Employee well-being should be the top priority of any business. Focused, driven, and happy sales reps are integral to every organization’s success. They’re the ones responsible for driving conversions and developing long-term customer relationships. Also, they play a crucial role in providing other departments with actionable insights about potential and existing customers.
Lack of clarity, too much admin, but more sales than ever. This is what Skynamo’s most recent Global Field Sales Benchmark Report for 2021 revealed.
Skynamo – the leading app for field sales reps and managers – surveyed over 250 manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors with field sales teams over the course of 2021 to find out what their biggest challenges are and how they use technology to overcome them.
Skynamo – the leading provider of field sales technology – carried out extensive research recently. Spanning hundreds of manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors around the world, all with field sales teams, several pertinent challenges and successes were revealed over the course of 2021.
COVID-19 has triggered unprecedented changes in lives across the world. For many years, the majority of consumers have purchased products and services from brands they know and trust. But as campaigns around healthy eating habits and product quality gained momentum, we’ve seen a sharp shift in food buying preferences.
From electronics and seasonal clothing to home furnishings, toys, and food items, supply chain issues are causing in-store product shortages, creating a climate reminiscent of the panic buying that hit stores at the start of the pandemic. This time around, however, the disruptions are on a smaller scale and local in nature.
Choosing the wrong software can be incredibly frustrating and end up slowing you down if it’s cumbersome, complex, difficult to use and not fit-for-purpose. If you’ve decided to buy, then here are seven key features we believe makes for the ‘right’ sales software for B2B product sales:
The pandemic brought operations and safety shortcomings to the forefront in many industries, but few were as significantly highlighted as food processing.
Skilled B2B field sales reps are the driving force behind every successful B2B organization. Irrespective of your industry and target audience, professional sales reps are essential to driving conversions.
Organisations need to be serious about creativity if they want to drive sustainable business success across global markets.
It’s often forgotten that business is a creative pursuit. Every business, be it a technology giant such as Microsoft, or a tiny corner store serving one community, stems from a single idea. An idea that’s born from creative intent, but can be lost in deadlines, bottom lines and lines of business. Success today is still defined by return on investment (ROI) and numbers, but it’s strengthened by the organisation’s ability to build a culture of creativity. In the era of the always-on business, customer and employee, this is as invaluable as ROI.
Following the report of the first slowdown of sales growth recorded by the Skynamo Industry Thermometer in August 2021, the results for September have indicated very little movement month-on-month.
The Skynamo Industry Thermometer is a free-to-access resource that benchmarks industry sales activity and sector health on a monthly basis. It reports average order values and volumes from approximately 1000 South African manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors across 26 industries using the Skynamo field sales app.
Zane van Rooyen, Product Marketing Manager at Skynamo says that the company’s Industry Thermometer recorded the first slowdown in August 2021 following encouraging signs of sales growth heading towards pre-pandemic figures since January 2021. “The results for September are almost a carbon copy of those recorded in August with minimal movement, positive or negative, across all our tracked industries,” he says.
With this in mind, van Rooyen points out that it’s hard to ascertain what this plateau means in terms of the momentum of steady growth witnessed since the beginning of the year. “It could mean that local businesses have reached a peak in volumes or that the pressure on global supply chains is placing significant risk on companies. It could also simply be a reflection of the calm before the festive season storm.”
On a positive note, he highlights that the data is clearly showing that the Building & Hardware as well as the Food & Beverage industries are still vastly leading the race when it comes to order values and volumes with order revenue. “These are up by 100% and 400% respectively year-on-year.”
“As the world slowly opens up, with measurements set in place for businesses to operate and people to live alongside the virus, the results of the fourth quarter of 2021 will be a tell-tale sign of what to expect in 2022,” concludes van Rooyen.
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About Skynamo
Established in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2012, Skynamo is the leading field sales technology provider with close to 10,000 users at nearly 1,000 companies across a wide range of industries in Southern Africa, Australasia, the UK, Europe and the US. Skynamo’s field sales mobile app and cloud-based management platform are used by manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors with sales teams in the field, selling products to an existing base of customers. Skynamo integrates with a wide range of ERP and accounting software to improve order accuracy and fulfilment. Skynamo was named Sage ISV Partner of the Year for 2019 (Africa & the Middle East) and an Acumatica Certified Application and Customer Verified Application. Skynamo received $30million in funding from US based software investment firm Five Elms Capital in 2020 and forms part of the Stellenbosch-based Alphawave group of software and electronics companies, with more than 100 employees in South Africa, the UK and the US.
A related article also appeared in:
IT Online on Oct 20, 2021
Construction World on Oct 20, 2021
Engineering News on Oct 21, 2021
Startup Africa on Oct 21, 2021
Retail Brief Africa on Oct 21, 2021
Skynamo recently caught up with Keegan Hall, Head of Marketing and Product at Ethitech, to hear how winning the Skynamo-sponsored sales event has impacted their national team.
Skynamo has just released its one-of-a-kind global field sales report. Skynamo, the leaders in field sales technology, are constantly seeking to understand the industries they serve, which includes a large number of building and hardware companies. For this reason, they carried out extensive research recently, resulting in the benchmark report.