Our CEO Dr. Parsis Dastani had the great opportunity to attend the 31st intensive seminar „B2B Marketing and Sales“ as a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) on 30.09.2020. Dr. Parsis Dastani addressed numerous use cases in his presentation. Learn more about them in this article.
After the extremely turbulent year 2020, the question for many B2B companies is how marketing and sales can work together in the future to regain their (old) strength? On this occasion, the special features of B2B companies and their consequences in terms of marketing and sales were the main topics of the day.
With the help of numerous use cases, which are described in this article in broad outlines, our CEO demonstrated at the intensive seminar at the University of St. Gallen how predictive analytics methods can be successfully used in marketing and sales.
Most projects fail at the interface to marketing and sales practice. A challenge is therefore the acceptance of predictive analytics in the company and the integration as well as training measures of all actors, the integration into systems with a transparent and user-friendly design and the acceptance of the learning curve – because every new technology requires a certain amount of time and experience.
New customer acquisition
In the first use case, the application of Target Group Predict was presented on the basis of a company in the automotive industry. The problematic initial situation was that there was no structured acquisition of new customers and leasing was not actively promoted. Using the affinity prediction model, suitable target groups were determined and, by using a specially tailored lead system, high-quality leads for the retail sector were identified. This in turn was reflected in a high level of satisfaction among sales staff.
Exploitation of potential
In another use case of a company in the tools trade, the acquisition of new customers did not take place systematically because the sales department focused on the high-revenue and active customers. The problem here was that the actual market potential of customers was not known and the potential could not be exploited – in a mass business with intense competition.
On top of this, the share of wallet analysis was also applied, by forecasting the sales potential of the company’s inactive existing customer base. The continued application of Next Best Offer and Customer Value Prediction also made it possible to predict which products might be of interest to which customers for their next purchase. With the additional use of the Sales and AIMS app developed by Dastani Consulting, the sales force was able to access the new and reactivation addresses in the area at any time and use Next Best Offer recommendations to approach customers. As a result, the valuable sales time could be used more effectively because potential customers in the vicinity were sorted according to their sales potential in the app. As a result, sales with the inactive customer base increased and now account for approximately 5% of total sales.
Effective market cultivation
Using another example from the intralogistics industry, it was made clear that the company under consideration was not optimally positioned for the following challenges due to the emerging cut-throat competition. Predictive analytics forecasts served as input for lead generation here as well. Sales and purchase expectations were forecast for individual products and product groups (Customer Value Prediction) and affine addresses for telemarketing were identified (Target Group Predict). As a result, the lead conversion rate developed to 16% and 15 million Euro more sales could be generated from new customer acquisition alone.
Opportunities in sales and marketing
Dr. Parsis Dastani showed in his exciting presentation at the intensive seminar how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is able to optimize distribution costs. The application of predictive analytics methods brings with it new opportunities for sales and marketing, which should be used now at the latest – after all the turbulence in 2020 – in order to survive in B2B competition and gain in (old) strength.
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