Sales in the 4IR | ITWeb

Access to global digital platforms for research, development, marketing, sales and distribution means that smaller or newer businesses can easily overshadow bigger, more well-established companies, which no longer outrank them based merely on the quality, speed or price at which value is delivered.

Alan Anderson, Business Development and Sales Executive at Altron Bytes Managed Solutions, explains: “The opportunity this brings is the ability to elevate your business and eradicate the restrictions that global boundaries present – such as working across time zones and geographic locations. This is driven by unprecedented access to information and processing power, which is amplified by technological breakthroughs such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of things (IOT), nanotechnology, robotics, 3D printing and more.

“Conversely, technological innovations present a huge risk to less agile companies and industries, which face the prospect of being left behind.”

Thriving in the 4IR requires innovation and creativity in how people and businesses use the vast amounts of information available to them to market themselves in such a way that is not replicable by other individuals and organisations.

“The 4IR is here, it’s live and it’s becoming more invasive, having its highest impact in pre-sales support and marketing,” says Anderson. “In sales, we listen to our customers and understand them from the bottom up by considering analytics, trends, their needs and their pain points.”

Technologies like 4IR, AI and machine learning all either enhance existing solutions or create a completely new solution to take to market for those customers. The difference lies in the technology that gets you there, but from a customer engagement perspective, the difference may not be immediately apparent. You’re changing what you sell, not necessarily how you sell it, explains Anderson.

However, now that you’re selling more sophisticated solutions, the sales process becomes more complex. Today’s decision-making process is more committee-driven, it’s no longer a decision by the business owner. “We know more about the customer than ever before. In the past, sales spent a lot of time uncovering what the customer is all about. That information is more readily available, so the sales team has to be ahead of the game in driving the value of solutions to the customer. The customer knows as much about us and our solutions as we do. We need to find a differentiator, which requires orchestrating with many different stakeholders.”

Technology means that businesses can tap into connections with global partners. Although, that also brings complexity into the equation. “We understand the local market and how business operates there, whereas if we go into a different geography – such as into African countries – we need to first understand the local nuances before we even think about the 4IR and how that impacts the solution we’re selling.”

Today's sales process is more targeted, a little bit more complex, and we have to be more scientific in how we go about it. This means businesses are having to rethink their sales team structure. For instance, to align with changing needs, our sales team is channelled into either a strategic or a leadership stream. This enables individuals to play to their strengths in terms of experience and competencies, which are supplemented with training in hard and soft skills, depending on the stream that best suits them.

4IR enhances account management and selling skills, it helps with the complexity of selling skills and introduces new methodologies. The required skill set remains the same, as the skills are around sales and not the solution. “It hasn’t really impacted the way we sell, it has just made us smarter in how we sell,” adds Anderson. There’s a lot more pressure on us to ensure we fulfil the clients' needs, which could be business-related or even personal, such as freeing up more time to spend with their families. With our having so much information about the customers and what they want, we really need to challenge ourselves and present them with a compelling value proposition.”

A pre-sales architect is required to assess the technology the client has and how that will integrate with the solution the client needs. The sales person then handles the business side of the deal. It requires a team to make a sale because today, you sell a solution. Winning solution selling requires a collective that is what is needed to hit the sweet spot.

Four things to consider when positioning your value proposition

1. Company image: Are your business dealings being conducted ethically? Is your B-BBEE accreditation in order? Do you do conduct customer surveys? This is where companies can differentiate themselves from the opposition.
2. Product quality: Are you enhancing your solutions using advanced technologies? For instance, if you offer managed services, you can differentiate your offering by using data science to conduct trend analyses and predictive scenario planning. By adding more value, your products become more sophisticated and that's what will set you apart from the rest.
3. Support quality: Do you have enough engineers and sufficient points of presence to properly support your customers? Do you use technology to automate as much of the traditional manual support tasks as possible? Do you ensure you do the right thing, at the right time, at the right price and it's all automated?
4. Total cost of ownership: Do you have the scale to give your customers an optimal TCO in terms of capex and opex, and are you ensuring that you do so?

These are the four things that customers consider when deciding whether to do business with you.

Anderson concludes: “In a tough business environment such as the one we're currently experiencing, it's essential to be agile in how you engage with customers. This is where partnerships and a holistic approach can help customers to keep investing in their business and growing it, even during difficult economic times.”