Sales Intelligence Is More than Smart Selling

With basic CRM no longer a differentiator, the automated "pushing"

of sales intelligence may determine who sinks or swims, according to
a recent report from Aberdeen Group.
By Juan Martinez - Posted Apr 25, 2010

Acquiring comprehensive lead and customer data is no longer the end-game for Best-in-Class companies,
according to a recent Aberdeen Group report. Among selling organizations of all maturity classes, the use of
C R M tools is ne ar unive rsal, according to the re port; what se parate s the cre am from the crop is how organizations
im ple m e nt the de ploym e nt of add-on te chnologie s such as sale s inte llige nce solutions. The re port finds that the be st-
pe rform ing com panie s outclass the ir com pe tition in de te rm ining what conte nt about prospe cts and custom e rs to put in front
of the ir sale s force s.

528 end-user organizations were surveyed in December and January to examine how they deployed their
sales intelligence. The report lists the following three key performance criteria used to distinguish the sales
teams within Best-in-Class companies:

An average 52 percent of sales representatives are currently achieving quota, as compared to a

26 pe rce nt average among Laggard companies;
9 pe rce nt year-over-year reduction in time sales reps spend searching for relevant company/contact
information, as compared to a 5 pe rce nt increase in time among Laggard companies;
An average 5 pe rce nt year-over-year reduction in the sales cycle time, as compared to a
7 pe rce nt increase in sales cycle time among Laggard companies.

Peter Ostrow, Aberdeen Research Director and author of the report, identifies the implementation of
automated sales intelligence "push" as a major factor in whether or not companies are successful. The
report's findings indicate that only 43 pe rce nt of Industry Average performers engage in some form of
automated push. These companies are 28 pe rce nt less likely than the Best-in-Class to "recognize the value of
empowering sales staff with customer, prospect and market intelligence that essentially appears before their
eyes' when the related CRM or SFA record is opened," writes Ostrow.

"The successful companies are integrating a push technology," says Ostrow. "When I, as a sales rep or
manager, log onto my email or CRM tool or mobile versions of sales related applications, I'm seeing relevant
information and not just names and phone numbers. That allows me to sell a lot smarter because I've gained
the pertinent data about my prospect, customer or industry niche."

The nature of desired sales appointments delivered as leads to companies by external providers differed
between the maturity classes, the report found. Best-in-Class organizations were nearly three times as likely
as Laggards to demand sales intelligence with scheduled appointments or conference calls, and Laggards
were more than five times as likely than the top performers to settle for leads unsupported by data regarding
the target company, individual or market.

Ostrow also writes that future Best-in-Class CRM budget dollars will most likely be focused on Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS) deployments, as 59 pe rce nt of top performers, versus 35 pe rce nt of Laggards, anticipate
spending additional budget on hosted CRM technologies.

"On-premises CRM deployment projects will be favored by Laggards at a 45 pe rce nt rate," the report states,
"nearly twice the 23 pe rce nt reported by the Best-in-Class, and thus do not represent as likely a path to
success in the context of using sales intelligence to achieve smarter selling.

The report lists "Required Actions" to see sales improvements for each defined subgroup.

Laggard companies should:

Focus on aggregating sales intelligence from third-party sources;

Use sales intelligence as a carrot to attract sales practitioners toward more aggressive use of the CRM;
Get executive buy-in for a sales intelligence initiative.

Industry Average companies should:

 Invest in a process to bring together different databases owned by marketing, sales, accounting or
legal departments;
Push intelligence to [their] sales team rather than waiting for them to fetch it;
Measure, manage and improve sales productivity by aggressively tracking the impact of sales
intelligence investments on revenue, quota attainment and sales team effectiveness.

Best-in-Class companies should:

Update [their] understanding of corporate organizational charts due to merger-and-acquisition activity,

or understand how new product releases by [their] accounts impact potential spend;
Automate the integration of sales intelligence into the CRM.

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destinationCRM.com, in addition to the news section Insight that appears every month in the pages
of CRM magazine.

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