Three Trends Chief Sales Officers Must Consider in 2025
Q&A with Robert Blaisdell, VP Analyst, Chief of Research in the Gartner Sales practice
Economic and technological uncertainty, combined with the compounding disruption of AI, continue to have a profound impact on the sales landscape. And as we head into 2025, chief sales officers (CSOs) are facing mounting pressure to implement sales transformations and boost productivity.
Robert Blaisdell, VP Analyst, Chief of Research in the Gartner Sales practice shared his views on how sales leaders must modify their leadership skill set and lead a unified commercial strategy to drive market-leading growth and succeed in B2B sales.
Q: What are the top trends impacting chief sales officers as we look at the year ahead?
A: As we head into 2025, there are three key trends CSOs must consider:
Strong results are achieved through sales and marketing collaboration — The likelihood of strong commercial growth increases with sales and marketing alignment. A Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers from August through September 2024 found that B2B buyers are completing purchases through different channels, underscoring the need for a less siloed approach. In fact, 72% of B2B buyers complete a transaction via a sales rep-led channel, while 28% of B2B buyers complete a transaction via a digital-led channel.
CSOs must drive revenue while adapting to continual change — CSOs are faced with a balancing act. While leaders are prioritizing revenue optimization, they are also implementing multiple longer term sales transformations.
CSOs typically utilize a combination of levers to boost sales productivity — To improve productivity, sales leaders are tapping into a mix of familiar levers including training/upskilling talent, new/or improved tools and manager coaching.
Q: Why is collaboration between sales and marketing so essential to achieving strong commercial growth?
A: Sales and marketing silos create high levels of dysfunction that can negatively impact commercial performance and deliver fragmented customer insights. Given that both functions often have different approaches, conflicting priorities can lead to key commercial activities missing contributions from either sales or marketing.
It is important that CSOs modify their leadership skill set to drive alignment between the functions and overcome a siloed mindset. By being the voice of the market and spearheading holistic strategic planning, CSOs can create a unified commercial strategy that boosts customer engagement and delivers a streamlined buying experience. Leaders should also model change agility by embracing and leveraging AI to improve results.
Q: How can CSOs construct and leverage an adaptive approach to adjust to ongoing sales transformations?
A: CSOs are confronted with the dual challenge of achieving revenue targets while implementing sales transformations. As a result, they struggle to sustain sudden changes to strategy as well as shift budgets and resources to an emerging priority.
By building an adaptable sales organization, leaders can pivot from a reactive approach to being adaptive by design, and ultimately unlock growth in B2B sales. The core tenets of this approach to managing change with agility include:
Utilize a structured model to navigate the decision-making process
Embrace data-driven insights to make better, faster decisions
Deploy technology as a teammate to simplify seller roles and expedite their ability to adapt
Q: The seller role has become increasingly complex and demanding. How can CSOs simplify this role and boost productivity?
A: Because sellers are overwhelmed by the required skills and technologies needed to be successful, traditional strategies of more training, resources and coaching are not leading to improved performance.
In order to help sellers meet the evolving demands of B2B sales, CSOs must redesign and simplify the seller role for success in an evolving sales environment. By incorporating action-centered principles into role design, a reimagined seller role will encourage technology to be used as a teammate, rather than a tool. In addition, a radical simplification of the role will allow sellers to streamline their workflows and deliver effective customer interactions.
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