Trend and Insight

There is a belief that a new ERP system by itself will turn around a struggling business or make a thriving business more successful. As exciting as a new ERP system can be, servers, software and hardware are expensive.

Organizations need to conduct due diligence to find the correct IT strategy for their needs instead of solely focusing on their budget. An outside set of eyes can be very helpful as they are not blinded by department loyalties or corporate fiefdoms and can see the current environment for what it is. An outside agent also has ample lessons learned from other IT strategies and your company can save money and heartaches by listening to their advice.

Following are four steps for developing a winning IT strategy:

Find the right fit: There are a lot of IT solutions out there, and finding the correct one for your business is critical for continued growth. Cost is usually the primary metric that most companies adhere to, but there is much more to consider before pulling out the corporate credit card. Is it appropriate to host your activities in the cloud? Would you rather have your IT infrastructure on-premise? Do your employees need connectivity on the road? How long are you going to live with the IT upgrade? Are you allowing employees to bring their own devices and hook them up to your network? Do you have enough bandwidth? How big and competent is your IT staff? All of these must be considered in addition to cost.

Identify the benefits:

A baseline of the current business processes is necessary. The IT strategy should start with the overall business strategy and how technology can make your organization efficient, increase production, reduce management costs and improve collaboration. There needs to be a clear roadmap between the current state, the IT strategy and the future state. Timing also needs to be factored into the vision of success. Typical IT upgrades are planned to last for three to five years, but this is highly dependent upon the client and their specific needs. Since IT is a rapidly changing field, the implementation should be started as soon as the IT system is agreed upon.

Prepare the employees:

An IT strategy cannot be a lightning bolt from the executive suite without consideration for the various departments and end-users. There needs to be a deliberate change management strategy that includes, informs and provides realistic expectations. All departments must be included in the change management strategy and shown how the new IT strategy relates to company goals, how it will make end-users’ jobs easier and how and when they will be trained. Whenever Panorama proposes a new IT strategy, the end-users worry that the new IT program will be paid for by employee cuts and reduced benefits. While some jobs may be made redundant, it is important to have a theory of victory for the employees. Some jobs may be cut, but there will be new work opportunities and jobs will be created because of the new IT capability.

Manage the risk:

Risk management – particularly with impacts to current business processes and employee expectations – need to be identified and either overcome or mitigated. It is important to have a no-nonsense look at the company and detail how the firm can handle the IT changes. An inventory of the current IT infrastructure as well as a detailed look at its strengths and drawbacks are critical as this creates connectivity within and outside of the company. One of the biggest risks is training, but if the company has created a sound IT strategy, married it to the business processes and set the stage for success with the employees, training should go swimmingly. There will always be friction to change and a sound change management plan will help ease friction and outright resistance to the training and the new IT system.

You don’t have to walk in the tall cotton alone in determining your IT strategy. Find a capable partner to help you navigate the rough patches during an IT strategy and implementation. Panorama can help you by providing critical insights on business processes, change management, risk reduction, and of course, help you determine the best IT infrastructure for your specific needs.

The Rise of Sales Tech. The new Digital age is leaving no function in the Enterprise immune to change. In particular, the past 5 years have witnessed a profound transformation of the world of Business to Business sales.

THE NEW BUYER’S JOURNEY

Buyers have taken upon themselves to research the products, solutions and services they need or might want to consider. They do it on their terms, using the internet as their primary source of information. Gone are the days when sales representatives would be called or invited to “educate buyers”. The Corporate Executive Board found 57% of the Enterprise Buyer’s Journey takes before vendors get formally engaged.

CONTENT IS THE NEW CURRENCY

In response to this trend, Businesses have massively invested in building and sharing content. According to the Content Marketing Institute, marketers are spending 28% of their marketing budget on content marketing. This content is offered to help buyers and potential buyers in the early stages of their exploration. The quality of the content created has become a mean for businesses to build preference. But the widespread availability of great and valuable content on the internet can also disintermediate brands. So, the understanding of the information consumed by prospects is an essential proxy of their interest. It is further exacerbated by the Social Transformation. Indeed, Social Networks and communities of interest have become places where people share experiences, get feedback on products through peer reviews, and look for information.

PURCHASE DEMOCRATIZATION

Corporations used to have a few Buying Centers where decisions were centralized in the hands of a few, easy to find, roles. Nowadays, a growing number of purchases are made at all levels and functions in the Enterprise. This trend is exemplified by Gartner prediction from a few years ago that, by 2017, Marketing organizations would spend more on technology than their peer IT groups. Even large purchases made centrally now involve a much larger number of decision makers. Captera found that 2/3 software purchases involve 3 or more people. Finding potential buyers and other decision stakeholders has become a daunting task for sales organizations. Furthermore, the sheer volume increase of leads and potential contacts to handle has become overwhelming. So, they need to turn to the Internet to get the best possible insights on organizations and buyers.

SALES TRANSFORMATION

Sales organizations have started to transform themselves to respond to these trends and become more effective. They increasingly leverage new communication tools to shift their engagements with prospects and buyers away from in person meetings to the phone, emails, online meetings or other forms of remote interaction. Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, coined the term of Inside Sales for sales done remotely. He keeps on reminding us that he only used Inside Sales during the first 6 years of his company. This trend compounds with the imperative for sales organizations to become more productive as pointed by Bain.

THE RISE OF INSIDE SELLING

Topo is predicting that in 2017, 85% of the hours spent by sales professional, will be so selling remotely. Accordingly, new roles have emerged:

• Inside Sales to sell remotely,
• Sales Development to engage prospective buyers showing potential signs of interest, give them information for their explorations, and detect the appropriate moment to connect them to a Sale Representative, and
• Business Development to proactively identify potential buyers and reach out to them.

[INSIDE] SALES IS ENABLED BY TECHNOLOGY

These roles exist because of the widespread availability of communication technologies that make remote interaction seamless and convenient. They have led to the emergence of a new set of tools to:

• gain insights on companies and potential buyers,
• steer interactions towards desired goals,
• improve these interactions with relevant information,
• increase sales productivity,
• make remote selling smooth and effortless, and
• use analytics along the way to drive and, in hindsight, improve the entire selling process.

MAKING SENSE OF A NEW MARKET?

I lived through this transition as an Executive of the Enterprise Software industry. Since I became an Advisor to technology companies, I often get involved in the implementation of Inside Sales roles and processes. It has given me a unique appreciation of how critical technology can be, but also, how confusing this space can be to its practitioners.

Yet, I found it has a lot of similarities with Customer Engagement, a domain that I know very well. So, with the help of Spoke and VBProfiles, I have embarked on a mapping of this new Inside Sales technology landscape.

Share your thoughts!

Nicolas De Kouchkovski

Spoken Word