Since the last financial crisis, many companies are struggling to stay afloat. As human beings we often relapse to our habits to find something familiar and secure in an unsure environment - this is also the case with companies looking for sure footing to get them back on the growth track. Unfortunately, several corporations fall prey to their old ways and stick the guns they know have worked at some point and time. This approach, however, makes them regress and progress stays at bay.
Then there are those companies that evolve to their surroundings by innovating, adapting and by acquiring a new skill set that sets them apart. Often times, this new approach finds a way of doing something better, faster or cheaper, or all of them at once.
This last July, Harvard Business Review published an article on Inside Sales, which in the past two years has become more and more popular. Many organizations are prisoners of their routines and success models that have proved to work in the past, but bear an increasingly lesser role in the world of today. The tools of yesterday do not simply measure up with the ones needed for the ever-changing world we live in now. HBR contends that Inside Sales is the upcoming trend that is already picking up companies from their ruts and lifting them up to new heights of growth.
First there was Salesforce and then there was inbound/inside sales. As companies seek to cut back on costs and increase the efficiency of their sales force, they have quickly embraced SAAS as the way to go. In order to use a system like Salesforce up to its full potential, there needs to be a inside sales process in place to keep feeding 'The Machine'. Bringing the bacon home is not a mere function of having sales people visit clients in the field. With the digitization and globalization it is more evident that inbound lead generation, digital channels and inside sales needs to be more data-driven and...well, digital.
Mike Moorman, a senior leader in ZS Associates' B2B sales and marketing practice states in a HBR 26th of July interview the following:
"Many B2B companies are making inside sales a priority. I've seen companies investing to create new inside sales teams, adopt advanced analytics to measure and improve productivity of those teams, realign inside and field sales to optimize market coverage, provide value-based selling tools tailored to inside sales, and upgrade their inside sales customer engagement processes and skills."
This just goes to say that companies are already implementing inside sales big time - and the ones that are, reap the rewards:
Salesforce.com - Aaron Ross made inside sales an integral part of the sales process and ramped up the revenue by 100 million.
Astra Zeneca - replaced its field sales people with a 300 inside sales team and saw costs reduced significantly.
IBM - focused on SoMe and generated leads to its inside sales people and saw a 55% increase in Twitter and a high-quality inbound leads.
SAP - expects to increase channel sales by 40% with the help of specialized inside sales teams.
These are only a few examples. If the big ones are seeing the benefits, maybe should the little ones. To find out more - contact me and let's discuss setting up your own inside sales team.
Then there are those companies that evolve to their surroundings by innovating, adapting and by acquiring a new skill set that sets them apart. Often times, this new approach finds a way of doing something better, faster or cheaper, or all of them at once.
This last July, Harvard Business Review published an article on Inside Sales, which in the past two years has become more and more popular. Many organizations are prisoners of their routines and success models that have proved to work in the past, but bear an increasingly lesser role in the world of today. The tools of yesterday do not simply measure up with the ones needed for the ever-changing world we live in now. HBR contends that Inside Sales is the upcoming trend that is already picking up companies from their ruts and lifting them up to new heights of growth.
First there was Salesforce and then there was inbound/inside sales. As companies seek to cut back on costs and increase the efficiency of their sales force, they have quickly embraced SAAS as the way to go. In order to use a system like Salesforce up to its full potential, there needs to be a inside sales process in place to keep feeding 'The Machine'. Bringing the bacon home is not a mere function of having sales people visit clients in the field. With the digitization and globalization it is more evident that inbound lead generation, digital channels and inside sales needs to be more data-driven and...well, digital.
Mike Moorman, a senior leader in ZS Associates' B2B sales and marketing practice states in a HBR 26th of July interview the following:
"Many B2B companies are making inside sales a priority. I've seen companies investing to create new inside sales teams, adopt advanced analytics to measure and improve productivity of those teams, realign inside and field sales to optimize market coverage, provide value-based selling tools tailored to inside sales, and upgrade their inside sales customer engagement processes and skills."
This just goes to say that companies are already implementing inside sales big time - and the ones that are, reap the rewards:
Salesforce.com - Aaron Ross made inside sales an integral part of the sales process and ramped up the revenue by 100 million.
Astra Zeneca - replaced its field sales people with a 300 inside sales team and saw costs reduced significantly.
IBM - focused on SoMe and generated leads to its inside sales people and saw a 55% increase in Twitter and a high-quality inbound leads.
SAP - expects to increase channel sales by 40% with the help of specialized inside sales teams.
These are only a few examples. If the big ones are seeing the benefits, maybe should the little ones. To find out more - contact me and let's discuss setting up your own inside sales team.
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