Due to the relevance of the topic, we indicate below, for customer and partner executives, the main concerns of the surveyed CEOs include:
IESE, the Business School of the University of Navarra in Barcelona, has surveyed several Spanish CEOs and business leaders about their biggest concerns regarding the digital revolution, pandemic, and increasing geopolitical threats. The result of this work generated the report entitled “9 things keeping CEOs up at night”, based on their perceptions of the effects on pricing, supply chains, and consumer behavior, due to the profound implications for business. Due to the relevance of the topic, we indicate below, for customer and partner executives, the main concerns of the surveyed CEOs include:
- Changes in sales network management. The sales team must master the realms of physical and digital sales, which are often mixed. Business managers have the responsibility to train sales representatives for these new realities, some caused by the digitalization of the customer journey and others by digitalization in production. In short, the types of sales relationships have changed, and companies need to adapt.
- Price management. CEOs must manage inflation, which can be of long-term or short-term duration. This means implementing purchasing policies and pricing strategies to minimize negative impacts in the future.
- New technologies and use of data, which improve the effectiveness of sales initiatives and measure customer lifetime value (CLV). The use of data can also be applied to personalized offers, retaining customers and targeting the most interesting customer profiles.
- Managing highly uncertain environments. Some CEOs signaled the need to think short-term in highly changeable environments, while others expressed the view that a long-term perspective was important, perhaps helping to identify new business models.
- Balancing the budget between marketing and sales. The marketing department, which traditionally played a support role, has become the main driver of omnichannel – that is, integrated offline and online shopping options. There are more and more marketing technology systems that help generate leads.
- The supply chain of the future. The past two years have caused widespread disruption for many supplier-dependent companies. On the other hand, products are emerging that, although previously considered to have limited added value, are recently appreciated for their safety and speed of delivery – for example, personal protective equipment for local healthcare workers in a health crisis.
- The omnichannel challenge. First, there is the opportunity to interact with customers to learn in new ways. Second, new digital platforms can be incorporated as additional sales channels. Third, finding the right talent and operating model to integrate older and newer channels effectively is critical.
- The brand and the way it is communicated to the market, which can be a source of differentiation and customer loyalty.
- Organizational structures and agility in marketing and sales. In many industries, these departments are some of the biggest spenders on new technology and require organizational change and support.
