The New Sales in a VUCA Environment

Corporate life is changing. Nobody can say exactly where the journey is going. Some things, however, seem foreseeable despite all the uncertainty. What is certain is that sales will play a much more important role. So the question arises: How must sales change?

When the World Economic Forum proclaims that in 2030 there will be no products but only more services, this also points to the changing role of sales. Just like the increasingly louder demand that sales must develop from a kind of "sales department" into a customer advisory function. Or the fact that the customers approach the suppliers later and later and that the order of the day is to pick them up much earlier in the purchasing and decision-making process.

Clever suppliers will therefore find ways to enter the customer's purchasing process earlier and earlier, ultimately at the point where demand arises at all, or even earlier.

Modern performance leaders align all their efforts with the customer. This also and above all applies to B2B companies. And the interface to customers is sales. Its internal boundaries are becoming more and more blurred.

The structural separation of sales and marketing communication is already no longer tenable - and the next boundaries that could fall in this respect are those to product management and innovation areas that require ever greater involvement of customers.

Consistently further thought ...

Many of the significant developments of the future will therefore affect sales directly or at least indirectly. This is to become an innovative solution assistant for customers (companies). This is also due to the fact that, on the one hand, the offers themselves are becoming increasingly complex and, on the other hand, the customers are becoming more and more critical and willing to change. More and more often, traditional industrial companies also see their chance in linking additional services to their products in order to take these factors into account.

If one consistently continues to think about the approaches, the thought quickly comes to mind that sales will become the decisive factor of most business models in the future. The digital front-runners have already recognized this today, but in the industry, for example, this is still rarely really lived.

Those who align the entire company with the customer elevate sales to the core element of the overall corporate strategy. After all, all processes that are customer-oriented are sales processes in the broadest sense. And the business models of the future will show a radical reorientation towards customers. The rest of the company will be arranged around sales.

Business model innovation

Many of the important areas of a business model belong to the influence radius of sales: the value proposition will be part of sales, at the latest as soon as the separation between sales and marketing has completely fallen, the channels are part of sales, as is the analysis and definition of the targeted customer segments, the customer relationships anyway.

The key resources are well known in a good sales organization, as are the key activities and the most important and most attractive value propositions of your own company. Without sales, there is not as much value added as there can be. And: It begins long before the sale and does not stop there.

That demands a lot from sales. In order to revolutionize its company and the market, it must revolutionize itself and completely reinvent itself. Whatever the challenges the customer companies face - especially in the B2B sector, the company's own sales force must find innovative and unrivalled solutions. A look beyond one's own nose becomes indispensable.

How must sales change?

It must create an organizational form that allows it to react empathetically to its customers. "Understanding" is, of course, still one of the most important factors in closing a sale, especially in the B2B sector. In addition, however, it must support - and at best even stimulate - the business development of the customer in a technically and strategically adept manner. This requires very comprehensive skills that a single sales representative can hardly shoulder.

This would mean that the sales department would have to provide sales staff, subject and topic experts for all areas served, market strategists and organizational specialists who maintain the framework conditions for efficient cooperation - both internally and externally. Not to mention management. Those who can relieve customers of complexity will have a clear advantage. This could become a real value proposition.

Corporate cooperations are already becoming more and more common today. In the future, more and more processes will lead to ever closer organizational links. The more intensive such a connection, the more efficient the customer's processes will become, and the more undesirable a change of supplier will be on the customer side.

A kind of "symbiosis capability" becomes an important competitive advantage - and creates unprecedented customer loyalty on the part of the manufacturer or supplier. The mutual exchange then begins as standard with the search for opportunities, development opportunities or problems.

Today, numerous measures are already being taken to pick up customers earlier. It can be strongly assumed that this will ultimately take on such an extreme form.

Challenging changes for sales organizations

These different and complex challenges are still an obstacle. Specialists and topic experts are often not good salespeople and vice versa, strategists are not organization experts, etc.

In the future, it is conceivable that there will be regular committees, agile, autonomous small teams in virtual offices in permanent exchange with the customer's contacts. This requires a comprehensive change in the corporate and management culture.

Agile methods from the VUCA world such as OKR (Objectives and Key Results) are well suited in this environment, for example Kanban can be used for agile process control. However, such agile management methods are still missing in most companies.

As an additional service, the company's own organizational experts will also support customers in handling complexity - often via common IT systems.

At the same time, the company's own product development department is already waiting for new approaches from the sales department that have been developed in one of the ongoing discussions with customers. Automated processes are re-fed at lightning speed, because the customer likes X better, and this was firstly experienced almost simultaneously, and secondly can be reacted to almost simultaneously using modern tools.

The top goal will be to develop, consolidate and expand the growth and market position of the customer companies. Those who manage to do this will also strengthen their own position on the market. Your own company will be fully committed to offering such solutions and making itself indispensable for your customers.

Turnover will not be created selectively, but constantly; its amount will no longer depend mainly on the products, but will depend above all on the additional services the providers take on.

Much to do ...

This calls for a new organisation, a new way of working together, both internally and externally, and new staff skills. We are constantly striving to be closer to our customers and to make ever more suitable offers.

In order to make such developments more tangible, a simple question is often enough: How could a competitor better help the customer achieve his goals?

There are no limits to the imagination. A thought-provoking impulse could even be that consulting firms and the interim management market have been growing steadily for years - obviously there are strategic and operational challenges where companies need support. Who says that a manufacturing company with a strong strategy and industry experience might not be a valuable partner here? Know-how is a powerful asset.

Sooner or later, cooperation with customers will take on forms that, from today's point of view, are still extremely effective. At the time, however, many of the practices that are common today were also extremely effective.

Think, for example, of crowdsourcing, which is now quite common: who would have assumed fifteen years ago that entire groups of individuals would support internal processes without pay and with a great inclination, and even pay for products that will not be delivered for years to come? Who would have thought that a mobility service provider would manage without its own vehicles?

The shift in the sales role, the trend towards corporate cooperation and new sales models that do not focus on individual sales but on long-term customer relationships are already visible today.

Ultimately, sales and growth only create what the customer wants. Processes that are customer-oriented are sales processes. Companies that really want to focus on their customers will make sales the central element and gradually tear down borders to customers from there. The question is not whether this will happen, but when it will.

About the author

Siegfried Lettmann is Executive Interim Manager with focus on transformation in sales and marketing, especially digitization, innovation and business development. In his mandates, he temporarily takes over management positions in companies, develops strategies and implements them. He is the head of studies at the European Business School (EBS) and has received several national and international awards for his work. www.lettmann-interim.com