This theme of digital transformation is not new. However, it takes time, and not all companies are able to make much headway in this area. A McKinsey report in April 2019 observed that while many companies (83%) said that their organisations have begun digital transformations in recent years, just 14% said that their efforts have made and sustained performance improvements. What’s more, only 3% reported complete success at sustaining their change.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has accelerated digital transformation. For businesses, undergoing digital transformation is now a “must have” and not merely a “good to have”.
The pandemic has also forced companies to rethink how they operate and engage with their customers. For salespeople, whether they are working individually or as part of a company’s sales team, lockdowns mean that they can no longer meet up with customers or conduct sales as usual. In other words, the traditional customer management process had been overturned in the space of a few months. Hence, as Cecily Ng, Singapore general manager of cloud-based software company Salesforce, says: “Now, digitalisation and innovation, and customer-centricity are imperative to the very survival of businesses.”
