3 steps to reinventing GTM

23rd April 2021 |   Maria Valdivieso de Uster

How top sales innovators are embedding data and technology throughout their organisations to reimagine sales for the “next normal”.

Sales has always been a “sensing” organisation, attuned to changes in customer sentiment, shifts in demand, and the requirements of different buying stages. But those senses are being flooded as customers shift to digital engagement, leaving sellers with more channels to cover and more interactions to manage.

The pandemic has amplified these challenges, exposing weaknesses in existing sales models and gaps in digital readiness. In many ways, this data revolution in sales matches what happened to marketing departments three to five years ago, when they were forced to reorient their functions to be more analytically driven. With more data flowing in from non-traditional sources such as video calls and webinars – few of which are captured by current sales processes – understanding which customers to focus on, what they care about, and how they want to engage can often feel like a guessing game.1

Partner at McKinsey & Company’s Marketing & Sales Practice

Maria Valdivieso de Uster is a Partner in McKinsey & Company’s Marketing & Sales Practice. She works with B2B and consumer companies in the US, Latin America, and Europe to build advanced sales capabilities that drive above‐market growth. Over the past 15 years, she has led research on sales growth, go‐to‐market strategy, sales capability building, channel excellence, advanced analytics in sales, and commercial transformation. The author would like to thank her colleagues Bertil Chappuis, Gui Cruz, Ben Ellencweig, and Michael Viertler for their contribution to this piece.