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HOW TO GET YOUR ENGINEERS AND SALESPEOPLE TALKING THE SAME LANGUAGE

It's a challenge for any fast-growing tech business – making sure your sales team and your techies work together for optimal business success. We asked an expert from each side of the room...

TIM PALMER (TP)Career technologist, former CTO and co-founder of partner-led tech consultancy B l u e H a t

PHIL GUEST (PG)Sales expert and founder of R e v c e l e r a t e, which helps tech start-ups to build their sales engine and scale revenue

DELEGATING THE SALES FUNCTION

"In the beginning of building a new business, sales is often led by the founders. No one will sell a product as well as the person who conceived the idea or who developed the code.

As the business gains momentum, the founders have to focus on other areas and at some point, they will start bringing in sales specialists. This is why I encourage all the founders I coach to document the sales process from the start. It will help with onboarding sales people, and reveal strengths and weaknesses in your product positioning and sales process, saving you a lot of time and angst in the future."

"As the company develops and separate technology and sales functions are put in place, you also have the risk of competing agendas. Sales is focused on what people are buying; whilst products are all about the art of the possible with the technology. The challenge is to ensure a healthy dialogue between the two."

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ALIGNING THE LEARNING CURVES OF SALES AND TECH

"The product side has a well-established learning development cycle, which takes the team and the tech through a series of iterations until eventually you have a product solution. However, this approach doesn’t tend to happen so much on the sales side of the business, the reality is there's just as big a learning curve on the sales process side as there is in the product development process, and the two should be very well aligned.

In the very early days, there's an awful lot you don't know about selling your product, in the same way that you don't know all the features of that product as you develop it. But then your understanding starts to accelerate, until you get to the point where you know what it takes to attract new customers and how long it takes to convert and onboard them. That learning curve is very closely aligned with the way that products are developed. This understanding that both functions follow a similar learning curve is a great way to align sales and technology towards a common goal."

SALES AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

"Sales can input significantly into product development. It’s vital to get access to all those touch points that the organisation has with clients, because all the clues are in these conversations. But too often in businesses the sales team is completely focused on targets and not being asked what they’re hearing about the product. That’s a criminal waste, there need to be channels in place for feedback to reach the technology team."

"That’s where project governance comes in. Governance is what stops everyone from just reacting to the new flavour of the month, rather than reacting to truly critical issues. The sales team might say, “We just need to have this feature and then we’ll close this colossal deal.” But a strong leadership team can say, “That’s not a block to selling the product, it’s a nice feature to have but it’s not going to make a difference to that client. You need leaders who can separate out the noise in those feedback channels and are prepared to have the awkward conversations where necessary."

"Having a good feedback loop is really important in any successful stage tech business, and having technical people join you in customer conversations is very valuable on a number of levels. They get to hear things first hand, and you get to bring a different perspective to your customer. But a word of caution: salespeople will often look for the quickest route to closing that deal, and sometimes they may look to blame the lack of a specific feature for a lack of closed deals."

VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE (AND HUG A TECHIE!)

"Salespeople and tech people are often built quite differently. Salespeople love to be optimistic and positive, so it’s easy for them to get deflated by technologists – who love looking for problems because they are natural problem-solvers.

At one company where I worked, we actually started a 'Hug a techie' initiative. The idea was, if you see a techie in the kitchen, go and have a chat with them – they might not always be the most vocal, but that’s because they have a lot going on in their heads, trying to solve your problems. It was a bit of a joke, but it did help to break down those barriers and to get people to talk to each other."

"And that comes from the leadership as well. If people see there’s a strong rapport between the Head of Commercial and the CTO that sets the tone for everyone else."

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HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT CTO FOR YOUR BUSINESS AT THE RIGHT TIME

P a u l M o r r i s | Head of Growth Advisory, BDO

A CTO is one of the key hires for any fast-growth tech business. Here we look at the role, key attributes, KPIs and the all-important issue of timing.

