Digital Disruption and Trends in Manufacturing Sales
In our last blog post, we discussed the major trends occurring in the manufacturing industry, which have challenged the traditional tactics of sales teams.
First and foremost, manufacturing enterprises and industrial ecosystems have become increasingly complex and global. Additionally, there has been an astonishing rise in both data volumes and connectivity within the manufacturing industry. Digital disruption, automation and the emergence of new technologies have caused the traditional business model to change and become more competitive.
The Need for a New Approach to Strategic Account Management
To be successful in this new landscape, it’s critical for sales teams to take a new approach to strategic account management. Companies have to start treating strategic accounts as the unique, complex creatures they are.
Shouldn’t your strategic account tools be more advanced than Excel, PPT, and traditional sales CRMs?
Digital Transformation to Drive Customer Centricity
Progressive manufacturers are focusing their digital investments on areas like Internet of Things (IoT) and smart factories, but they’re missing out on a huge opportunity to extend digital transformation to one of the most critical areas of their business: their customers.
According to a study conducted by PWC, manufacturers who harness digital innovations to transform into customer-centric organizations have:
- 25 – 50% faster sales cycles
- 5 – 10% higher gross margins
- 20 – 35% increase in cross and up-sell opportunities
SAM programs need to embrace the opportunities that digital technologies make possible in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. This is critical to continuously rethink and reimagine the way strategic account partnerships are wired. Further, this arms strategic account teams with the enablers that drive co-creation and sustained competitive advantage with global enterprise accounts.
For manufacturers, this means transforming the culture, process and technology status quo to thrive amidst the complexity, disruption and competition. World class companies across industries are leveraging digital technology to break down regional barriers and align global teams around a single view of the customer that is absolute and complete. Imagine the possibilities of having one global client vision and true collaboration across borders.
Is Your Current Strategic Account Sales Program up for the Challenge?
To determine whether or not your current strategic account sales program is up for the challenge, you should consider these three questions today:
- How many accounts make up 80% of your revenue?
- How much revenue would just a 3% increase in growth within just those accounts yield?
- If you got a meeting with one of the CEOs at those accounts an hour from now, could you walk in and have a strategic conversation about his business goals and your organization’s long term value?
Drive Strategic Account Growth in the Manufacturing 4.0 World
Revegy is a solution designed to address the unique challenges of strategic account growth in the manufacturing 4.0 world. Revegy’s specialized account planning and execution platform equips sales teams with a consistent, systematic process for uncovering immediate growth and expansion opportunities.
Revegy’s innovative visual technology brings clarity to the complex landscape of strategic accounts, and drives the critical thinking needed to approach them in a customer-centric way. Seeing is believing – schedule a demo to learn how world class sales teams are transforming strategic account management with Revegy.
Related Strategic Selling Resources
eBook: The Ultimate Sales Planning Guide
Blog Post: KAM Enablement – Why CRM is Not Enough
