Human evolution has brought us to where we are, as the prime species and master of planet earth. But as always, an over-exaggerated power becomes a weakness which we now experience with our very own existence being threatened on a not-so-long-term.
Climate, sustainability. We have reached this point where all except the true deniers, agree.
Some weeks ago, I watched former vice president Al Gore on stage in Stockholm, again sending the message he has been kind of fruitlessly shouting out load, while politicians and opponents hold their hands over already deaf ears. We who remember knows that it was 18 years ago An Inconvenient Truth hit the box offices world-wide, winning two academy awards. In those years world economy has grown, but so has also the world population (+1.4B) and CO2 emission (from roughly 30 to all-time-high 37.55 GtCO*).
People will not solve the climate issue, but innovation and technology in the hands of people who care for, and invest in, making it all happen will. My best guess is that this is where we will see a massive amount of VC money spent the coming years, and probably increasing for every step closer to the potential crisis we will come. Because our human eyes, or rather our brain, plays the trick of blindfolding us for what is not obvious in front of us right now, right here. We instead tend to please our here and now, with less focus on there and then. We simply find it more difficult to act with care for tomorrow.
The psychological drivers behind why it’s easier to start our new and healthier life tomorrow than right now is well known, and they simply make us see what we have right in front of us. It hurts me more sitting on the nursing bed with my best friend who just passed away (believe me, I’ve been there, done that and felt that pain), than watching a TV documentary showing even the most horrible things from anywhere far from where I am. What is close to us simply becomes bigger, more visible, tangible, and important. Distance does that to us, and not seldom it makes us emotional blind, especially when it comes to distance in time.
This might also be the reason by why Swedes still do yet another trip to Thailand in the summer, and winter. Some may justify the flight with the new Tesla in the garage, being a sustainable investment. Others feel that they have collected enough sustainability points on their environmental gold card, by having a 3-month with net zero shopping, or from the fact that we have taken the train 10 times this year.
We earn the right to burn, just like a 10K run might tell us that we could eat that chocolate bar – not only with good appetite, but also with a better conscience. Burn to earn or earn to burn. No matter which one, I believe this is human, but that still does not make it OK.
If my objective is to get in shape and loose some pounds, at least I would need to both exercise and cut down on carbs. Some would call that a sacrifice, having to both run the extra miles in the morning, and skip the extra sauce in the evening.
In the corporate perspective it works the same. Every CFO knows that the best way to increase the overall profit is to work harder on the top line revenue side, and on the same time increase the productivity, cut cost, and simply do more with less.
The same of course applies to sustainability and the cool thing here, is that many things actually make a dual effect, both hitting the company’s income statement as well as the balance sheet of mother nature. By optimising transportation of goods, reducing energy consumption in our manufacturing process, and not to forget, cutting down on business travel, we both save money and emission.
No one can do everything, but everyone can do something… more.
You probably do a lot, but if you have not yet adopted at least the 50/50 strategy (cutting down on business travel with 50%), or live according to the 80/20 rule, you have one more thing to that you can do. Many companies are already at 80 percent virtual meetings and 20 percent in-person, and have realised that it drives both productivity, profitability and makes good for the coming CSRD report.
This is made possible through technology that many companies learned to know during the pandemic. We all know them, like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. But this was just the start. Now, we see that this has fundamentally changed the buyers’ behaviors. 72 percent of them do not want to interact with a salesperson**.
This mean both our virtual and in-person meetings are on the line. All due to a shift that we actually started to see long ago, when buyers want to do more of their buying process on their own with the help of digital technology, and if we don’t serve their needs we might end up in a scenario where Chat-GPT will be their best friend.
Companies will continue to do business with each other, but the digital world create winners and losers faster than ever before. Connecting the dots between buyers and sellers, in a way that helps the buyer to buy from us, will now be critical.
When we started SP_CE our vision was to make complex business simple, and we want to reduce the need for business travel and accommodate the new buyers’ behaviors.
The word is reducing, not removing, because we should take the chance when we get it, to meet human-to-human, and invest more in making those moments unforgettable.
By combining this with an extraordinary digital experience for the buyer in between the meetings, this would probably lower the odds for a win. Digital technology is there to augment the experience and make our life easier. This is what we do for companies in 32 countries today, creating a more digital buyers’ journey.
Personally, I am somewhere at 95/5 with my meetings, but you can image the energy in those 5 percent in-person meetings that I have. You can probably also imagine the effect that this brings, in terms of productivity, cost efficiency and work-life-balance. I would simply never survive going back to my old life with 140 flights a year. And to be honest, neither will our planet.
So please take my challenge and challenge yourself and your organization to do some more different. If you reach out and tell me about your ambition for 2024 and 2025, I will show you how the best performing companies I’ve met have transformed their go-to-market.
I’m only an email, LinkedIn message or phone call from you, and remember that the only thing we need to do to learn something new, is to ask. Take care!
/Jonas Hammarberg, Founder & CEO of SP CE