The job of your CTO (chief technology officer) is:
•  to make sure the company’s technology strategy supports its
   business strategy
•  to ensure the business has the best and most appropriate technology
   for its requirements
•  to build and lead the delivery capability within the technical team
•  to develop and manage a technology roadmap

The CTO occupies a C-suite, board-level position, so they must be able to deliver according to a technology roadmap that aligns with the organisation’s commercial strategy.

The roadmap should describe the technology strategy of the business
for the next two to four years. It should offer a clear (ideally annual or
six-monthly) picture of how technology in your sector is expected to evolve, how it will impact the business and how the company can adapt.

It acts as a vision statement, able to adapt to unexpected events while still adhering to the business’s philosophy. And it should set realistic timeframes and deadlines, showing stakeholders when to expect deliveries, how these will align with changes in the industry, and then help the CTO – or their successor – stay on

What are the key attributes of an effective CTO?

When is the right time to get a CTO?

Your CTO needs to have:
•  a deep understanding of how your business and the market works
•  strong leadership qualities
•  experience of building their own team
•  a problem-solving mindset
•  flexibility and adaptability
•  a passion for technology

You might also want to look for people who were coders or engineers earlier in their career. This will give them an intricate understanding of how the delivery process will work from their team’s perspective.

Let’s say you’re a founder or CEO of a company with some interesting IP.

Ask yourself:
•  Do you need to build an in-house technical team?
•  Do you have a medium-term technology roadmap?
•  Is your technology future-proofed?
•  With all your other responsibilities, do you have the time to focus on the
    technology strategy?

If you are unsure that you and/or an ordinary technical manager will be able to answer these questions, then you should certainly consider a CTO appointment.

KPIs: How do you know that your CTO is delivering?

As well as delivery against the roadmap, here are some other key ways to measure the success of your new CTO.

LEADERSHIP

A CTO should be a natural leader who can assemble and lead a delivery team, delegate tasks efficiently, build resilience in the business and mitigate risk.

STRATEGIC BUDGET DELIVERY

The CTO should be able to stick to the costings set out in their roadmap and demonstrate ROI at every stage. And they should be able to report on scalability – whether they will need to increase or even decrease their budget over a given period.

TIMELY DELIVERY

Your CTO should be able to demonstrate an understanding of how they can help the company adapt to a constantly-changing landscape, ideally in quarterly or six-month intervals.

COMMERCIAL STRATEGIC SENSE

Your CTO must be able to understand how both the tech itself and also customer expectations will change. They should have an understanding of how product marketing works and be able to work effectively with your marketing function.

Hiring a CTO: 3 key takeaways

DON’T ALLOW COSTS TO DICTATE

Hiring a CTO is an expensive process. You have to factor in the resource to hire the right person, salary, plus any costs they will need to build their team, and prepare the resources they’ll need to implement their roadmap. These costs may seem high to the board, but this appointment is a long-term investment that should return significant value.

BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR ABOUT THE JOB DESCRIPTION

Don’t hire until you are clear about the skills, experience and attributes you are looking for. Be clear what the day-to-day role will entail and what they should be expected to deliver in their first six months, year, two years. Consider how you will measure their success and what resources they will need to fulfil these objectives.

UNDERSTAND THE CTO’S WIDER IMPACT

Make sure you understand exactly how your CTO will fit in to the business. It all goes back to the tech roadmap – that crucial document that demonstrates how the CTO will be expected to deliver value back to the company.

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TECH 2030

What are the big issues and challenges that will affect fast-growth tech in the next 10 years? Our expert advisers look into their crystal balls.

Just over three decades ago, Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web. In such a short space of time, this pioneering technology has dramatically changed the world as we know it, bringing humankind closer together. Given that this phenomenal pace of change took place in less than 30 years, what might the next 10 years hold for the fast-growth tech of today?

