“Gartner reports 83% of CSOs say their sellers are struggling to adapt to changing buyer expectations. Leaders are over-relying on individual sellers rather than building organizational adaptability - this overreliance on seller heroics contributes to 89% of sellers being burned out and struggling to perform.”

“Gartner research shows that this current approach is not working, as two out of three sales leaders struggle to adapt to sudden changes.”  

“There must be a pivot away from being adaptive by necessity to embrace being adaptive by design.”

“Adaptability is not reactivity. Adaptive is proactive – it's an anticipation of how and when you’ll change. Reactive is pure response – it leads to that series of corrections and over-corrections.”  

“In B2B sales, what separates the winners are three accelerators linked to adaptability: 

• Revenue intelligence helps CSOs know what’s coming, what’s working, what’s slowing them down, and what they should do as a result.

• Tech as a teammate focuses on building a different in-kind relationship between humans and technology, one in which we talk the same language as technology, have clearly defined responsibilities and clear actionability. 

• Modularity enables CSOs to be nimble and tweak their approach to the situation as it evolves, rather than being locked into tightly interwoven dependencies.”

“Seventy-seven percent of sales leaders are currently implementing or planning to implement generative AI within the next 12 months.”

“Gartner research finds that 60% of sales leaders plan to hire new GenAI staff, underscoring a proactive approach to embedding AI into sales processes.”

CSOs should kick off their GenAI plan in three critical phases:

Start by exploring: Sales leaders must begin by crafting a foundational vision - seeing technology not merely as a tool, but as a teammate. Focus on talent, operational readiness.

Evaluate your options: Look beyond surface-level features to understand how these technologies can integrate with existing systems, how they align with strategic objectives and most importantly, how they can enhance your sales team’s effectiveness and efficiency.

Embed GenAI into your organization: Turn your evaluations and plans into action, committing to not just adopt GenAI technologies but to integrate them in ways that are meaningful, sustainable and aligned with strategic objectives.”

“The top two objectives for sales leaders are intertwined and centered around:

• Improve engagement of buyers through digital interactions that deliver personalization at scale.

• Improve customer experience, providing the ability to self-serve while also allowing sellers to guide customers at key moments of need.” 

“The top emerging technologies CSOs should invest in now include generative AI and digital sales rooms:

• GenAI when applied to specific use cases will provide a faster speed to productivity and allow for scalable personalization in reaching customers. Customers will be able to interact digitally, but with a better experience, leading to better lifetime customer value.

• Digital sales rooms increase buyer and seller engagement and allow the customer to experience the buying process the way they want, giving them the opportunity to transact fully digitally in a self-serve mode as well as seller-assisted to drive higher quality deals in a shorter time frame.”

“In the next three-five years, CSOs should look at digital twins of customers and emotion AI to help differentiate their offerings:

• A digital twin of a customer enables organizations to simulate customer behavior to anticipate customer needs and provide a better customer experience.

• Emotion AI improves customer experience strategy through analytics and reduces negative perceptions of customer effort.”

“In the next five-10 years, CSOs must innovate to ensure future success with machine customers. Prepare for machine customers by enhancing digital commerce platforms with richer data that machines will be able to sense and analyze.”