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3 minute read
An increasing number of sales and marketing practitioners conclude that there is a rapidly widening gap in the way B2B companies organise their procurement process and the way B2B companies organise their sales and marketing process.
At sales conferences and in literature Martech, Salestech and AI are presented as the holy grail that will allow B2B companies to increase their reach, to personalise messaging and effortlessly achieve sales quotas.
All this is happening in a bubble where customers are seen as targets, waiting to be hunted and closed.
In real life, frontrunner procurement teams are reinventing their buying processes, using data, plaformisation and AI. In general, they are obtaining better results in the process.
Too many sales leaders still believe that more pushing will lead to more sales.
The result is counterproductive. 70% of B2B customers indicate they would prefer to buy without ever talking to a sales person. This is not just about low-interest/low-value items but extends to assets and service contracts up to $500.000.
85% of the buying journey takes place in stealth - without engaging with the companies researched as possible partners or suppliers.
Too much of the discussion centres around how sales teams can harness the power of AI to drive efficiency. The risk is that AI will be used to reinforce a selling process that is already out of sync, is to a large extent obsolete and in an increasingly counterproductive.
Doing more of the same with better technology is not a good idea when more of the same results in hitting the wall even faster.
On top of this, an equally significant shift is occurring on the buyer's side. Customers and procurement managers are adopting AI to streamline their processes, making it crucial for B2B Sales Leaders to understand how these advancements will shape the future of B2B interactions.
Below are some of the concepts that go beyond Kraljic, VMI and SRM, which are commonly known by B2B sales people as components of lean procurement.
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AI-Driven Marketplaces - Introducing market mechanisms and market efficiencies to the procurement process
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Predictive Supplier Performance Assessment - Reducing the risk of partnering with unreliable suppliers.
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AI-Assisted Negotiations - Analysing historical negotiation data to suggest optimal pricing strategies and highlight potential areas for compromise.
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Procurement Chatbots and Virtual Assistants - Using advanced AI chatbots to handle initial negotiations and information gathering
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Automated Requisition Processing - Automating of the purchase requisition process, from order creation to approval workflows
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AI-Enhanced Supplier Research - Using AI tools to research performance reviews, price comparisons, and market trends.
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Procurement Fit Recommendations - Using AI algorithms develop company specific recommendations based on the buyer's specific needs and procurement strategy.
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AI-Powered Communication Platforms - Automating meeting scheduling, follow-ups, and providing real-time translation services for global interactions.
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Blockchain and AI Integration: Combining AI with blockchain technology to create transparency in the procurement process.
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Real-Time Feedback - Collecting and analysing feedback in real-time, enabling sellers to address issues promptly and improve their offerings continuously.
Safeguarding the future of B2B sales is going to require a serious level of White Paging in order to catch-up with the evolved customer procurement process.
This will not be limited to organisations where sales is a no-touch black box with an underdeveloped marketing function and a non-existing customer success function. It will also require frontrunners in professional sales to reconsider the way they operate and to reinvent the way they engage with emancipated, technology, data and AI savvy counterparts.
This brings us to a concept that I launched a couple of years ago as a talking point on the Future of Sales: Bot2Bot Selling.
At that point in time, Bot2Bot selling was far-fetched. Today we can safely conclude that it is on the table with forward thinking procurement teams.
So, enter the sales and marketing bot interacting with the procurement bot on the other side, probably both figuring-out immediately that the other side is not human, cutting out all the social talk and moving to conduct equitable business in milliseconds.
In the new world we are entering, this should not be a reason for concern.
If a bot negotiates with another bot to find the best possible deal for both parties involved we should not care, as this is the summit of B2B Selling and B2B procurement efficiency.
It is however yet another wake-up call for B2B sales leaders to radically Disrupt the way they sell today.
It is, yet, another pointer to demonstrate that the days of slow and hesitant incremental innovation in sales and marketing are over, and the time has come for real Disruptive and White Page thinking about the future role and organisation of B2B sales.
More interesting reading on these topics in The Sales Innovation Paradox by Professor Howard Dover of UTD and in the excellent research papers of Professors Deva Rangarajan and Bert Paesbrugghe both from IESEG Business School in Paris on AI in Sales and the evolution of Procurement Practices.
Happy to exchange views on this vision on the future of sales. .