From Data to Deals: The Future of Sales

Host Brad Carlson talks with Dr. Deva Rangarajan of IESEG School of Management about how data, psychology, and technology are transforming sales. From AI ethics and trust to intuition, resilience, and the evolving customer relationship, this episode explores what it takes to succeed in a tech-driven world—and why the human element still matters.

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Transcript

Brad Carlson: Welcome back to AMS Illuminations, the podcast from the Academy of Marketing Science that shines a light on the people, ideas, and innovations shaping the future of marketing. I'm Brad Carlson, and this series is part of AMS's broader commitment to professional development. Each episode explores timely insights from top scholars and educators, covering career paths, research breakthroughs, classroom innovations, and the real world impact of emerging technologies.

Today we're continuing our sales series with someone who sits right at the intersection of research, practice, and community leadership. I'm thrilled to be joined by Dr. Deva Rangarajan, Professor of Marketing at IESEG School of Management in France. Deva's research focuses on B2B marketing, sales enablement, customer success, and how digital technologies are transforming customer-facing roles. But he's not just publishing papers, he's working side-by-side with companies to drive actual change. He's worked with major global companies, names like Siemens, Philips, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Schneider Electric, and many, many more, helping them design strategies, train sales teams, and rethink what it means to build customer relationships in a tech-driven world.

In addition to all that, Deva is one of the sales circle leaders for the Academy of Marketing Science. Now, if you're not familiar, AMS Circles are inclusive communities supported by AMS members who share common interests. The goal of each circle is to build connections and foster conversation around important topics for the academic marketing community. Circles can be built around any theme, whether that's sales, AI, ethics, DEI, or something else entirely. If you're interested in starting or joining a circle, please reach out to AMS Director of Circles at the email listed on the AMS website.

So the theme for today's conversation is From Data to Deals: The Future of Sales. We'll explore how data psychology and technology are converging to reshape the sales profession, and what that means for research, teaching, and practice. So whether you're a marketing scholar, a sales educator, or a practitioner navigating the digital shift, you'll find something here you can put to work.

Deva, thank you so much for being with us today.

Deva Rangarajan: Brad, thank you so much for this opportunity to come and share some of my thoughts as well.

Carlson: When you hear the phrase modern sales, what does that mean to you right now?

Rangarajan: I can only say dealing with complexities, the idea of VUCA, volatile uncharted territories, looking at a lot of chaos and ambiguity. People have always said that that's been about sales all along, but never before have we seen so many things coming together. The idea is that too many things coming together at the same time, and salespeople having to deal with it as well. And the interesting thing is it's just not about salespeople. It has an impact on sales leaders. It has an impact on sales educators. Essentially, we are seeing a lot of things happening.

So I would just say a lot of turbulence, but at the same time, exciting times to be in sales

Carlson: That paints such a strong picture. Now, let's dig into some of these forces driving that evolution.

Rangarajan: Yeah.

Carlson: We're seeing seismic shifts, AI, globalization, rising buyer expectations. Which of these... or something else... do you think sales leaders need to act on most urgently? And what about researchers? What's most pressing from a theory perspective?

Rangarajan: Oh, Brad, where do I begin? I think probably three, four days is what I will need to talk about all this as well. But let me begin by saying that technology has always been there. Yes, it's evolving at a rapid pace, that's for sure. But the purpose of technology has always been about enabling the sales team or any function in an organization to do their jobs better. Even though we are talking about sales, I'm sure that the purpose of technology has always been to make it a lot more easier for people handling them, be it in operations, be it in management, in whatever field or whatever function that you're in.

The purpose of technology has been an enabler, but we have to take a step back is to understand what is technology enabling with your customers. So, essentially, your customers are becoming more and more demanding. Your customers are not waiting for your salespeople to come and talk to them. More importantly, where that becomes more critical is because of all the geopolitical shifts that you see happening around the world. So suddenly you start regulations coming in and buyers scurrying to see; wait a minute, where can I find the next best supplier? So again, you have technology, but no technology is going to enable this.

