The NY Times, May 5th reported that technology’s generation of rebels has now almost completely disrupted itself. It described how the longtime leaders of industry giants like Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, and IBM have stepped down and on Monday John Chambers, Cisco System chief executive since 1995, said he was stepping down. These leaders were the “lions” of the industry.
All of this has created a generational shift in Silicon Valley. The article noted that young people lead Google (Larry Page) and Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg). So what was the message here? The message is one of unquestionable change and that it is “It is a young man’s (women’s?) game.” It talked about Cisco’s need to break “a lot of glass and change a lot of culture.” With its change of leadership, IBM is making smarter systems, cloud computing and related technology its priority – something it had dismissed earlier. The article talked about new competitors and the need for old guards “to look for a new act”.
Timothy Zimmerman offered what I see as great advice that I think is valid for all organizations in the business of sales: “The major issue is that there has to be a stronger hand in product creation.” To add to that, I see a need for a stronger hand in the development of sales forces to keep up with their customers.
Technology has been a primary driver of change in sales. The changes noted above signal of pace and volume of change to come that will continue to rock sales and impact the relationship between customers and salespeople.
Sales organizations must make it a priority to prepare their sales teams to understand and succeed in an increasingly smart sales environment.
Technology has created seismic changes in selling. We cannot overestimate the impact it will have on the future of selling. New ways to address many of the current changes have not yet been discovered as more changes are happening each day. We need to find solutions and ways to communicate them. A new vocabulary is needed. No one person or organization will have the answer. We need, as David Brooks puts it, a “community of conversations” and leaders to help define the way of doing business. Without a doubt, buyers will be early adapters of everything new and, if history repeats itself, sales organizations will lag, unless they make a simultaneous investment in technology, people and product a priority—starting now!