SMART Goals
• Leaders Need to Cultivate Complementary Strengths

Weekend Reading

 

• Indias Success in Exporting Goods (China in View)
• Micropayments for web content
• Who gets to decide the Truth
• Salesperson - Nature vs Nurture
• Better to Sign up 1 Whale or 15 Minnows
• Acts of Courage that Led to Growth