In an ever-increasing global marketplace, the degree to which companies can deliver ongoing value to their customers’ evolving needs determines their continued success. Value is a personal thing and successful companies discover what value means to their customers quickly, effectively and continuously. The challenge is great and meeting that challenge requires companies to recruit, train, develop and reward their people to deliver current and future value. Skills, knowledge, behaviours and thinking need to be uncovered and honed to enable people to deliver their best for the company and its customers.

If all this is true, what implication does it have for leadership and senior management teams? The strategies that enable a company to gain and maintain customers are only as effective as the people that implement them; so recruiting, training, developing and rewarding those people effectively, is crucial. A phrase commonly used is ‘the war for talent’, but should it be a battle? What if a company’s talent strategy was such that the right people were attracted to it rather than fought for?

At the frontline of any company is its salesforce. The salesforce of the future will need to reconsider the way it ‘sells’.

Tomorrow’s customers won’t be looking just for products; they’ll be looking for solutions and services. In order to deliver them, companies will have to know everything about their customer’s organisations, and how their products and services touch them … Not only will companies have to figure out their customer’s current needs but they will have to work hard to anticipate their future needs as well. … It will mean changing people’s mindsets from product-centric to customer- or service-centric.¹

Building relationships to sell products is no longer enough. The salesperson of the 21st century needs to be a solutions provider and business partner for his or her customer. The increasing availability and usability of technology by companies means that there is ...

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