Industry Trends: Doing More with “Less”

With continued?layoffs in the tech sector and ongoing global economic threats causing?cost cutting?measures,?we’re seeing business leader's laser focused on mastering the art of: “Doing More with Less.”?

If you read my last article, (Industry Trends: What the market is telling us about the future of tech employment) you’ll note I tend to have a long-term optimistic viewpoint?for the tech industry’s prospects. According to data from statista.com,?the SaaS market could grow almost 10% every year from now until?2027. ?

With less employees, there’s an urgency for?leadership to provide a clear, exciting vision that is mobilising and motivating. Employees aren’t afraid to roll up their proverbial sleeves, but they want to make sure their work has impact and leads to growth.?

Doing more with less creates an emphasised?need for visionary leadership.?

Some leaders are trying to?motivate their employees to prove their projects are worthwhile, however this can inadvertently lead to negative culture impact with the creation of information silos, a distrust of intentions, or time inefficiencies with employees spending their energy fighting over high-priority projects.?

In conjunction with forcing?employees to work harder, layoffs?can create unintended negative consequences to the remaining workforce with mass amounts of demoralisation. ?

Layoffs don’t necessarily save money.?

The initial reaction with a RIF?will be for middle managers to ask their employees?to simply do more. However, visionary leaders will be asking their employees to do less: ?

• Less admin / paperwork?
• Less bureaucratic work?
• Less manual work??

To get the most out of employees when resources are tight, the best strategies for a company’s long-term success will be to empower their people with tools to automate, scale and create repeatable success. ?

Automation Is the Key to Doing More with Less.??

For companies to succeed, they will need to?automate tasks and processes while empowering non-technical employees with easy to use?tools to achieve goals within their individual roles.?

With intelligent automation and real-time collaboration, companies can liberate employees?from their?most time-consuming tasks. By strengthening a foundation with?automated?tools; businesses can leverage more opportunities?to accelerate growth without making big capital expenditures.?

Adopting a digital-first mindset (that enables the transparency of data, algorithms, and AI)?will be critical to scaling customer success, support, professional service and renewal teams.?

Diversify the Approach to Growth and Embrace Multiple Growth Strategies: ?

Selling more to your existing market is the fastest, most profitable path to growth, however the many touchpoints required to engage customers across their lifecycle and win their renewal can strain?resources as a customer base grows. ?

It’s important to?take a holistic view of the customer journey to identify ways to integrate digital touches with traditional engagement models.??

Executing this requires a strong foundation in customer data. Understand where customers?are in their engagement with your business, what outcomes have already been?delivered on, and what key friction points they may come across in their experiences. ?

Understanding the details of our customer base requires close collaboration between the product, service, and marketing teams to build the necessary digital experiences within and around the product, with?agile processes to innovate the journey as customers' needs evolve.?

Expand with a Well-Defined Cross-Sell Strategy:?

Cross-selling provides an impetus for innovation.

Successful companies will be continuously innovating by adding new products, features, functionality and offerings to entice customers to add on to their plans.?

Understanding customer growth and use cases creates an opportunity?to build?and execute a clear cross-sell strategy based on: ?

• Tracking customer behaviour (what they’re doing with?the product) and financial information to understand customer needs and uncover new add-on opportunities. ?
• Guiding?support and sales teams to target specific customers for specific add-on offerings. ?

Create Tailored Product Editions:?

Many SaaS companies are working hard to?provide?“out of the box” usage, however as new features are added, trying to be a one size fits all solution doesn’t always work as intended. ?

Since new editions and add-on products change over time,?companies need the ability to:?

• Create consistency for?updates across all systems and sales channels (online, in the quoting tool, etc.)?
• Add new products, editions and free trials over time without SKU explosion?
• Enable quick testing and iteration of pricing and integration ?
• Create educational, self-serve tools for customers to easily engage with?the features, advantages and benefits of the new editions?
• Automate personalised distribution of trial editions for customer driven usage?

As Paul Farris noted in his book, Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance:?

“The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%.”?