The Salesperson was the pivotal role in business success. This is changing with a digital global economy increasing the scope of choices in the buying lifecycle.
Governance, compliance and risk management is now at the forefront for business and legal compliance, and increasingly so in South Africa. Businesses need to mitigate the risk of reputational damage, loss of sales and closing doors. Thus, the rise of the age of sales accountability.
As a result, the sales role and those supporting it are changing. Most organisations are struggling to find the balance between enabling agile sales environment while enabling the effective controls and desired results.
The term “Sales enablement” is thrown around to tackle these challenges. Sales enablement ideally provides the systems, knowledge, content, resources and tools needed to equip the business for success — not just salespeople. The Gartner B2B Buying Journey takes this further by promoting buyer enablement. If you enable buyers to select your product/solution/service, you ultimately enable sales.
The Gartner insight report talks to the benefit of bringing marketing and sales closer, but what about the bid office?
The primary role of bidding is to enable buyers to select your proposal. The bid team plays a vital role in the overall business development process. The proposal document and related forms are becoming a vital channel to assist customers in making buying decisions. Key drivers for this change include:
- Fewer engagement opportunities available with buyers (The Gartner 2017 digital buyer report shows less than 17% of buyers meet with suppliers).
- Buying decisions have moved from sole decision-makers to teams ranging from 4-10 people.
- Procurement and legal pressure place weight on the bid process audit trail (both solicited and unsolicited).
By strategically combining sales, marketing and bid efforts company’s enable consistent brand experience, user-specific content and to win more deals.
The results of bid management playing a strategic sales enablement role may provide the answer to current sales woes. The Strategic Proposals Proposal Benchmarker™ report highlights the direct correlation between proposal capabilities and win rate. The tender office is working closer than ever before on pre-pursuit opportunities through to contract handover and beyond. The best companies integrate sales, bid and marketing efforts.
Is your business re-looking at the strategic role of the bid office, related governance, and how it integrates with sales?
