Grant Stanley Consulting

The greatest salespeople aren’t always the greatest CRM experts… and it doesn’t always matter. Every sales department has one. And, sadly, new recruits born into a world of web often sneer at them. The experienced sales executive who prefers landlines to telepresence, remembers the birthdays of his clients’ children and writes stuff down on paper. Yes, that guy. The guy who’s kept three £250k accounts loyal for a decade! Salespeople who started work in a different decade aren’t always familiar with CRM technology and, sometimes, it frustrates their (often younger) colleagues charged with getting the most from their IT investment. To the point where our traditionalist hero – let’s call this hero Geoff – ends up excluded from departmental strategy, with the millions of business pounds he brings in, ignored. Can I change your perspective a little? Geoff isn’t anti-CRM. In fact, he’s the most pro-CRM guy you’ll ever meet. (He just doesn’t always do it through software.) ...

What, another clarion call urging executives to fundamentally rethink their business models through digital technology? The business media have had no shortage of these. Many such bulletins focus on radically changing the nature of competition in an industry, as Apple did for music and Uber did for taxis. While there is certainly merit in questioning your business model, revolutionary business model transformation remains elusive despite the buzz. In our survey, a mere 7% of executives said that their company’s digital initiatives were helping them to launch new businesses. And only 15% said digital was helping them to create new business models. Why is that? Business model innovation is hard. But managers make it harder when they think about it only as radical industry reinvention. While revolutionary business model changes can be valuable, you don’t necessarily need to transform your industry. You don’t need to destroy your current business model. There is another way to make ...