Quick: When’s the last time you used a paper map? Dialed a landline phone? Watched a DVD?
We’re in a time of accelerated innovation—when we embrace mobile apps, wireless devices, streaming services and other technologies that transform our personal lives at breakneck speed. Yet, crossing the threshold of a work day can feel like stepping back in time.
With so much innovation at our fingertips, why do so many companies put up with outdated B2B sales processes?
Consider this:
Much of B2B sales still happens manually, with orders placed by phone, fax or email, during meetings with sales reps, or needing to be created from standing orders on file.
For every order, a sales rep often has to enter information multiple times: into tracking spreadsheets, accounting software, and packing lists. If a buyer calls to change an order, the whole process has to be repeated. Keeping up all of this is time-consuming and subject to human error, delay of goods, higher costs, and frustrated customers.
Still, even if replacing manual activity with automation could give a company more time to grow the business, make new products, and sell more products, leaders may hesitate to evolve methods that are familiar. Change is hard. Finding and implementing new solutions can seem risky, especially for companies whose time and resources are already stretched.
The rest may be processed through old-school legacy systems. Usually, these systems were originally built for the business years ago. Even with constant updates and patches, they’re unable to keep up with the capabilities of modern cloud-based computing platforms.
Legacy systems have heavy infrastructures that are expensive, cumbersome to manage and difficult too secure. They can experience significant downtimes, and can’t provide the flexibility and adaptability needed for organizations to adjust to the speed of modern business.
Even so, companies have heavily invested in these systems, and tend to persevere with them to avoid disrupting the business, losing data or incurring the cost of migrating to something new.
B2B relies on special pricing based on quantities and customer loyalty, so B2B sales-support tools largely have focused on behind-the-scenes customer management. Companies deploy CRMs and other sales enablement tools to keep up with relationships and interactions with customers.
The problem is, sales teams must spend hours every week entering activities and contacts into these tools instead of on selling. Every minute sales reps aren’t selling equals lost revenue. Because sales reps aren’t hired to do data entry, they often enter inaccurate information. The company is left with incomplete customer records, lost revenue and a weighed down sales team.
Outdated, manual ordering processes quickly frustrate buyers—and your own staff. B2B sales teams need best-in-class digital tools to move forward with speed. Research by McKinsey & Company shows that streamlined digital solutions are essential in today’s environment.
The good news is, B2B Software as a Service solutions can offer mature, feature-rich capabilities that are affordable, easy to use and easy to maintain. Companies considering digital solutions should look for a modern cloud computing platform that allows for frictionless onboarding—and provides a self-serve experience for your sales team and your buyers.
Here at SABX, we’re helping customers scale their businesses with digital-tech-enabled selling, delivered through a private, self-serve model. We provide a quick, easy, and smart way to start selling, sharing information and processing orders online. What’s more, we can have you up and running in as few as two weeks.
Delivered securely as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution from the cloud, our low-cost, nimble B2B platform does not require any installations on your existing platform, and comes with two mobile applications—one for iPhone and one for Android.
Let’s talk about how SABX :: Seller and Buyer Xchange can empower your team to become more agile. We’re here to help!