Insight

Organisations need to understand how selling is evolving and to involve sales leadership in developing strategies to thrive in the new environment.   Summary Professional selling is undergoing significant and unprecedented change that, in turn, profoundly impacts the role of the professional salesperson. Change has always been part of professional selling; however, the scale and speed of that change has… 

While most areas of business have changed in recent years, none has seen as dramatic a revolution as procurement and supply chain management, argues David Noble, CEO at CIPS. Speaking exclusively to the International Journal of Sales Transformation, Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply chief executive officer David Noble explains that the profession has had to change dramatically to keep… 

Nick de Cent finds that pharma thought-leaders are successfully adapting KAM models to their own ecosystem. Not all big accounts are key accounts. That’s one important lesson that the pharma industry has been learning the hard way. Another is that effective key account management (KAM) is more about finding effective solutions than simply flogging product in a more complex environment…. 

Todd Snelgrove on how customer intelligence can help you define your strategic approach to value, with a choice of two approaches. As salespeople, we need to use our understanding of the customer, and each decision maker within a customer, to decide what drives them professionally and personally and to know which sales strategy is best suited to engage them in… 

Can business learn any lessons from the professional intelligence community? Dr John Ardis suggests we can. During the Cold War, teams of intelligence analysts would pore over microfilm and squint at grainy aerial photographs. Human intelligence sources (or HUMINT in the vernacular – better known as spies) provided secret information about weapons, other spies, dark strategies and double bluffs. You… 

Truly understanding the customer underpinned the success of this hugely complex mega-deal. We talk to William Mills of Atos about how information really is power. Succeeding in a sales environment sometimes means turning over long-cherished beliefs such as: all negative thoughts are destructive. It was this ability to embrace the problems when creating a bid for new business that enabled… 

What is the relationship between sales ethics and business performance? Professor Mark Johnston takes us through the latest research. From Apple to Volkswagen, the axiom – ethical business is good business – is firmly embedded in today’s corporate culture. While this ethical business model is driven at all levels and throughout the organisation, nowhere is it more important than the… 

Is there link between a leader’s character and business performance? Research conducted by Dr Fred Kiel and his team indicates there is. Here, he talks to editor Nick de Cent. NdeC: Can you summarise the link between high-character leaders* and business performance? FK: We studied the lives and leadership skills of over 100 CEOs. We interviewed and surveyed these CEOs,… 

When Geoffrey Moore published the first edition of Crossing the Chasm over 20 years ago, it rapidly became a B2B sales and marketing classic – rated by Inc. magazine as one of the top-ten marketing books of all time. Moore’s focus on the behavioural chasm that exists between innovators and pragmatist buyers was a revelation to a generation of technology…