Sales, marketing and technology: Tackling the digital challenge Running to stand still Sales and marketing were once seen as primarily intuitive pursuits But as digital technology has permeated our personal and commercial lives, the customer relationship is now mediated by all manner of gadgets, systems and information services Those business leaders who are charged with managing that relationship have a lot to take on board—and they can no longer rely on intuition alone Social media, for example, is a transformational medium that is replacing broadcast media as the primary way in which customers learn about products and services It allows customers to share their views with their peers, changing the dynamics of market sentiment Mobile technology, meanwhile, provides them with an Chart How important is technology to your business unit’s processes? (% of respondents) Our business processes are more reliant on technology than those of most other departments in the organisation Our business processes are no more or less reliant on technology than those of most other departments Sales 8% 46% Our business processes are less reliant on technology than those of most other departments in the organisation Marketing 14% 46% 36% 50% Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2014 immediate link to brands, which they carry with them wherever they go And the insight needed to promote products and services comes not from traditional surveys and focus groups, but from deep analysis of their behaviour across digital channels Simply put, when it comes to marketing and selling to the digital customer, businesses are running just to stand still It’s no surprise, then, that in a survey of senior executives in sales and marketing, conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit, 50% of marketing executives and 46% of sales executives say that they believe their business processes are more reliant on technology than those of most other departments in their organisation (The view from the IT department is more mixed When asked which business unit they consider to be the most reliant on technology, 26% of IT executives and senior managers cite marketing above all others However, sales come much further down the list with just 8% of the vote, above only HR.) The pace of technological change has proved extremely disruptive to most sales and marketing organisations, according to Thomas Brown, associate director of research and insights at the UK-based Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) “Greater proximity to the customer sounds great on paper, but it demands a level of attentiveness and responsiveness that they’ve never had to demonstrate before There’s no point in starting a conversation if you then walk away and are not there to respond when a customer comes back Sales, marketing and technology: Tackling the digital challenge Chart Which of the following technologies, if any, are changing the way your business unit works? (% of all respondents) Sales Marketing 42% 33% Big data 33% 49% Cloud computing 36% 55% Digital marketing 42% 33% E-commerce 20% Internet of things 28% 61% 61% Mobile technology 50% 51% Social media Software as a service 35% 33% Web publishing 33% 31% Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit to you with a comment, an enquiry, an issue or a criticism.” This is just as true for business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing as it is for businessto-consumer (B2C) activities, Mr Brown adds “I find it tiresome when businesses say that social, for example, has no place in B2B That’s a load of nonsense: the reality is that B2B is still built on human interactions We may not be talking about the same mass markets of the B2C world, where Unilever, for example, is speaking with an audience of millions A B2B organisation might have only 100 buyers, but they’re not absent from these new digital channels.” Kirsty Andrew, the recently appointed head of sales at Cosworth, a UK-based engineering company, agrees “We may sell our products through distributors, and the model we follow may be different to organisations that sell direct to customers, but our aims are the same: to © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2014 develop appealing campaigns and promotions, to improve our service to customers, to have the products they want in stock when they want to buy them, to keep them coming back to us,” she says “We’re putting more and more effort into ensuring that our interactions with customers on Twitter and Facebook are more actively managed as part of the sales and marketing process First, it’s about responsiveness, and second, it’s about being cognisant of the fact that a dissatisfied customer can have a big impact You never want unhappy customers, clearly, but there’s an extra dimension now, when they have an instant way to express their dissatisfaction, publicly and widely.” So which technologies are having the most impact on the way sales and marketing executives work? Mobile technology takes centre stage, topping the list with 61% of executives in both Sales, marketing and technology: Tackling the digital challenge sales and marketing pointing to it For sales executives, digital marketing comes next, cited by 55% of respondents Interestingly, it scores poorly with the marketing executives surveyed, with only 36% saying digital marketing is changing the way their business unit works This may be because marketing professionals may associate the term with email campaigns and © The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2014 websites—technologies they have long had to deal with Executives from both sales and marketing agree, however, on the impact the social media are having: they are cited by 51% of sales executives and 50% of marketing executives as a driver of change in the way they work ... executives work? Mobile technology takes centre stage, topping the list with 61% of executives in both Sales, marketing and technology: Tackling the digital challenge sales and marketing pointing.. .Sales, marketing and technology: Tackling the digital challenge Chart Which of the following technologies, if any, are changing the way your business unit works?... sales and marketing agree, however, on the impact the social media are having: they are cited by 51% of sales executives and 50% of marketing executives as a driver of change in the way they work