Top 5 Challenges For Industrial Companies

According to the State of Industrial Sales & Marketing 2020 Research Report – the top 5 challenges for industrial sales and marketing survey respondents included:

51% of survey respondents identified forecasting sales and/or orders accurately as a key challenge.

This was followed by:

• improving customer experience 47%
• achieving sales effectiveness 41%
• implementing sales and marketing technology 35%
• aligning sales and marketing 35%

Interestingly, those who predicted that in the next 3 years their business performance would be ‘significantly worse’, ‘somewhat worse’ or ‘about the same’ as their main business competitors, were less likely to agree that implementing sales and marketing technology is a key challenge.

According to the Research Report, there’s a step-change in industrial customer expectations. 2020 has provided the platform to make change and succeed in line with increasing customer service expectations based on out-of sector experience.

While 47% of survey respondents said they found improving customer experience challenging, 74% mentioned improving customer experience as a key requirement to achieving sales and marketing success.

52% of industrial sales and marketing professionals claim the responsibility of Customer Experience lies with Sales and Customer Service.

Interestingly, 50% of survey respondents then see IT as responsible for the technology requirements to enable improvements in customer experience.

This may be a danger unless an industrial company is customer and marketing oriented, IT may be making technology choices, not in the interest of the customer.

Industrial sales and marketing professionals will need to build the business case for change to allow improvements in Customer Experience to take place, without IT on board this will prove to be an even bigger challenge to overcome in 2021 and beyond.

To learn more download the State of Industrial Sales & Marketing 2020 Research Report

State of Industrial
Sales & Marketing 2020
Research Report

We were delighted to have 205 respondents participate in our first-ever Industrial Sales & Marketing Research Study, led by Deakin University and sponsored by Salesforce. The study focused on six key areas:
Customer Experience, Sales Effectiveness, Sales and Marketing Alignment, E-Commerce and Technology, Loyalty, and Account Based Marketing (ABM).

Download the State of Industrial Sales & Marketing 2020 Research Report to learn more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Zafiris is an industrial marketer and founder of Industrial Ideas. Having built his experience in B2B marketing from the ground up, Peter understands what it takes to succeed with your marketing strategy. All client projects are personally managed by Peter to help industrials like you get the return on investment you deserve. Peter and team, work hard to become an extension of your business, to help you get the most out of your marketing efforts. Get your free 30 minute marketing consultation to learn more.