Sales Automation: Empowering a new generation of business
The covid pandemic has brought with it a global crisis. People are feeling socially isolated, many are losing family and friends to the deadly disease and businesses are shutting doors every single day. However, as is inherent of human nature, we are capable of finding a silver lining even in the darkest of times.
Many sociologists, businessmen, policymakers, and technocrats now state that the pandemic might have fast-forwarded the digital revolution by a decade, if not more. Prior to the pandemic, kindergarten classes would not have been taking place over Zoom - but now, even doctors are doling out advice over the internet. People who previously did not know how to operate a smartphone are now living their lives through one.
This transition has not been on a consumer level, but also on an industry level. Talk of automation is in the air. Initially, the lockdown in India barred factories from operating. When factories started operating, laws dictated that social distancing must be maintained. With employees contracting covid-19, many factories were on and off. Eventually, industrialists realized the value of automation. For example, Universal Robots, a Robot making company stated that inquiries from the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry for automated machines increased by 15% within the first three months of lockdown itself!
“It is very clear that the pace of automation adoption is accelerating," Anu Madgavkar, partner at McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), said. “Back-of-the-shop occupations, such as accounting, business operations, payroll processing, and HR work among others, were anyways getting automated. Now, front-of-the-shop types of occupations are getting automated faster. This includes sales and marketing and a class of occupations where knowledge and expertise are scarce," she added.
As an experienced professional in the sales and marketing industry, I am most interested to understand the impact of automation in the sales field when it comes to improving sales force productivity in India. Apart from that, I predict that the transition to a more automatic sales force might also improve brand reputation, especially in the B2B industry. For example, many B2B companies hire thousands of sales executives with bikes - executives who go person to person, attempting to onboard people to sell in bulk through their platforms. For each sale made, the sales executive gets a commission. It is common knowledge that many sales executives often misrepresent the truth, leaving the company with unhappy customers who claim that they were lied to. For example, automating the communication of services while delivering a sales contract might reduce such human errors and frauds to a large extent.
A leading sales company undertook research with the McKinsey Global Institute and discovered that now, up to 40% of tasks including in the traditional sales function now have the capability to be automated.
Currently, in India, sales is a very human resource centered aspect. Companies undertake most sales functions through employees. This has numerous disadvantages - fragmented channels, large variation in talent, high attrition rates, fraud, miscommunication, and high requirements for resource allocation. By focusing on automating aspects of sales, Indian companies can truly unlock sales force productivity within years in ways that would take decades if it was to be done manually.