Your commercial challenges during COVID-19
COVID-19 continues to affect businesses worldwide, and has a significant impact on profitability. In many industries and sectors - but not all - rapid changes in consumer behaviour are (mostly) negatively impacting global demand. All sectors will experience varying impact on short- and long-term demand, as well as different speeds of recovery.
Depending on the impact of the COVID-19, companies can undertake a number of actions for immediate stabilisation and subsequent recovery:
- Protect revenue
- Capture online demand
- Engage with customers
- Empower your sales force
- Optimise your costs
Protect revenue
Stabilise
- Closely monitor the sales pipeline and fluctuations in demand
- Set up governance (e.g. daily sales check-up) for quick decision making on sales planning, communication and pricing
Recover
- Prepare delivery to prioritised segments when demand picks up
- Assess customer experience and launch a targeted churn and win-back action programme
Capture online demand
Stabilise
- Enhance your digital presence (e.g. online search, landing page) and capture online demand
Recover
- Build or enhance your eCommerce capabilities
- Define your digital strategy and fit-for-growth target operating model
Engage with customers
Stabilise
- Shift customer support to a remote, work-from-home setup
- Connect with clients, show empathy and take actions to support them (e.g. no penalty for order cancellations)
Recover
- Grow self-service capabilities and promote digital adoption
- Monitor customer satisfaction along the customer lifecycle
Empower your sales force
Stabilise
- Ensure the safety and wellbeing of your sales force, perform daily coaching and reassure top performers
- Set up remote working guidelines and tools
Recover
- Measure and enhance sales force effectiveness via training (e.g. virtual sales playbook) and tools (e.g. digital signature)
- Define your future way of working and culture, and realign your workforce
Optimise your costs
Stabilise
- Restrict or freeze sales, marketing and general expenses
- Reallocate sales and marketing budget on most relevant items
Recover
- Embed structural cost-containment measures (e.g. travel allowance)
- Optimise channel mix to reduce cost-to-serve and cost-to-acquire
Want to know more about the impact of COVID-19 on demand?
Our PwC experts analysed the impact of the current crisis on demand and customer behaviour, and bundled their insights in the report ‘Impact of COVID-19 on demand: How can B2B organisations protect revenues and build a commercially strong future?’
Have questions or want more information on how you can stabilise and protect your business through commercial effectiveness? Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
