Sales Job Automation – It is already here

A 2016 article by Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum mentions that the fourth industrial revolution is already building on the third. 

Another article ‘The Future of Jobs‘ published by World Economic Forum mentions how ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labor markets over the next five years.’ 

Sales jobs are no exception.

B2B-sales_v1

Image Courtesy – Sofia Ordonez/CNNMoney

Forrester forecasts that 1 million US B2B salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service eCommerce by the year 2020. While B2B buyers overwhelmingly prefer to research and increasingly buy, products and services via a self-service website, B2B sellers still force buyers to interact with their salespeople as part of the purchase process. (emphasis is mine)

Automation will take over the Sales positions in the future. Even today, we hear of companies who spend less on Sales and are more focused on the product and solutions. While Sales is Team work, the dependence on sales people will reduce over time. This is an efficient way to run an organization. 

Sales folks should focus on offering value to the customer and be an enabler for the customer to make a decision and NOT force the product on them.

Comments and Feedbacks are welcome.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *