Beyond limits. The future of B2B Sales

2015

BEYOND LIMITS THE FUTURE OF B2B SALES

Overview

A.T. Kearney 10/47466d/ur4v5QkllyI1kQkk7 2

B2B sales opportunities

The last decade has seen unlimited new opportunities to develop B2B sales ...

analytical crm

digitalization

sales force automation

sales analytics

predictive modeling BIG

D

ATA

recommender systems

self parametrization

customization counter sourcing target

pricing

online sales online self help

there is an app for that

sales back-office centralization

cross selling

up selling

customer lifecycle management

multi channel management

omni channel management

customer journey management

variant and options selling

customer centricity

value selling value engineering

strategic selling

solution selling

dedicated service sales sales force enablement

sales effectiveness

sales force efficiency

c-level selling

1:1 marketing

megadeal making

key account management

shadow strategies

real time pricing

consultative selling

challenger sales

trusted advisor

sales

negotiation excellence

win

la

bs

strategic partnerships co-developments

tender factories ecosystem management

partner management

team selling

XML

ED

I

lean sales

global sales product clinics and labs

customer-facing time optimization

social media monitoring

telemarketing

funnel management

sales network management

sales & service cloud

cloud communities

exact target marketing

sales effectiveness

sa

les

an

aly

tics

cross-channel integration

customers

... which have to be concentrated even more on customers with their increasing buying power and expectations


Sales productivity

Revenue

Average annual increase (CAGR) in…

B2B sales leaders are taking advantage of today’s fast pace of change to double performance and pull ahead

Above

Below

Below Above

Industry average

Industry average

Sales force productivity increase1

Revenue growth1

Top performers

1. Over three years Source: The Future of B2B Sales Survey. 1,608 respondents globally covering all key B2B sectors as well as company sizes

8.6%

3.8% x2.3

Top performers

8.1%

4.0% x2.0

Average performers

Top performers compared to all companies in survey

10% 26%

53% 12%


Vital importance of

simple offerings and interaction

Sales in 100% value add role

No B2B sales without

online interaction

(New) digital intermediaries

(Big) data driven sales analytics

B2B sales getting B2C-ish

Only two interaction models:

Partnerships or no frills

40% 50% 60% 70%

Likelihood of scenarios for B2B sales in 10 years (% of sales managers who rated each scenario as having a Very High or High Likelihood)

Top performers Average performers

In 10 years, sales leaders expect sales simplification to be topic number one, followed by substantial enrichment and elevation

Simplifi-

cation

Enrich- ment and elevation

Source: The Future of B2B Sales Survey. 1,608 respondents globally covering all key B2B sectors as well as company sizes


Emerging sales best practices

Leaders apply emerging B2B sales practices for sales simpli-fication, enrichment and elevation beyond limits

Easy

•Fast & simple to do business with •Lean, automated, industrialized and scalable

Configurative

• Innovative product/ service/ solution bundles, pricing & value capture

•Self-parametrization offerings

Scientific

• Big data enabled customer analytics

• Sales steering using predictive models/ experiments

Anywhere, anytime, anyway

•Extensive use of digital channels •Alignment of all channels and touch points

Collaboratively networked

• Collaborative selling with other BU’s or ecosystem partners

• Co-creation with customers

Experiential

• (Virtual) experience of products and services

•Augmented reality, gamified, multi-media, multi-sensory

Anticipative & personalized

• Customized interaction models • Pre-configured, segment-specific value propositions

Sales beyond selling

•Orchestrating partners and internal functions

•Educating customers about value creation opportunities

Sales without selling

•Generating “must have” situations

• Influencer marketing to create customer pull


Easy

Configurative

Scientific

Anywhere, anytime, anyway

Collaboratively networked

Experiential

Anticipative & personalized

Sales beyond selling

Sales without selling


Source: A.T. Kearney

Leaders leverage emerging B2B sales practices to go beyond traditional limits



Source: A.T. Kearney

Leaders leverage emerging B2B sales practices to go beyond traditional limits


Number of ideas from employees/customers imple-

mented last 2 years making it easier for customers

% of sales digitally enabled

% of sales enabled by collaboration across-BU and/or with external partners

% of sales force fully able to educate customers on value creation opportunities

% of sales resulting from influencer marketing and/or the creation of “must have” situations

Number of staff with advanced statistical skills

focusing on big data analytics

Number of online videos/apps for customers to help virtually experience products/services

23

73%

81%

82%

61%

20

116

The gap between best and average performers is already substantial – further widening of the gap is to be expected

Parameter Performance

Key KPIs: Best performers vs. average performers

12

30%

41%

25%

7

59

51%

Selection

Average performers Best performers: Top decile (10%) per category


Average share of sales force that is highly motivated and engaged

1. Companies achieving both above average sales force productivity growth and above average revenue growth 2. Top decile (10%) of companies for this KPI

88%

60%

48%

1.8x

1.3x

Best per-former2

Top per-former1

Average performer

• Involvement and co-creation of top-management, mid-management and staff

• Capturing the experience and creativity throughout the organization

• Engagement for mindset change and

new behavior

Instructions and blueprints won’t make the emerging practices happen…

The transformational change goes hand in hand with true motivation and engagement of the sales force