So you had COVID. Again, was a shock. But technology was the underlying basis, which said, okay, you know what? We are going to all move into Zoom.

So you see the factors that there's so many things happening simultaneously and everything is interconnected. Technology on the one hand has helped us get through this, but the question now remains that if you take a look at AI, what part of technology is going to help us and what part of it is going to maybe make certain things what we do much more redundant, and how should we be prepared to deal with it? And that's something that nobody knows the answer exactly.

Carlson: Well, that raises a big question about what happens to trust when data and automation takes center stage?

Rangarajan: Absolutely.

Carlson: Let's talk about trust and ethics, and how do you see those evolving as selling becomes more data-driven and predictive?

Rangarajan: Indeed. There's trust at so many levels. If you just stick to technology, there's trust with the technology itself. Saying that is the technology reliable? So, for example, they talk about the people in the IT field. Now I'm talking about IT field information systems, information technology. From our field. I'm not talking about people in practice, I'm talking about our colleagues in the other disciplines. Apparently they do exist.

It's like one of those things where they are talking about things like the black box problem. Essentially, the idea is we've talked about it as garbage in/garbage out. So the question is, you have these algorithms out there giving out or churning out stuff that says, wait a minute. It's saying all these kind of predictions, or it's saying this is what you should be talking to your customers about. The question is, who wrote those algorithms? Where is it getting the data from? Is it correct? Are there errors in it? How much is the scope of the error there? So there's a trust to the technology itself.

There's another part of it. It's got to do with the trust in terms of is this there for our good or is it going to replace us? The trust and the fact that this one, yes, I can trust the data, but can I trust this to actually help me keep my job or maybe lose my job?

Also, let's not forget that human beings are cognitive misers, which is the fact that we are not lazy. We want to use heuristics. We want to use something that's simple. Asking people to learn about new things. Again, the question is, it's going to ask a lot of them. So the idea of trust is something that has to be earned, and I feel that we still have some ways to go in that.

Right now, I'm only now talking about the supply, the sales side. Let's not even talk about the idea of the customers who now say, wait a minute, you are having access to my data. I remember a time when customers would push back on sales, and this is something that we would get when we would talk about training programs for companies where they would say, Hey, we're going to connect your machines. And they would say, wait a minute, that's my data that you're collecting, and you're going to come back and sell that to me. It's almost like they're giving you the fuel and you're going to charge them for it as well.

So essentially, it's incredible in terms of how you also have trust that needs to be built there. You're going to have a lot of things coming in. And the ethics part of it also becomes very important. Ethics from the viewpoint of how am I going to share or make sure that the information that I gather from my customers is going to be safe, secure, is going to protect their interests? If I'm using it with my own company, how will I make sure that the information that I gather about my own salespeople, I'm not going to use it to try and say, you know what, you guys or girls or human beings are not doing your jobs, I'm going to let you go? There's so many things about ethics.

So depending upon what you want to do, where you are, whether you're in a customer-facing role or you are a manager, there's so many things that we need to talk about in terms of ethics and trust. Hopefully that answers your question because again, this is such a vast area, but these are areas that I'm working on as well.

Carlson: Absolutely. And related to that, there's probably some concern about whether classic sales models are starting to crack under the pressure of this new landscape. So as we think about models and methods, and where are the stress points, are there elements of traditional selling or negotiation that just don't hold up anymore?

Rangarajan: So the key is certain things are changing, but if you go into the underlying aspect, sales is always going to be similar. That is who's my customer? What does my customer want? How am I going to try to understand the needs of the client? How am I going to try and make sure that I make my customer feel that what I have to offer to them is something that's going to create value for them? That has not changed.

What has changed is the way by which I interact with them. So traditional ways of generating leads, things like that, those are changing, but you still have to generate leads. My feeling is, parts of the sales process will change, but the methodologies will always be the same. That's my opinion.

Carlson: What about intuition? Obviously, as AI evolves, it moves closer to things that might look like instinctual responses. Do you think, based on the advancements you've seen, is AI getting closer to being able to replace a kind of gut level judgment that experienced negotiators bring to the table?

