There were interesting results from Deloitte consulting, saying that while 80% of Nordic leaders believe that AI technology brings efficiency benefits, less than 20% believe it adds to turnover. What this means is that the benefit is in the savings, not the expansion of business. It is in shedding headcount, not in increasing revenue streams.
Little surprise to me at this stage.
There are very likely exceptions across industries, but I think it is worth noting still that while the back office can benefit a huge amount from automation and even creation, a lot of the direct revenue building activity that leads to sales, is still human to human. That human can be supported with information and even some communication, but if they are unable to convert that collateral into a relationship and demonstrate business impact, it is unlikely to provide much assistance at all. That means that good sellers are still required, especially in the B2B sectors.
The problem with efficiency savings without revenue increase is that there is a floor on how much saving can be made and when that floor is reached, there is no more capacity for increasing percentage gains year on year, which is not a great situation for attracting investors. But especially with the current economic and global political environment, the focus is on cost reduction, rather than revenue expansion, and this is leading to a degradation in many businesses of the quality of their human capital - the people who increase revenue, but come at a cost.
If you consider a sporting team that hires the cheapest players competing in a league of teams who hire the most suitable players to win games, it is similar.
Most companies across the globe say some crap like "Our people are our value" but we all know that is nonsense marketing for corporate branding. When it comes down to it, people have to provide value in order to be valued, which is why a lot of companies aren't hiring non-billable positions. The challenge here though is that a lot of the billable positions need support to be their best, and they aren't going to get it from other billable positions, nor are they going to get enough help from AI to improve their human to human skills.
They aren't going to get it from more reports, more analytics, more detailed information about their target companies or industries. They need to develop their interpersonal skills and improve how they use the information they have to make an impact on their audience, which is other humans. And with a tight market and competition, standing out of the crowd of information overloaders with clear communication from people who feel trustworthy, is vital. And with often limited pools of targets, it also means that practice prior to gameday is important, which also comes at a cost.
But the benefit of getting a sale will more than offset the cost of enabling the sale. However, the cost of losing a sale is far less visible, because it never really makes it into the books. And often when losing a sale, the reasons for the loss is not attributed to inadequate interaction, and instead identifies all kinds of excuses to redirect the blame. All sellers and sales teams presume they are great at their job and rarely say "we just weren't good enough on the day" in the way a sporting team might. And as such, they won't necessarily spend the effort training to improve so next day, they will play the game better.
I have been dealing with Sales Enablement for a while now, and while many companies and teams focus on the quality of information they provide the sellers, I believe the actual focus should be on building the skills to deliver the information effectively. This has been made even more clear with the capabilities of AI to provide far better information on request to sellers than an enablement team can do anyway. But sellers have to adjust for the new environment also, which is going to mean retraining or the inevitable truth becomes, they are unable to add enough value to remain being one of the people in the company.
AI is a tool and it has a lot of promise, potential and even now can deliver value. But "buyer beware" that at least at this point, it isn't a replacement for the human engagements needed for increasing sales in B2B markets. I predict that the companies who lean too heavily on AI users rather than building interpersonal skills, are going to find themselves increasingly struggling to increase revenue, which will ultimately force them into even deeper cost-saving measures.
A business death spiral in a world that moves as quickly as the economy now.
Taraz
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We’re often sold the idea that life should be an endless string of successes, but it’s in that contrast, in the shadows, where character is truly forged. It’s interesting what you mention; it makes me think that although we automate processes today to save time, dealing with the emotional side of low points remains a purely human and non-transferable task.
It is that duality that keeps us grounded, at least; it does for me. Sometimes we look for ‘bureaucratic’ or automatic solutions to our everyday problems, seeking efficiency, but the ‘low points’ cannot be fixed with an algorithm. They require time, patience and introspection. Remember that the bright moments shine all the more precisely because we know what it takes to emerge from the shadows.
Sellers tend not to be very good at failure. They are pretty fragile. :)
While this may be true, do you think the number of people who go to chat screens and ask to speak to a real person is declining? I feel like that is still the case a lot of times, so it makes me wonder if some of these AI things are not working out the way they had hoped.
Yeah, possibly. Younger people are more comfortable talking to a machine, because talking to a person makes them anxious. However at the B2B level, it is human to human and generally the decision-makers are older.
I really dislike the AI chatbots for many problems I might face because it requires an authority to fix, and the bot doesn't have it.
I think there are a lot of issues with the chatbots like that when you are actually looking for a resolution to an issue and not simply trying to find facts or information.
Yep. And the problem will come when the "real people" don't have the skills either. Blind leading the generative-blind.
B2B is a very specialized sector. It the toughest place to sell and most of the business is done based on old-boys club style relationships. Superior product is often irrelevant in B2B so AI has no chance :)
Or human relationships at least :)
In B2B environments decisions are rarely driven by information alone. They are shaped by: trust, timing, context, risk and relationships. No doubt, AI can support all of these, but it cannot fully comprehend them. The mistake many companis seem to be making is confusing access to better answers with the ability to deliver impact. And those are not the same thing.
I believe, AI isn't a big threat overall, but over-reliance without skills will surely result in bigg problems.
I see it differently and as a large threat to humans, because efficiency will be the game the companies play for years ahead, rather than working on building human wellbeing. Financial efficiency rarely translates into better for humans.
All hail to the capitalist system, where all that matters is the profit. And efficiency is a brilliant servant, but a dangerous master. Once it takes the lead, it starts cutting away everything that makes us human simply because it does not 'scale'.
what is worse than trump? trump with ai. I just saw a video it seems that trump made a post with ai generated image showing him as jesus. he is one...strange(
crazy) orange.Yeah, he is perhaps the tackiest human in current existence.
I also just saw two youtubers talking about trump and saying:
this made me laugh.
Overall, I think the warning at the end is very real. Companies that rely too heavily on AI without investing in human skills might gain short term efficiency but struggle long term with growth.
I think although AI can make processes more efficient, it is obvious that the personal connection in B2B relationships cannot be replaced.
Cost-cutting kills revenue builders first