Wim GE De Vos

Small businesses with a BIG impact

Digital transformation – where to start

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A recent survey of  directors, CEOs, and senior executives found that digital transformation (DT) risk is their #1 concern in 2019. Yet 70% of all DT initiatives do not reach their goals. (source Harvard Business Review)

Digital transformation is a matter of survival for any business. But especially tricky for SME´s.

Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Salesforce, IBM, SAP, but also thousands of specialised players like Xero, Slack, Bootcamp, Mailchimp,… are all promising you the world.

So where do you start? How do you decide?

  • Look for the perfect “total solution provider”?
  • Build upon whatever software you already use?
  • Cloud or local packages?
  • Departmental approach (accounting, sales, production, shipping, IT, finance,…)

The decision making process I propose is the following:

Start with an in-depth business analysis. Where are we today?
Then lay out your strategic vision for the business. Where are we going?

And then a hybrid, personalised and phased approach will start to emerge.

Some parts will be hosted locally (eg sensitive information), some parts will be hosted in either a private cloud (own infrastructure) or public cloud solutions (external suppliers).

There is no Holy Grail of digital transformation. You are unique. So is the solution you need.

So start with analysing where you are today and plotting where you want to be tomorrow. Not by selecting softwares or vendors.

And I bet you will find that the digital transformation of your business will be hybrid, personal and phased.

Some interesting reads are:

ZDNet: Digital Transformation: making it work in the real world.
Harvard Business Review: Digital Transormation is not about technology.
Insead Knowledge: Setting the stage for Digital Transformation

A 100M€ group of smarthome companies across Europe?

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Interesting case of growthhacking.

Bravas: 15 independent smart home design-build firms across the United States create a national footprint and will focus on professional integration “of electronic lifestyle technologies into custom-built intelligent spaces.”

“Bravas, intelligent spaces” just landed a 75 million$ investment from a venture capital fund.

If states in the US can be compared in many ways to EU countries  when it comes to market size, demographics, clients look for “local” smarthome companies,…
The question to ask ourselves is then:

Is there space for a Europe-wide unified group of smarthome companies ? Valued at say 100m€…

20 established profitable integrators across Europe (10 capitals + 10 key cities)
1 single client segment = luxury home owner
1 single brand
Gradually grow closer (no sudden merge – rather share/learn/adopt over time)
– adopt best practices in business
– same SW solutions
– same design principles
– same products/brands
Each valued at 1 year turnover (or profit multiple) at a point in the future

 

Bravas CEO Ryan Anderson says succinctly that the partners “are stronger together.”

If they stay focussed I believe he is right. Why compete over 5% when 95% of the market potential is wide open if approached in the right way?

Small companies with a BIG impact💥.

Challenger sales – a key🔑 to success ?!

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The Challenger Sale is based on one of the largest sales studies ever conducted. One key finding was that 53% of customer loyalty is driven by the sales experience – not brand, price, service, or even the product. This experience is largely dictated by a customer’s interaction with the sales person and company overall.

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According to this research, every B2B sales person falls into five different profiles that define the skills and behaviours they use when interacting with customers. These profiles describe a rep’s natural mode of interacting with a prospect, and are not mutually exclusive –

  • The Hard Worker
  • The Lone Wolf
  • The Relationship Builder
  • The Challenger
  • The Problem Solver

what about success…? 🚀  Perfect for complex sales in a B2B environment

40% of high sales performers primarily used a Challenger style – as opposed to one of the other four sales styles the book identified. • High performers were more than 2x likely to use a Challenger approach than any other approach. • More than 50% of all star performers fit the challenger profile in complex sales. • Only 7% of top performers took a relationshipbuilding approach – the worst performing profile.

BUT: … not for everyone… Sales strategy needs a tailored approach.

As sales complexity increases, so does the success rate of the challenger approach. However, this Challenger approach only worked better among high performers. Among average performers, all profiles were roughly as successful as one another. This is a disruptive finding, as most sales training and sales teams today are geared towards creating and encouraging the Relationship Builder, the least effective of the five profiles.

Small changes in strategy that can create a huge impact…💥

May the salesforce be with you.

About sales people…

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Be an industry expert 🧪, not a product seller 📦
Salespeople get sent to voicemail. Sales meetings get rescheduled.

But strategists and experts get their calls answered every time, and their phones are ringing off the hook with questions and inquiries about their expertise.

No one likes to be sold to. But everyone needs a solution. 🧮

If you’re a problem solver in your industry, you’re going to get more than your prospects who take your calls. You’re going to get people who can’t stop calling you because you have the solutions they need.

Small decisions with a BIG impact 💥.