Rangarajan: Not yet. And I will tell you why. Again, this is my perception. I'm only going to restrict myself to the kind of things that I've seen, and I've heard.

One of the things... Believe it or not, I was actually talking a couple of days to a company that sells medical devices, and I was talking to the sales leader about this idea of AI and what are they concerned about AI. The first thing what they said, the salespeople were becoming lazy, and were beginning to not even have that instinct that tells them what is right or wrong. So the idea was that they would just fall back upon this as well. There's also a tendency not to question. So the idea was this was one of those little things.

Even if you go in and essentially what you're talking about, and I believe the term that I'm beginning to talk about is agentic AI. So essentially, just when we wrap our heads around automation and augmentation, in they came with agentic. So if you take a look at sales forces just putting all its money on agent force, and then you wrap your head around agent and then income sentient saying that, wait a minute, we also want to start talking about things and acts like a human being. So essentially, from that perspective.

But for that to happen, again, this is my perception. It's not that it's not possible, but you need to have data in the system. And for you to have data in the system, and there lies where my dissertation was 20 years ago, which was if I can convince my salespeople to do a good visit report and actually enter data into the system, which says what actually transpired in a conversation, then at least you can say the data is good, but what comes out of it's a question.

So for you to reach the level of sentience AI need to be trained, but if the quality of the data is not good, I think in most situations even agentic is still far away. Essentially, I don't think we're there yet. So we will still need to rely on human beings.

Carlson: You work closely with both students and managers. Let's talk about perception. In your experience, what do students or managers most often misunderstand about AI and sales?

Rangarajan: If you take a look at sales managers. So first of all, for sales managers, it depends upon two kinds of companies. There are two kinds of sectors. There are people in the high-tech SaaS space that software as a service space, where they talk about things like GTM; that stands for go-to-market, the go-to-market strategies, and they talk about technologies and different kinds of AIs. They're probably more AI literate.

But I talk to a bunch of organizations, where they mostly still talk about ChatGPT. They still talk about how to use certain aspects of ChatGPT to write an email. I'm not kidding. This is as of last week talking to some sales manager. So it's not like it came out from before. And these were companies that make cranes, industrial machineries, medical devices and stuff like that. It's actually a research project that we are working on right now, looking at the readiness of sales managers for AI. So there's even a divide there.

Now, if you take a look at students. See, it depends upon what you mean by students, because the students, if they're just taking an introductory class to sales, they only know about AI is more in terms of ChatGPT. For example, how can I use ChatGPT to actually solve the case the professor is giving me, or help me answer those questions? Again, as I said, the owners, the responsibility is on us as faculty to try and come up with those kind of exercises that makes it valuable for them to explore what is possible.

Carlson: How would you define psychological resourcefulness, and what can companies do to cultivate it in their sales teams?

Rangarajan: An average salesperson is dealing at least in a small sized organization between five or six applications that they have to open on top of all the things that they do. Just to give you an idea.

Now, when you take a look at all this, the shifts that have happened, one of the most important thing I have to do is that I have to take care of myself as a salesperson. And I get to the organization in just a bit. Which means that I have to protect my well-being. I have to make sure that in dealing with all the complexities that I have, all the stress that I have at work, that I should not burn out. Then what can an organization do? Of course, the easiest thing is recruit every person with grit and resilience. That's great. But again, most of the time see people this trial by fire, people learn from their kind of difficult situations and come up from it.

So what organizations can do is one, as much as possible, have very clear, clear kind of... what can I say... employee value proposition. The employee value proposition is what is their vision about their employees? What do they want? What do they stand as a company towards employees? How will they value what the employees bring to them? And essentially, what will they do to try and encourage the employees to be as best as they can?

So what normally I tell any student... it's few and far between... any student that comes to me and says, hey, tell me what kind of companies? I say always go ask a hiring manager what is their employee value proposition? That is what does the company stand for as well?

And then, of course, how does this manifest itself? Of course, there is years and years. So, for example, companies spend a lot of money on this great place to work. I'm sure you've heard of these kind of great place to work. So this company will say, this is a great place to work. The idea is if you go and work there; you are going to be at least content and satisfied for the most part, that you have that.

