HubSpot have written a great article taking a look at the changing role of sales people in the new B2B buying processes, based on research from Forrester’s Principle Analyst, Andy Hoar. The full article not only tells us which sales roles are in trouble, but also how this has been caused by more self-sufficient and informed buyers. Hoar hasn’t shied away from the key message in their research. The fact is sales people are in trouble.

Over at Forrester they think “one million jobs will be net displaces by 2020”. Of course not all sales roles will be equally effected, but if your role in sales, or your business, is predominantly focussed on order taking you might not find HubSpot’s article the easiest of reads. Don’t worry though, Hoar has some great advice on preparing your business for this change, which we happen to agree with! He quite simply recommends that if your business is currently reliant on order takers you should start embracing technology and exploring online alternatives to handle these processes. Read the full article from HubSpot here.

If you’ve read any of our blogs before you’re probably not surprised that we agree with anyone who promotes extending business processes to online models. Yes we may be biased, but we think there’s good reasoning behind it. The fact is we’ve already seen the B2C buying process dominated by online, but the same is set to happen in the B2B environment. The likelihood is if your customers are buying online in their personal lives, they will soon, if they aren’t already, be looking to place orders online for their business. Extending your business processes online doesn’t have to be difficult, but there are some key aspects you need to get right:

• Your website needs to save you time
• Reduce the amount of orders you are rekeying, therefore reducing errors
• Make placing orders more convenient for your customers by giving them up-to-date account, product and pricing information

ProspectSoft eCommerce offers unparalleled integration to Access Dimensions, Pegasus Opera, Sage 50 and Exchequer. To find out how we can help you extend your offline business online whilst achieving all of the above why not get in touch with one of our consultants? Oh, and if you’re worried about all those redundant order takers, then stop. We can’t remember the last time we spoke to an SME who was complaining of having too much time. Using technology to complete these mundane, and error prone admin tasks will just mean you can free up your sales teams time to focus on areas that are really beneficial to your business, turning your order takers into order makers.