Adapting Strategies and Processes to the New Normal 

2020 brought about many staffing challenges. Roles shifted, employees moved around, and the ones who stayed in their positions were left with legacy systems and the pressure to compete with a new digitization strategy to meet the post-COVID needs of their clients and customers.  

“In a recent McKinsey Global Survey, 87 percent of executives said they were experiencing skill gaps in the workforce or expected them within a few years. But less than half of respondents had a clear sense of how to address the problem.”  

The ability to build or coach a team to be both lean and agile takes time, and businesses are still figuring out the best strategies to tackle such tasks. When it comes to events, while in-person events may be on the distant horizon, it’s important to remember that customers have adapted to the digital life. Attendance to in-person events may not be the same, so a digital-forward option might be necessary, even when we get a handle on COVID-19.  

Patrick Rafferty, the owner of RaffertyWeiss Media with over 20 years of experience as a producer and director of TV spots, agrees and says there are plenty of safe, reliable, and effective ways to hold conferences and events in an online environment. Audiences are adapting to the digital format and want to stay engaged in their business communities. 

Not only is your team having to shift, but the buyer is also reinventing their shopping process on the fly. What was once an in-person transaction for a business has now become completely dependent on some form of eCommerce. This trend has shown that this not only applies to B2C focused companies but encompasses the B2B sector as well.  

McKinsey research shows that B2B buyers are moving to make online purchases and self-service too. In a recent survey from 2020, when asked “what’s the maximum order value you would purchase through end-to-end digital self-service and remote human interactions for a new product or service category?”, 32% were willing to spend up to $500K and 15% were willing to spend over $1M.   

McKinsey also found that B2B decision makers globally say that online and remote selling is as effective as in-person engagement, or even more so—and they’re not just talking about selling to warm leads. Sellers also believe digital prospecting is as effective as in-person meetings to connect with existing customers. 

The good news is that businesses, and customers, are more comfortable with adjustment after 2020. Now is the time to focus on what truly moves the needle, cut out the “busy-work” and reskill your teams to adapt to new expectations, whether it’s virtual or in-person, to sell to the customer where they are shopping.