We asked our BDO experts Steve Rumble, Technology Risk Partner, and Dan Francis, Head of Innovation and Digital Technology, for their predictions for the future…

STEVE RUMBLE (SR)Technology Risk Partner, BDO

DAN FRANCIS (DF)Head of Innovation and Digital Technology, BDO

What areas of fast growth tech do you think will be the most interesting for investment in 10 years’ time?

"My picks would include quantum and optical computing, where we’ve recently seen a double exponential increase in power (something rarely seen in technology), space tourism and particularly space research and manufacturing.

In the medical area, I’d call out lifespan management – optimising people’s ability to extend, enhance and improve their later years. I think that will be a particular era of technology that's going to get a lot of investment, and a lot of traction with an aging population that are ready to spend money on this.

I also want to mention water. One of the big global trends over the next few years will be the lack of usable water. There’s a lot of investment going into this, and I think we’ll start to see the fruits over the next five to 10 years around water purification and the protection of water supplies, and the ability to be able to use and reuse water around the world as it becomes more and more scarce and we take it less for granted – remember only 1% of the world’s water is actually useable, and this is reducing year on year."

"The combination of advanced data analytics, deployment of Robotic Process Automation and use of AI solutions will remain significant investment areas for the next 2-5 years. We are already seeing an increase in use cases as businesses are starting to realise the value that these current solutions provide in terms of enhanced customer interactions, realising back office efficiencies and enhancing business intelligence across all components of the business.

Another trend is regulation technology – that is, deploying AI into the regulatory frameworks that organisations operate in, such as data privacy and money laundering. You’ve got all these financial regulations that organisations need to comply with, and I can see more and more advanced technologies emerging to support that need. Don’t overlook the continuation of blockchain either. I think we’re going to see
sector-specific solutions and niche requirements coming through too."

What are the social changes that lie behind these areas of future innovation?

"I think we’re seeing a new ‘mecosystem’ emerging, where you have a younger generation that is wanting to absorb new technology. At the same time, there’s an older generation that is aging and is looking more to benefit from technology enhancements in their older life. Those systems are being driven by a digital economy, and already we’re seeing dynamic businesses that are trying to leverage those solutions, whether that’s through a consumer model or a health model. Definitely that is how I see macro level things emerging."

"Absolutely. We should also think about the cities of tomorrow. One of the consequences of this digital adoption as the default and also the change in the way that people live and work, is that in lots of sectors and industries you may no longer need to commute to a city to work together, especially in Western economies. The growth of the modern city over the last 200 years has been around collaboration and commerce, but now digitalisation and technology allow us to distribute ourselves. I think you'll see working 'from the countryside' grow in the next 10 years or so as people seek to rebalance their lives.

And if this happens, what are the consequences for cities? If the workers leave, then what will cities look like in the future? Will there be more entertainment areas and places to shop? Will it just be lots of driverless cars dodging shoppers and tourists? This will all have big implications on how we would plan and build cities, they might become more temporary than fixed as they are at the moment. You might have pop-up shopping malls and 3D printed buildings that can change shape as tourists, workers and events come and go. So I think there could be some fundamental shifts around that that we'll start to see in 2030."

And what do you think will be the main funding challenge for tech businesses that are going to be pushing these kind of changes?

"One issue is the change agenda and impact this can have on return on investment. With the speed of change that technology brings, there is a risk that a knowledge gap emerges across the end user community and the ability to leverage the value from the new technologies is lost. If you want to drive change, you need to get people embracing it. But to embrace change, the digital economy will need to work hard to narrow the knowledge gap.

The other key issue is finance. Clearly the length of return on investment is becoming quite key, and the geopolitical landscape is going to impact on both local and global investment too. Then you've got the disruption factor. For example, with Facebook creating their own new currency platform and the global reach they currently have, this presents big challenges for small startups and the fintech market in terms of finding ways to leverage or just stay afloat around such a signficiant strategic disruption - understanding where disruption may come from is a difficult strategic challenge facing the technology market.

