Warning: The following will raise the blood pressure of heads of sales.
Gartner recently stated that by 2026, 60% of enablement functions will be tasked with enabling all client-facing, revenue-generating roles. By why? Because buyers hate friction in their buying process and most B2B organizations are designed to create friction.
How can this be? Gartner's additional perspective is that "most B2B organizations, end-to-end customer engagement has no clear executive owner among the siloed sales, marketing, service and other customer-facing functions. This lack of ownership leads to friction in the end-to-end customer experience and confusion in the revenue generation process. The siloed enablement activities and workflows traditionally employed by marketing, sales and customer success adversely impact the overall customer experience, creating an overwhelming and confusing approach to information for both buyers and revenue team members." So, what's the alternative? To create a revenue enablement model that brings "siloed enablement efforts — such as training, onboarding, content management and technology adoption — for the various revenue team roles under one function, or at least into tighter alignment. In particular, an effective revenue enablement organizational structure guides all revenue-generating roles to collectively focus on improving the revenue team experience and performance. This requires a mix of existing roles, data and new roles"
As B2B buyers increase their reliance on rep-free, digital activity, B2B teams must shift to remain competitive and relevant. Every step in the buyers' journey must be assessed for points of friction. The functional design of tomorrow's "sales organization" must the goal of improving organizational visibility and facilitating a consistent, frictionless customer experience throughout the buying journey.
Gartner identifies three steps any B2B firm can complete to begin the migration.
Begin with aligning and tailoring training and onboarding efforts across sales, marketing and CS/CX functions.
Define and streamline revenue-generating team member activity workflows across the customer life cycle.
Integrate functional technology and data into a technology stack that supports the end-to-end revenue-generating process.
As an executive leadership team, the time is now to assess your revenue enablement leaders. In the future, or near future, your firm will need revenue enablement leaders who possess these qualities:
• Previous experience building and leading revenue functions, such as operations,
sales development, marketing, customer success and sales
• Strategic, outcome-based and data-driven decision making, with a proven track
record of designing programs and initiatives that align with business strategy and
customer outcomes
• Imaginative design capability, exceptional coaching skills and inspirational communication
• Previous experience in the creation of learning and coaching cultures within an organization
As a CEO, if you feel your team's current program management SMEs are not up to the mission, we can help.
Contact us at info@LucrumPartners.co
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