The job of a sales manager is a challenging one. One of the biggest challenges that they face is how to keep a team of sellers motivated and producing quality results. Some of the best ways to make salespeople more productive don't include spending a fortune or sending them through another training class. A few [...]
The 7 most important stages of the sales process are: Preparation & Research Prospecting Needs Assessment (Discovery) Pitch/Presentation Objection Handling Closing Follow-Ups, Repeat Business & Referrals Sometimes, these stages differ, though. Different industries and even similar businesses may use five or nine steps instead. Each step in a sales process may consist of several separate [...]
The latest trends in digital transformation for next year reflect some particularly hard won lessons from the past few years, on both the business and technology sides. It's worthwhile taking the time to understand how these insights came about, as organizations earlier in the journey can avoid making many of the same painful, expensive, and [...]
With the rise of technology, it would seem that time spent developing "hard skills" would be useful. It's easy to think that future-proofing your sales career would come from product knowledge and getting the latest industry certifications. Likewise, learning the ins-and-outs of AI, CRM platforms, and marketing automation stacks seems an obvious place to focus [...]
What can you do to give your digital transformation the best chance of succeeding? Experts point to a few critical pieces of the puzzle, such as changing the culture of IT, identifying and convincing stakeholders across the business, and connecting transformation to a meaningful vision for the company. We know the possibilities of digital technologies [...]
By the end of 2019, Forrester predicts that 40% of enterprises will have automation centers and frameworks in place as they try to find the best way to structure their technology and workflows. With process automation being so central to the next phase of digital transformation for so many businesses, now is the time to [...]
The global telecoms industry is going through a state of flux. New technologies are disrupting the traditional players, and new competition is emerging. To a large extent, telecoms operators have not yet been able to find ways to monetise the data deluge flooding their networks and have struggled to reinvest in network upgrades as a [...]
Summary IoT is one of the most disruptive trends in IT over the past 10 years, and more disruptions await. CIOs planning ahead of the curve can benefit from the disruptive nature of IoT and avoid falling victim to unforeseen market changes wrought by IoT disruptions. Overview Key Findings IoT is approaching the transformation level [...]
Eighty five per cent of global banks cite the implementation of a digital transformation programme as a business priority for 2018, according to a new EY report. Investment in technology in order to drive efficiency, manage evolving risks and benefit from growth opportunities is seen by banks as critical for sustainable success, found the Global [...]
1. Cloud Computing Companies will significantly increase their functional capabilities in IT segments and other key process areas with better management of client’s problems and requirements. No doubt, there will be a massive workload for the consultants in the coming months across the globe. In 2015, Markets predicted that the industry of cloud computing, which is [...]
Big IT service providers are offering up their skills as service integrators, promising to help CIOs reign in their multi-sourcing messes. But can this "fox watching the henhouse" model really work? Read more here..
(Forbes/McKinsey) Data on its own, is nothing more than 1s and 0s. The companies that succeed today do three things well: 1. Use analytics to identify valuable opportunities. 2. Start with the consumer decision journey. 3. Keep it fast and simple. This goldmine of data is a pivot-point moment for marketing and sales leaders. Read [...]
As companies seek to move more of their spending from operations or running the business (currently around two-thirds of the average IT budget) to new projects and innovation, they are embracing the as-a-service model. Limited IT Outsourcing Growth and Increased Volatility is what we will see in the future, according to Gartner. Read more here...
In this presentation, McKinsey talks about the massive shift happening in customer experience today from moments of truth to customer journeys. Customer journeys are a discreet set of interactions a customer has with a brand to accomplish a task. Just think about all the ways you interact with a cable company when you’re setting up [...]
With a top-down view and bottom-up technology capability, IT can quickly and reliably respond to the changing needs of the business with optimized yet highly standardized solutions. With ITaaS, technology solutions can be deployed as needed, when needed, and bill only for what is used. This allows IT to be a strategic enabler of the [...]
Datacenters can be Key Barrier to Innovation [IDC Study] Unfortunately, problems in the datacenter are limiting effective use of datacenter capacity. Eighty-four percent of IT and facilities executives in this study reported that they had one or more incidents in which datacenter facilities constraints in power, space, or cooling or asset management problems or uptime issues negatively [...]
[Internet.com] Can Your Systems Ever Be Completely Secure? The answer to this question has to be "no." That’s because it’s not possible to know what previously unknown vulnerabilities may be discovered in your systems and the software that you run. The question that you can try to answer is "How easily could my systems be [...]
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part 1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it. 2. Since light travels faster than sound, [...]
Spectacular startup success often becomes a game about scouting and recruiting. A common mistake entrepreneurs make is recruiting team members early on simply because they look the part. In the long run, it doesn't matter if on paper, someone's perfect. You want people that can actually do the job. That VP of Sales candidate that [...]
The security community spends a lot of time worrying over the hidden costs of compliance and risk management programs--but what about the hidden returns? Creative technology executives can often find ways to gain far more value beyond risk mitigation or regulatory conformance from the monitoring and policy enforcement technology and procedures they put in place [...]
As western companies analyze their costs and commitments in light of outsourcing and overseas companies determine their focus and security offerings, it is clear that outsourcing could undergo some significant shifts in 2013. In addition, outside factors such as economic trends and transportation costs could force the hands of some outsourcing firms and businesses in [...]
IT chiefs find that domestic outsourcing (as opposed to offshoring) is becoming more attractive as it delivers advantages such as agility, speed and innovation Read more here ...
Although this is not a completely fresh report, I think it's still valid in many important aspects: to understand how innovation can be realized from outsourcing engagements. While innovation has been explored and prized within businesses for decades, it is a relatively new topic in the context of outsourcing. And as such, the perceptions what [...]
The amount of data in the world doubles every 18 months. Here's a look at eight real-world big data deployments in a variety of industries. Read more here..
