Digital Transformation: The Beginning of a Revolution for Sales Forces

Last Tuesday, February 16, Roland Massenet and Simon Vandendriessche, co-founders of Incenteev, hosted a webinar on the topic of “Digital Transformation: The Dawn of a Revolution for the Sales Force.”

Here is a summary.

The world is moving, and very quickly. Mobile has become the primary source of information for sales representatives in the field. They connect to their smartphones approximately 150 times a day. Communications have become “rich media”; no message posted on social networks is without a photo or video.

Employees are increasingly demanding about interface quality. They switch applications very easily if the ergonomics don’t satisfy them. The same goes for business applications; a CRM without good mobile ergonomics will be very difficult for sales representatives to populate correctly.

Digital Transformation: Impact on the Sales Function

Many things are changing, and in the face of this transformation, the sales profession is also evolving under the influence of several trends:

• Customers are better informed: It is estimated that a customer arriving at a supplier today has already completed 70% of the decision-making process. The sales profession must therefore be much more focused on the closing phase.
• Product lifecycles are shorter: A product’s lifespan can decrease from 24 months to 18 months in some industries. It is now important for organizations to demonstrate speed and agility.
• The sales process is becoming multichannel: Sales representatives must now master the various communication channels.

In the face of these transformations, many teams become disengaged. A 2013 Gallup study showed that 70% of employees in US companies were either disengaged or actively disengaged.

Today, to motivate sales representatives, the majority of companies use Excel (created in 1985), email (created in 1990), or CRM (created in 2000). The conclusion is that all these tools are not very modern, and sales organizations that want to undertake this digital transformation need new tools that are more agile, more fun, and more mobile.

Driving Performance in the Digital Age, download the guide here

Digital Transformation: How to Transform the Lives of Sales Representatives?

Here are 5 levers you can use and activate daily thanks to digital tools.

1. Rapid Feedback

All digital tools will significantly accelerate the dissemination and circulation of information. When we talk about sales teams or distribution networks, we often refer to large teams, large networks spread across the territory, and as a result, information can struggle to circulate. Field employees sometimes receive feedback with significant delays. Today, digital technology will accelerate information dissemination and provide faster feedback to field employees, which is now a very strong lever for employee engagement.

2. Transparency

Employees are much more demanding of transparency within the company. They need to find meaning in their work. And to find this meaning daily, they need transparency from top managers, from the company in general, and from their team. Today, digital tools and new communication formats, such as “chats” and social media, will allow for much broader and simpler communication, from company management to the field, or from the field to management.

3. Recognition

Today, recognition is one of the primary drivers of motivation. Digital technology will allow for broader dissemination of recognition and the detection of numerous signals that will foster wider recognition, from more people, and better highlight individual performances.

4. Personal Development

When Generation Y is asked what motivates them daily in the workplace, salary is not the primary factor, but rather the ability to progress and develop. New tools will allow for knowledge to be disseminated more widely and frequently than before.

5. Belonging

This lever is particularly true for sales teams. Today, sales managers are asked to do more and more reporting. They therefore have less and less time to dedicate to management, coaching, and managing people. We see sales organizations where the sense of belonging has largely disappeared, where field sales representatives feel isolated. Sales departments are seeking to put people back at the center of the discussion, to recreate a sense of belonging and community within the organization. This is very unifying and helps to give meaning back to people in the field.

Today, new tools make it possible to leverage these drivers.

We realize that what is important for sales engagement, now more than ever, is the human element, but managers have less and less time to spend individually with each of their sales representatives. We therefore need digital technology to multiply efforts in engagement, individual coaching, and daily team empowerment.

Incenteev is a platform that will act as a management lever, a digital lever that will strengthen daily management actions and give it much more power.

Driving Performance in the Digital Age, download the guide here