The 10 Point Review of the Future of Sales

Everything is changing with the evolution of technology and the advent of the latest generations; the Millennial and the iGen. So too is the simple task of selling something you have which others want, so that you can make money to buy other things you want which others have. As the change progresses, the following is a brief summary overview of what sales or selling will look like:

1. Administration....will be fully automated ultimately where from purchase order to invoice to accounting will all be done by autonomous integrated software or information systems rendering your sales clerks redundant 

2. Business Development....will be fluid, seamless and seemingly effortless with technology being an almost "magical" medium in connecting sellers and buyers based on needs and capacities of both, with future professional or trade platforms working better by multi-folds than any matchmaker for marriage in history, human or software

3. Communication....all of it will be interactive, precision targeted and individually tailored to each specific client, customer or consumer of any kind, regardless of what he or she may be buying, for whatever purpose

4. Distribution....for most "goods" items will predominantly be handled by drones, robots, autonomous vehicles or even through document files that can be used by computers to direct 3D-Printers, so you may possibly just be selling ideas, and the ride of the logistical kind, from the A to Z, will be a lot smoother as it will be effortless, integrated and intertwined seamlessly with all other processes one can possibly define, as to do with sales

5. Field Sales....will be replaced pretty much by Virtual Space Sales, except perhaps unless you are selling aircraft or other big machinery that needs your physical presence for demo and walk-thru

6. Human Resources....are going to increasingly diminish in sales function until sales eventually at some point becomes virtually People-less and if you do not believe this, check out hotels and airports with self-check-in booths or McDonald's outlets with self-purchase counters or online purchasing platforms with well, pretty much zero "sales" staff

7. Planning....whether for price, product, place, position, process or whatever else, will be far more intelligent by necessity, focused centrally on the future, especially the future needs of the targeted consumers or clients, hence primarily centred around Strategic Foresight or Future Studies.

8. Promotion....will be virtually fully automatic with smart systems and programmes finding, identifying and engaging clients or consumers with targeted interactive messaging that suits the individual being targeted, without being invasive or disruptive

9. Public Relations....as humanity gets more conscious about its existence as well as preservation, and morally elevated, you better be real about your ethical conduct and conscientiousness, dump that Mindfulness pretence nonsense and act honestly always, considering unintelligent customers are pretty much almost extinct already

10. Publicity....the positive sort will be a greater boon than has ever been while the negative sort would possibly be an instant death certificate to the business in a hyperconnected world where information will travel instantly beyond the control of businesses

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting include Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking, Scenario Planning and Organisational Future Proofing. To find out more about the Future of Sales, you may contact him for enquiries at [email protected].