Alexander Group, a leading revenue growth management consulting firm, recently partnered with Chief Executive Group, a leading community for business leaders worldwide, to survey more than 250 U.S. CEOs on their revenue growth strategy for the year ahead.
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“We are clearly seeing manufacturing and tech firms increase digital investments to meet the customer where and how they want to interact.”
Overall, 73% of CEOs expect their revenues to increase in 2021―and 65% also indicate higher profitability. To capture this growth, CEOs are pivoting their commercial models to take advantage of pent-up demand caused by the pandemic. Two-thirds of all respondents plan an intense focus on acquiring new customers. Most tech and manufacturing organizations intend to meet customer’s results-based solutions through new products and increased Anything as a Service (XaaS) offerings.
To facilitate this growth, a greater proportion of CEOs are planning to invest resources in virtual sales (40%). 59% of surveyed business leaders say their sales team’s face-to-face time will be lower and become more virtual in a post-vaccine environment.
“While face-to-face selling will continue to be necessary in many cases, the past year has taught us all how successful a virtual selling environment can be,” states Kyle Uebelhor, principal and Manufacturing practice lead for Alexander Group. “We are clearly seeing manufacturing and tech firms increase digital investments to meet the customer where and how they want to interact.”
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Additionally, the survey indicates that 56% of CEOs will add to their headcount―the highest proportion of record by Chief Executive Group’s CEO Confidence Index since December 2018. Per Melanie Nolan, director of research for Chief Executive Group, “As CEOs are spending more to enable virtual selling, 43% of those surveyed plan to increase inside sales roles as they are more cost-effective and proven growth drivers. 40% also plan to add sales specialists to capture new customers for innovative solutions and high-growth segments.”
These findings coincide with the conclusions derived from the recent Manufacturing & Distribution Industry Trends Study conducted by Alexander Group. With over 80 participants, the results showed that firms that invest 2x more in digital tools and roles are averaging a 45% higher revenue growth than peers.
Interested parties can access the full survey findings by downloading the whitepaper, Succeeding in 2021 and Beyond. For additional insights and leading practices on revenue management priorities, please contact Alexander Group.
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