… inspiring, participative sales mana-gement is essential

Motivation and engagement throughout the organization



Very high Moderate

Low

High

High

Sales management approaches – Relevance vs. current application

Relevance

Degree applied today

Embrace performance transpare- ncy and celebrate achievement

Focus on customer understand- ding & value creation first, tech- nology/products second

Inspire the organization by defining

a clear vision of what success looks like

Drive teaming and collaboration internally and externally

Engineer best processes, then ensure that the whole organization follows rigorously

Strive for breakthrough (not just incremental) performance improvements

Embrace and incentivize continuous learning and improvement

Embrace change as an opportunity and adaptability as a core competence

Encourage entrepreneurial spirit while forgiving mistakes

Top performers are creating virtuous circles of engagement and achievement

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

9

8 6

1 2

4

5

3

7



Very high Moderate

Low

High

High

Medium

Sales management approaches – Relevance vs. current application

Relevance

Degree applied today

Top Performers

Average performers

Embrace performance transpare- ncy and celebrate achievement

Focus on customer understand- ding & value creation first, tech- nology/products second

Inspire the organization by defining

a clear vision of what success looks like

Drive teaming and collaboration internally and externally

Engineer best processes, then ensure that the whole organization follows rigorously

Strive for breakthrough (not just incremental) performance improvements

Embrace and incentivize continuous learning and improvement

Embrace change as an opportunity and adaptability as a core competence

Encourage entrepreneurial spirit while forgiving mistakes

9

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

8 6

1 2

4

5

3

Average performers appear substantially undermanaged

7


Even the leaders are often working to get the foundation right for the future of B2B sales

Levers and system dynamics for top sales performance

Must Dos: Assure the ability to play

• Eliminate all friction for customers

• Drive out all unnecessary costs

• Reduce sales force where necessary

• Automate back offices where possible

• Transfer activities to customers

Leverage the emerging B2B sales practices

Foundation for winning

Inspiration. goals and

prioritization

• Define sales strategies based

on The Future of B2B Sales

in-sights and trends

• Turn all emerging B2B sales

practices into competitive op-

portunities, managed as port-

folio at different lifecycle stages

• Drive sales transformation through

strong engagement and opti-

mize the sales force “from the

middle”


Sales strategy and transformation… … and our USPs

Sales performance and power “from the middle”

• Engage and empower (sales) management and staff in making sales performance happen

• Initiate and drive positive system dynamics

• Assure continuous optimizations

Sales and growth strategies “beyond limits”

• Establish overall direction for company with special

focus on priorities for emerging B2B practices

• Push B2B sales and marketing digitalization

• Fully leverage sales analytics

Direction & priorities

Together with our clients, we realize the future of sales, now

Collaborative work-style and organizational

inclusion

Optimization from the Middle

Future Proof Strategies

Graphic: Visualization of set of nine emerging sales practices, e.g. Easy, Anticipative & Personalized, Collaboratively Networked, Scientific


Go-to-market model re-design for European photovoltaics sales and trading company

• Development of multi-channel system and sales-push program for direct, indirect and digital channels

• Development of growth strategy for „solutionized products“ – modularized, customized packages beyond pure product sales

Lean-based sales optimization for leading European logistics solutions provider

• Application of lean techniques to substantially reduce non-value adding effort and to maximize customer value generation

• Involvement, training and collaboration of management and staff for process optimizations throughout the organization and “anchoring” of continuous improvements in >20 countries

Analytics-based customer interaction and delivery model re-design for chemicals company in Africa and Asia

• Development of integrated customer needs/behavior as well as cost-to-serve/ value chain model

• Customer re-segmentation and alignment of sales and delivery models to boost revenue growth and margins

Together with our clients, we realize the future of sales, now

Selected A.T. Kearney sales projects


• Top-line growth: Sales increase >25% in 3 years

• Efficiency: Controllable costs reduction >15% in 3 years

• Process efficiency: Up to 80% for selected processes

• Sales effectiveness: Hit rate enhancement >30%

• Organizational speed: Time-to-offer reduction >50%

• Organizational complexity: Non-customer facing workload reduction >25%

• Customer satisfaction: Net promoter score enhancement > 30%

• Empowered and mobilized staff across functions and regions

Immediate impact: First optimization actions implemented 6 to 8 weeks after project start,

30% of optimization potentials from small, easy to implement optimization actions

Growing advantage: Empowerment of management and >15% of staff, training and

collaboration, culture change, performance management

In recent years, together with our clients we have realized substantial sales optimizations

Selected A.T. Kearney sales optimization project results


The Future of B2B Sales quick assessment and management workshop

• Compare yourselves to > 1600 compa-nies globally - broken down by industry, region/ country and business type - via online survey

• Discuss the future of sales in an

open minded way as part of two management workshops

Immediate impact: Generation of new perspectives BEYOND LIMITS, joint direction

setting, realization of first successes, …

Growing advantage: Realization of lighthouse performance optimization initiatives, set up

of participative, collaborative sales transformation program, …

Next steps

Let´s make the Future of B2B Sales happen, together


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and Africa

Abu Dhabi

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