Carlson: So before we wrap, I want to give you some space to share what you're working on right now. So what sales, marketing, B2B topics are you currently exploring, and why do you think they're so important today?

Rangarajan: There's one topic which I'm absolutely delighted to be working on. One project which we are looking at, it's absolutely fascinating, is how is sales evolving in Africa. This is something that if you try and take a look at it, there's not a lot of research, which takes a look at Africa as where you get the data from. We just did some things. We did some qualitative research. We're working on it as well. So that's something that we're taking a look at.

The second thing which we're looking at is DEI. Again, DEI is very, very interesting, but if we're not looking at DEI, for example, in the United States or in Europe, we're looking at what does DEI mean, for example, in a country like Brazil for instance, or if you're looking at DEI in a country like India or Korea or Africa, where there is a different kind of diversity in there, and essentially equity is also going to be different. Sustainability is a topic that we are working on as well.

So everything that has an impact on sales. So essentially, what we're trying to say is everything that I talked about before... Remember, I said there are so many things shaping the world of sales. We are mostly looking at what are some of those things shaping? And we are also looking at how the sales part is changing. Things like conversational AI, what does that mean? Customer success, which is again something where more data would mean that their customer is saying, okay, I see that you're connecting all your machines. Now you promised me that you would get me these outcomes. Are you delivering on those, the move towards subscription based models?

So these are some of the topics that I'm working on.

Carlson: Those sound very interesting and I look forward to seeing them in print soon.

Rangarajan: I hope so too. Yeah, that makes the two of us.

Carlson: We've reached that point in our conversation where it's time to start wrapping things up. So we want to end with something we like to call the lightning round. I'm going to ask you three questions, and for each question, you'll have 60 seconds to respond. No pressure. Just go with your gut.

Rangarajan: Absolutely, yes.

Carlson: Let's start here. What's one AI application in sales you're genuinely excited about, something you think could really move the needle?

Rangarajan: Conversational analytics, part of revenue enablement, yes. Conversational analytics is actually analyzing conversations and looking at sentiments and seeing if we can use that to analyze the quality of every conversation and see how we can use it to improve future conversations.

Carlson: Excellent. All right. Now let's flip the coin. What's one ethical pitfall or unintended consequence of AI and sales that worries you most?

Rangarajan: Unethical; well, what impact it'll have on how you're going to use AI? Again, you should be very careful. I do not want to get political here. If you've seen the WALL-E... It's a great movie. You should see it. In WALL-E you actually see where you are reaching a stage where technology has made everybody wealthy. So essentially, some kind of universal salary for people. You know what I mean? Universal income for everybody. If you don't get there, it's going to lead to a lot of inequality in society, and it is going to lead to a lot of problems in the future. That's my fear about AI. More societal.

Carlson: All right, and finally, what's one misconception people still have about what actually drives sales performance?

Rangarajan: Oh, incentives. Absolutely. A lot of people that say, oh, what motivates salespeople? Incentives. I am fed up. Personally, fed up of this. The reason being that some of the top journals look at incentives because that's one thing that can be manipulated, and if you can manipulate, you can run an experiment. If you move away from a very Anglo-Saxon approach towards motivating people, you'll find that there are different ways of motivating people, and it's not always about incentives.

Essentially, that is what I think is overrated. Now, is it important? Yes, it is. But there are other factors you need to be thinking about as well.

Carlson: Deva, thank you so much. This has been a fantastic conversation, wide-ranging, insightful, and grounded in the kind of real world perspective that so many of us in the academic and business communication value. You felt us connect the dots between what's happening in the field, what we're teaching in the classroom, and where our research needs to go next. And I think you've left us all with a lot to reflect on when it comes to the evolving role of sales professionals in a tech-driven world.

So thank you again for joining us and for your leadership in AMS Circles, and for continuing to push the conversation forward.

Rangarajan: Thank you, Brad, for the opportunity to talk to you.

Carlson: And thank you to everyone who listened to our conversation today in AMS Eliminations. Check out all of our episodes streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.