What is your view on “Changing Sales Strategies”? Where do you see sales in 2020?

Change of any strategy is a function of changing ecology and changing needs of the ecology. Today the entire ecosystem is undergoing rapid and lateral shifts and in most of the business domain customers are spoilt for choices.

Market is seeing lot of changing dynamics;

• Today customers are well informed and at the same time information is available on a click of a button.
• Presently, most of the organizations have cost-out pressures and at the same time they are looking for higher value in their purchases.
• Technology is also changing the needs of the users and also how one has to approach to their customers.
• In many businesses today, there is a software layer coming above their solutions and offerings.
• At any point of time there is some disruption happening in every Industry and some of them have potential to hit you hard.
• Also in several business domains, there is spurt in outsourcing and thus business opportunities are getting consolidated with the specialist service providers or aggregators.
• With all of this the response time expectations are also getting stringent.

In order to survive, grow and lay strong foundation for future it is important that the “Sales Strategies” have to continuously evolve and be futuristic in their approach.

What are the top 3 sales strategies every sales leader should be adopting?

In wake of changing ecology, ecosystem and buying behaviors; there are few important key strategies that an organization can look into for developing the business. Firstly, an organization needs to identify Need & Pain of the customer and have solution based approach rather than product based approach. One also needs to have Segment based approach – Different segments and applications may have some differential pain points and thus have Application based solutions to it. The strategy also needs to focus on positioning one as a thought leader in your business domain which is possible through the mix of futuristic solutions which can be developed with strong customer insights.

Always remember “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” and develop ways and means to reach this segment base of your customers.

What is the impact of technology on sales processes? Your thoughts on this?

Technology will bring new and efficient ways of handling things as well as new challenges to handle. Our endeavor should be to arrest the challenge and use efficiency to your advantage. While we are already experiencing the difference brought in by smart mobility we have another wave to experience coming by virtue of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Technology changes will impact both Processes (Internal + External) as well as your offering in some business domain. We can see impact on following points; some of these may already be your day to day life depending upon what stage your business is into:

Impact on processes:

• Business Monitoring and Measurement; Lot of Predictive Analysis will come into play
• Legal and compliances
• Response Time Expectation
• Customer Interface is changing rapidly and led by software and smart mobility for many businesses (For example: Banking, Ride Hailing App, Ecommerce etc.)

Impact on Offering:

• Disruption happening in your business may lead to new and efficient ways to handle customer needs and pains
• Software Layer would soon become a need for many business domains for their solutions/ products
• Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will bring in new offerings and solutions as well as new ways to get customer insight

What are the most common challenges sales leaders are facing today?

Some of the challenges faced by sales leaders today are converting Customer Insights into Viable and saleable solutions. In fast changing business landscape and technology playing a vital role, it is imperative to read future trends and anticipate possible disruptions that can hamper the business.

Manpower Selection and Manpower Retention is also one of the key challenges that businesses are facing today. Nowadays, we have well informed Customer Base with perpetual needs for value solutions to meet their cost-out needs; and thus there is a need to groom the team and entire organization culture to deliver as per the research and analysis. If an organization overcomes these challenges, then it would definitely mean increased business growth.

Your views on The Economic Times “Sales Strategy Summit” and how important do you to feel is the need of organizing such summits?

For any organization and individuals it is imperative that they are well informed and continue to evolve themselves with the changing times. There is also a need to understand the changing business landscape and customer buying behavior and thus gear themselves to meet the future expectations and challenge.

“Sales Strategy Summit” is a great platform to bring several minds from different industries together and share their experiences and best practices. This will help people not only to look things in different perspective but also get a feel of changing needs and buying customer behavior.

Shailendra Shukla

Director – Sales & Service – Eaton Power

For more information about the Sales Strategy Summit, please visit: http://et-edge.com/conferences/salesstrategy/