So funding can't just be a financial decision anymore. Investors have to ask: Do we really understand what will be disrupted, or the opportunity it's going to bring? And equally do we understand the market we’re going into well enough to know what other disruptions may be out there, or what other competitors’ solutions might do to disrupt any emerging innovation? This is a real challenge."

What do you think are the key challenges for tech companies in the next ten years?

"I think it's the speed of change. Speed of change is both a positive if you embrace it, but it becomes a barrier if your business model isn't quick to change.

Then there’s a whole ethical and reputation agenda that I think comes with where technology currently is, and where it’s heading, and boards are going to have to deal with that in ways they've never previously had to consider. An example would be AI. What is an acceptable AI solution? Where are the ethical boundaries? What implications does AI have on issues such as data confidentiality or privacy?"

"I think Dan hits on a really fundamental challenge – the growing skills gap. So a business may have a vision and a view of what the target operating model of the future looks like, but have they got the capabilities and skills in house or in the market to enable that change? Businesses are currently struggling to access the right skills and this it likely to remain a critical challenge over the comings years until the skills gaps narrows."

"To that point, I think the current way of having permanent versus contract employment, or insourcing versus outsourcing, will just go within the next 10 years. You'll have skilled individuals who will be paid to do a particular job, whether it’s for a week or a couple of years, and that will give rise to some quite fundamental questions around how particularly large companies are organised, and how larger companies train people and how smaller companies retain and attract talent.

If you're going to invest in people then on what basis are you going to get that return as a company? And how does that work for the individual, if you are not necessarily committed to staying with a company for life or even for the next couple of years? Or maybe you're doing multiple jobs at the same time in multiple times zones for multiple companies – then what does the payback look like for training and qualifications and all of the things that you normally get through a career? So I think there’s some big challenges for large companies as well as the smaller technology startups in this area over the next 10 years."

"Also, if you look ahead 10 years in terms of political and social change, and some of the very large economies that are making huge impacts on technology like China and India, the successful companies will have to be true citizens of the world. I think that we'll see a rebalance of the types of skills that technology companies need in different areas as they grapple with changes internationally, and politically as well. We'll see a different mix of skills and education, and how people aquire them."

What can tech firms and founders do to best prepare themselves for the challenges of the next 10 years?

"I think that transparency angle is going to be key. We’re already seeing some companies embrace that, being completely open book about their business strategy or product strategy or customer feedback, letting the customers co-create and design product roadmaps, and contribute to funding the company. Monzo is a very good example, and Barclaycard have a socially powered credit card (Ring, US), but you can see more companies embracing this in in five to 10 years time. That's a very different style to how some companies are run at the moment where lots of things are closed and locked down."

"In addition, I would say make sure you really understand what it is you're taking into the consumer market, and know that the end user experience is absolutely key from end to end now. It is fundamental for the success of the business more than ever. If you have a bad experience, the resulting social media feedback loops can become very damaging to a brand very quickly.

Fast experimentation is key. You need to be agile to create new ideas quickly and test them immediately and thoroughly in the market. Identify early the innovations to back and those to cease and use experimentation to identify the elements to tweak to turn an interesting concept into a market leader. Having the right skills and creative culture are fundamental ingredients for success."

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What are you most excited about for the next ten years?

"If you take the widest possible view, it’s great to think that some of the biggest and brightest minds are already thinking about the big problems to solve. Not just over the next 10 years either, but over the next 100 years, in terms of clean energy, transport, planet-wide issues. And beyond the planet too – there’s a lot of private investment going into space flight, into the moon and Mars, and commercialising space.
So I’m personally exicted, people are genuinely thinking big and bold about the future for us all."

For more insight and advice from industry experts… S i g n u p f o r t h e p l u g d : i n m o n t h l y n e w s l e t t e r

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