MAIN INSIGHT 74
Vishal Kuppili
DIGITAL SOLUTION DIRECTOR
One of the Largest Global IT Services Provider
What impact is technology having on the workforce?
Business leaders should not view technology as an opportunity to replace their human workforce, instead the focus should be on investing in technology to help make humans more effective and efficient. Take sales roles for example. Technology simply cannot replicate the relationship building abilities of human beings. What technology can do, is empower the sales teams with data driven insights, helping them get smarter with their outreach and allowing them to focus more on relationship building. Technology can effectively play the role of an assistant to the salesperson. Say they have a prospect, but only know a little bit about them. AI/ML models can profile the prospect and quickly fill in the gaps based on other customers with similar characteristics. It may not be perfect every time, but it gives the salesperson a much better chance of understanding what matters to that prospect and how to engage with them much earlier in their buying journey.
How did the global pandemic affect business priorities?
The global pandemic made everybody look at things differently. Businesses were forced to reevaluate their worst case scenarios and many found that their IT solutions were simply not set up to support remote working. Part of these reviews also highlighted to businesses just how much they relied on outsourcing to run their business. As interactions with IT service providers were curtailed during the pandemic, the lack of internal technical expertise was exposed. This led to an increase in investments in upskilling of the internal staff as well as the emergence of human-assisted digital offerings.
Changes were also felt in sales and marketing departments, as physical meetings were no longer an option. The successful businesses during this time were the ones who reinvested into digital marketing, allowing them to still reach potential customers. This change will be a lasting one, as people continue to work in remote and hybrid ways.
The successful businesses during this time were the ones who reinvested into digital marketing, allowing them to still reach potential customers.
Effectively leveraging technology and humans at the right customer touchpoints during the customer acquisition journey, will help make the process more effective and allow businesses to sell more successfully.
What can businesses do to thrive post pandemic?
Businesses that want to thrive in the digital, post-pandemic world need to focus on three things. Firstly, the upskilling of internal workforce to embrace technology. The pandemic demonstrated the value that technology brings to businesses and how important it is to have an appreciation of what value, technology can unlock for businesses. This will allow businesses to adopt new technologies more easily, be more agile and thereby giving them a competitive advantage. Secondly, businesses need to take advantage of the opportunities that data brings. Traditional customer journeys were based around the product or service that a business wanted to sell, but this way of working is now obsolete. Instead, businesses need to build new customer journeys that are customer centric and data driven. Effectively leveraging technology and humans at the right customer touchpoints during the customer acquisition journey, will help make the process more effective and allow businesses to sell more successfully. Finally, businesses need to accept that internalising innovation is not the best choice and they must cultivate a strong partnership ecosystems to avoid any surprises from market disruptions. FinTechs are a great example of this, as they can bring in new perspectives and solutions that typical businesses would never have conceived or invested in.
Vishal is a result oriented digital sales leader who has been working closely with senior staleholders from large organisations, helping them define and build digital solutions. He has spent over 14 years in the Financial Services industry and specialises digital transformation initiatives.