How have the sales and the business development industry changed after COVID-19?
While the COVID-19 pandemic has created a great deal of uncertainty regarding strategic planning for organizations, certainly, many business processes have permanently changed. Professionals working in sales and business development, which rely so much on face-to-face interaction, have been forced to develop creative ways to provide a human factor to potential customers when working remotely.
Digital transformation, which is all about leveraging technological capabilities to rethink business models and customer experiences, has therefore increasingly become a strategic necessity for survival. Let’s look at some of the key trends that have emerged in the last year:
Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)
Customer-centric companies governed by data-driven decision-making are investing heavily in customer data platforms (CDPs) to optimize sales and marketing campaigns. CDPs are data-warehouses that help centralize customer data from ERPs, CRMs, and other technologies to gain customer insights. While implementing these platforms is complex and capital-intensive, the growth in technological capabilities by companies building these platforms is making them a realistic option for more and more businesses.
Machine Learning’s Impact on Business
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications typically require heavy capital investments and highly skilled staff. What’s more, the business impact isn’t always clear. No wonder many businesses are lagging in embedding these technologies into their core organizational processes. However, with the growing number of machine learning lifecycle platforms available today, more and more industries are adopting these technologies and even reporting quantifiable benefits, which were often higher than anticipated.
Time to Modernize Applications
Application development, modernization, and integration are what digital transformation is ultimately all about. Instead of relying only on build-vs-buy decisions or RPA platforms, CIOs today are looking at low-code or no-code alternatives for application development. The availability of hyper-automation app development platforms has only accelerated this trend. It is expected that this will reduce the complications associated with conventional app development and may even improve the quality and productivity of development efforts.
Efficiencies in IT Operations
One of the most common challenges CIOs face today is reconciling the costs of acquiring new technologies with the cost of shutting down complex, deeply embedded legacy systems. To reduce the financial impact of new technologies, CIOs are increasingly turning to increase the efficiencies of their IT departments. How are they doing this? Well, it’s all about being able to support heterogeneous technologies without further increasing costs. This is also why multi-cloud operations and strategies have grown in popularity in the last year.
Say Goodbye to Waterfall PMOs
Agile methodologies are increasingly being adopted in program management offices (PMOs), and this trend is expected to continue in the coming years. However, implementing them isn’t always clear-cut since agile methodologies are not suited to a quarter-by-quarter, short-term business culture. As a result, CIOs are investing heavily in value stream management tools and adopting continuous planning practices. PMOs regularly working with agile teams might be the norm in the next few years.
