In a time of economic headwinds, B2B sales leaders face the challenge of doing more with less. Soaring inflation and interest rates add up to leaner budgets and slowing growth for many businesses today, directly impacting the B2B sales pipeline.
The ability to adapt will make or break success for enterprises, manufacturers, and wholesalers. For sales leaders, a strong focus on maximising resources and growing customer relationships will be more crucial than ever.
In early 2023, we conducted a "pulse check" survey of over 40 B2B sales leaders to find out their perspectives and priorities for the year ahead. This report aims to offer sales leaders a snapshot of how your peers are navigating change amidst uncertainty and provide actionable steps to apply these insights in your own strategies.
Top 3 Findings
1. Growing with existing customers is the number one priority
B2B leaders are shifting their attention toward nurturing existing customers to drive sales growth. This new focus poses fresh challenges. Not all sales leaders have a clear, robust set of customer metrics and KPIs to pinpoint areas of potential growth and scale their efforts. This year, the key differentiator for sales success will be the ability to collect better data on customer behaviour and transform it into personalised, timely recommendations.
2. E-commerce technology unlocks bandwidth for businesses to focus on growth
B2B e-commerce has seen a massive boom on the back of the pandemic. Our survey points to a noticeable gap between companies that have embraced digital tools and those that lag behind. Organisations that have adopted e-commerce technology are more satisfied with the effectiveness of their internal sales processes, freeing them up to focus on growth and expansion.
3. Leaders are taking a strategic approach to digitalisation
Digitalisation remains a priority for B2B leaders, but does not supersede strategic concerns like lowering operational costs. Leaders are focused on staying agile - digitalisation is simply a means to this goal.
This means that while a long-term digital strategy is still important, the days of lengthy, year-long implementations of single software solutions are over.
Large organisations are opting for cloud-based applications that integrate easily and can be adopted quickly. The pandemic has shown that large organisations can quickly adopt new digital tools, as more leaders opt for cloud-based and best-of-breed applications that integrate easily.
To adapt fast to a changing landscape, companies now prefer solutions with pre-packaged capabilities that can be rapidly customised and deployed.
This year, the key differentiator for sales success will be the ability to collect better data on customer behaviour and transform it into personalised, timely recommendations.
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The Results
Uncovering survey responses and sentiments from 40+ sales leaders.
What is the top sales focus for B2B organisations in FY2023?
Growing with existing customers emerged as top-of-mind for sales leaders this year.
Over 43% of respondents selected this as their organisation's B2B sales focus - more than double the percentage that cited "lowering operations cost" as their priority. It's clear that sales leaders are thinking beyond short-term cost-cutting.
Instead, they are refocusing their efforts on customer satisfaction, improving their understanding of customer behaviour to provide better support.
What's the one thing you're trying to improve on and learn more about this year?
"Customer behaviour is the challenge. That is our focus this year. We need to understand what is essential for the client and how we can support it." - Cledson / Sales Manager
A closer look at differing priorities
To understand how sales priorities might diverge at different levels of a company, here's a breakdown of survey responses from managers in comparison with directors and VPs.
For B2B sales leaders at all levels, growing with existing customers was the number one priority.
Interestingly, the next top priority differed widely. Adding new channels and expanding to new markets was the second greatest concern (28.75%) for leaders at the director/VP level. In contrast, none of the managers cited this as their organisation's focus.
Nearly one in three managers (31.25%) highlighted lowering operations cost as the organisation's next top priority - a concern that ranked far lower for directors and VPs (7.14%)
What areas of improvement are sales leaders focusing on?
In terms of areas of improvement for their businesses, sales leaders had divided responses across the board.
Given the importance placed on growing with existing customers, it's no surprise that leaders strive to better understand and support customers. Over a quarter (26.67%) of respondents cited this as their top area for improvement.
At the same time, an equal number of respondents ranked improving their internal processes (26.67%) and strengthening their market presence (26.67%) as their key areas of concern.
Gaining an edge with e-commerce adoption
Zooming in on respondents from companies that do not currently use e-commerce technology, we see a trend taking shape.
Using e-commerce technology
Most organisations that have already adopted e-commerce technology are setting their sights on business growth in 2023. 29.41% are concentrating on building their market presence, while another 29.41% are striving to improve their customer service capabilities.
Not using e-commerce technology
Companies that have yet to embrace e-commerce technology, however, remain caught up in efforts to upgrade their internal processes. Improving how they work internally was by far the top focus for nearly one in two respondents (46.15%).
Compared to their digitally savvy peers who are embarking on growth and expansion, companies in this group risk falling behind the curve.
How will sales leaders measure success in FY2023?
To find out the top metrics that B2B leasers are paying attention to, we asked respondents, "What KPIs are you responsible for in 2023?"
Even though productivity is not typically a KPI that sales leaders are measured on, over a third of respondents (36.67%) spotlighted this as a key metric.
This reflects the increased importance of improving how sales teams work internally, as leaders strive to do more with less in today's challenging landscape.
What's the one thing you aim to improve on and learn more about this year?
Here are a couple of quotes from the actual responses that have been re-written for clarity:
"Building a digital customer identifier, again allowing us to truly have one view of each customer." - Allen, Head of Sales & Marketing at a wholesale company
"How to improve sales after the B2B sales. I can make the sale, but how is my customer doing with the products they buy from me?" - Max, Director of Sales
Next Steps
Here are three recommendations for applying these insights to your own strategies.
1. Start collecting better data on your customers
You can't improve what you don't measure. To grow with your existing clients, think about gathering data on how customers are using your products. Besides a dedicated customer service portal, an after-sales portal is a good way to collect insights such as:
- How frequently do your customers need equipment maintenance? This enables you to explore predictive maintenance solutions.
- What products do customers often buy together? Knowing this will open up cross-selling opportunities to satisfy more of your customer's needs.
- What products are different user groups with new services, tailored offers on spare parts, and more.
2) Keep your team aligned on sales priorities
Our findings show that sales managers may be out of step with directors and VPs when it comes to the company's sales priorities. Getting your team on the same page is crucial to driving sales outcomes and making strategic decisions efficiently.
- Sit down with your team to discuss the organisations' sales focus in 2023. Get input on what each leader feels should be prioritised, and why.
- Layout objectives and KPI relating to each sales focus. Having a clear roadmap helps your team make better strategic decisions in their day-to-day.
- Review accounts regularly to stay on track. Make sure you're spending the most attention on accounts and tasks that match your big-picture sales priorities.
3) Accelerate your e-commerce adoption
If you aren't already using e-commerce technology, it's time to start. Adopting e-commerce doesn't need to be complicated - the right commerce platform will provide you with the basic building blocks to:
- Create user-friendly buying process
- Manage custom catalogue and pricing
- Automate repetitive sales tasks like quotations
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About our survey
Methodology and demographics
Between 1 and 15 March 2023, we surveyed a total of 46 sales and marketing leaders from enterprises, manufacturing, and wholesale companies across the Asia-Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong.) Our scope was focused on companies with more than 500 employees and annual revenues of over USD 300 million.
Head of Marketing, APAC at Intershop
