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The New World of Work | The Cultural Opportunity

6/11/2018

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The New World of Work | The Cultural Opportunity
Source: Shutterstock
It´s 12 years ago that Bill Gates posited the New World of Work, where collaboration, business intelligence and prioritizing scarce time and attention are critical factors for success. It´s time to look into the progress we made on software enabled business productivity because it impacts each and everyone.
The innovation journey continues at amazing speed of technological progress but also adds new complexity for people who already feel the pressure of an "always-on" world and ever-rising expectations for productivity.
The need for change is even more pressing: Neuroscience found evidence why our good old flexible office work environment is not productive.
No matter where you start doing things differently it will be a journey without final state of perfection. My personal experience in software industry started with empowerment, trust, investment and an innovative environment - all invaluable assets to be successful and certainly something to secure to back your own digital transformation!
The New World of Work offers more than saving commute time and a better CO2 footprint for the individual. It´s certainly more than saving office space, reducing travel cost and increasing employer attractiveness scores. Optimizing work and life for more productivity means a  fundamental change of habits - professionally and privately.
The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem - Do you understand me?
Captain Jack Sparrow
Let´s not confuse, the digital transformation of our work- and lifestyle remains a cultural challenge, a social responsibility and it mandates innovation in leadership approaches. What may work on an individual- or team level requires a more systematic effort to organizational structures. Conventional Change Management is not sufficient to address the topic says Barbara Josef, Partner at 5to9. ​It requires general management attention to orchestrate the cultural transformation and realize the productivity potential. All functions from IT, Finance, HR and the Line Organizations need to be onboard and synchronized. Make sure, you keep it simple and rational in your approach to policies.
Transforming the organization means dealing with complexity in:
  • how to articulate business requirements and the definition of success?
  • how to become explicit on expectations?
  • how to renegotiate work contracts and revisit mutual agreements?
  • how to work inside and outside the office?
  • how to prioritize professional and private life?
  • how to individually and collectively organize collaboration?
  • how to interact online, offline and across desks, sites, cities, regions and time zones?
The World Economic Forum has provided a navigation system on the global transformation agenda to become systematic with Workforce and Employment of the future. You may also find some interesting perspectives there.
World Economic Forum - Workforce and Employment
Source: World Economic Forum, "Workforce and Employment"
"Now that it's definitely not cool anymore, it feels safe for me to start tweeting as well ..."
​Posted by my old friend, Prof. Ulle Endriss, 2017 ... or 25 years after we learned about Quantum Computing at University
During my career, I had the pleasure to work in mobile workplaces, use flexible- and drop-in offices, collaborate during intense travel, perform in international roles, manage remote teams, lead business in distributed environments and experience diverse cultures. Still, I keep exploring, learning, optimizing and innovating my environment - always aware that there will be no perfect time to try new things.
The next big transformation in sales is within reach. Therefore, I dive deep into Artificial Intelligence to further benefit Business Insight and, I look into seamless channel integration to imagine teamwork with our future colleagues, the AI Bots. If sales can add value to customers through well articulated procedures, repetitive activities and standardized offerings, than the combination of new technology with experienced sellers will lead to new exciting ways of customer experience.
Finally, I enjoy working in remote teams, managing distributed organizations but, I also learned that even the most sophisticated technology can´t do what a good cup of coffee can do - stimulate the creation of inspiring ideas when sitting together in person.​​
Technology can help you learn and follow-up on things in a structured way but it will not help you in cases where you even don´t know what you don´t know.
Conscious Knowledge
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Renewing Contracts | The Missing Bullet Holes

19/10/2018

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Star Treck - Mrs. Spock
Source: Shutterstock
Imagine, sellers would be rational individuals like Mr. Spock, the fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise - the commander of Starship Enterprise who always followed the rules of logic, never distracted by emotions.
I agree, this is neither realistic nor desirable to move mixed human-vulcans into sales roles. Some sales leaders would not want to lose their financial controllers either.
Experience tells, winning a new customer means 6 times more investment than maintaining an already loyal customer. Isn´t this a really good reason for you as a commander to go deep on what is driving the Enterprise towards customer loyalty?
I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize in Physics 1965
This usually is the point where measuring the world starts and big data is put into action. It begins with identifying statistically significant parameters. Try to understand what sets a successful contract renewal apart from those which did not renew. If you want to go beyond anecdotal evidence, a lot of data points are involved, but the effort is worth it. Aberdeen Group research states that Analytically Grounded Sales Teams average a 2.7 times greater annual increase in customer renewal rates. Meanwhile, such data analysis is well supported by BI tools or even Artificial Intelligence engines and it is backed by external business consultant experience.​
Business Acumen remains key to success in increasing the likelihood to renew a contract. Even though you may find significant correlations, it´s the causation which makes it relevant. The correlation between growth on ice-cream sales and the outbreak of bushfires in southern California maybe a strong correlation but it´s not the cause. Mind the difference between correlation and causation.
Turning good analytical work into concrete action is what makes the difference in business. Overhasty conclusions and bias on this last but most important step may put your whole endeavor at risk. Following historical anecdote shows why.
The United States Statistical Research Group (SRG) once used to be on mission to help win world war II. Sales is not war and trying to find a way to minimize the loss of airplanes through better armor is not business optimization. Surprisingly enough, we still can learn from their work.
YoY Advantages of Analytical Grounded Sales Teams
Source: Aberdeen Group, Sept. 2016 | "YoY Advantages of Analytical Grounded Sales Teams"
When American planes came back from engagements over Europe, they were covered in bullet holes like a Swiss cheese. But the damage wasn’t uniformly distributed across the aircraft. There were more bullet holes in the fuselage, not so many in the engines. So, how can the armor be optimized  on the weakest parts without negatively impacting the overall performance of the aircraft?
Columbia University professor Abraham Wald came up with a surprising answer: The armor, said Wald, doesn’t go where most of the bullet holes are. It goes where the bullet holes aren’t - on the engines!
You’d have planes coming back with bullet holes all over the wings, the fuselage, the nose — but none at all on the engine. Simply because those severely damaged engines did not return from their mission and therefore don´t show up in your analysis. Protecting engines and pilots better, increased the likelihood to return from the battlefield.

Survivorship-bias.png
By McGeddon - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

​Taking the recurring business scientifically to the next level implies a lot of work but it is the right choice in the digital era.  Even if you decide to start small, next time you assess the feedback of your customer satisfaction survey with your teams, make sure you especially understand where the bullet holes are missing - it might well be your blind spot hiding the lethal risk to your business mission.
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    Andreas Engel

    Andreas Engel


    ​is an experienced business leader working 20+ year in high-tech industry - leading, growing and transforming high-performance sales organizations, balancing short term results with long term strategy to drive new business growth.

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