A study of UK business has found that more than one in three manufacturers (37%) are struggling to fund vital digitisation projects for their sales and marketing functions within previously set budgets.
The independent research based on a sample of 500 UK business leaders, was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Software as a Service (SaaS) firm, Adventoris.
The results are said to reflect how spiralling business costs are impacting companies’ abilities to fully adopt digital sales advances, stifling their business growth and keeping them behind tech-savvy competitors.
50% of manufacturers being left behind cited pandemic disruptions as an additional barrier to progressing any digitisation projects, as well as lack of time. When combined with the boom of ‘quiet quitting’, firms are struggling to work at full capacity and this is impacting their uptake of new developments, and projects are being restricted, says Adventoris.
Rising energy costs were cited by 12% of manufacturers as hindering their progress towards digitisation, meaning revenue is being diverted away from vital sales and marketing projects.
Existing sales processes within the manufacturing sector are said to often be outdated, with lots of manual administrative processes and laborious exercises increasing the time taken and risk of human error. Adventoris says 70% of B2B organisations have invested in digital commerce channels this year, with 73% investing in websites, 49% in sales representatives and 37% in mobile apps2.
CEO of Adventoris, James Clarkson, said: “As 2023 gets underway, these findings lay bare the impact the current economic climate is having on firms in the manufacturing industry and it is disheartening to see the toll inflation and rising energy costs are taking. So many businesses are being held back from reaching their true potential through being unable to progress with plans to adopt digital processes.
“Manufacturers are at the core of British industry and play a huge part in our nation’s economy. Digital processes are having an incredibly positive impact on improving efficiency, productivity and results, but it is obvious from our findings that firms need support to be able to access these benefits.”
Ben Bowen, sales forecast analyst at Staedtler, which has recently adopted digitisation in the form of a sales app, said: “Investing in digitising our sales process has been a brilliant choice for us. The pandemic disrupted so much for our industry with supply chains, usual operating processes and sales routes all interrupted.
“Being able to adopt these digital sales processes has allowed us to futureproof our operation and ensure a smooth, consistent and effective method for our customers.”