SAN FRANCISCO, CA — (Marketwired) — 11/06/14 — Selligy, the innovator in next-generation sales tools, announced today that the sales industry is on the cusp of a data-driven revolution, based on the results of its 2014 Sales Analytics Survey.
The survey, conducted on the show floor at Dreamforce 2014, found that investment in cloud analytics has started to take off, and that the companies leading the charge are also addressing a long-time CRM blind spot: the sales process. The results also show that data-driven sales methods have the potential to dramatically change how sales leaders manage their teams, with a majority of respondents stating that they cannot measure the most critical performance factors of their salespeople.
Just as digital marketing has launched a marketing analytics revolution, the survey shows that the data-driven sales revolution may not be far behind.
Based on the survey results, CRM cloud analytics is crossing the chasm, with nearly a majority of firms having deployed cloud analytics or planning to deploy them soon. The survey found that 46 percent of respondents at Dreamforce either already have (19.2 percent) or plan to implement (27.3 percent) new cloud analytics with their CRM within the next year. Meanwhile, 16.5 percent said they would probably not implement cloud analytics in the next year and 37 percent said they need more information before reaching a decision.
According to earlier Selligy research, however, most sales teams do not capture enough data to take advantage of sales analytics: Selligy–s study of CRM data found that 79 percent of sales records in typical CRM systems have no data tracking the activities the salesperson performed; as a result, companies can–t use CRM data to perform basic analyses of what (and who) is working in sales engagements.
Interestingly, the firms adopting cloud analytics have started to address these long-standing data gaps. Respondents that plan to use new sales analytics tools within the next year are also those who most often require their salespeople to log calls (73 percent), emails (69 percent) and tasks (70 percent) into CRM.
These firms collect significantly more sales activity data than that collected by late adopters of analytics, the 16.5 percent of firms that said they do not plan on using analytics in the next year. The late adopter group of respondents report far fewer of their salespeople input calls (57 percent), emails (51 percent) and tasks (53 percent).
The survey findings also highlight how the data-driven sales revolution has the potential to have a huge impact not only on the accuracy of sales forecasts, but also on how sales performance is managed. The survey shows a significant gap between the needs of sales leaders and current CRM data.
The survey shows that current CRM reports do not measure the dimensions of salesperson performance that matter most. While 44 percent of respondents state that their firms consider “Personal Drive and Hustle” to be the most important trait when evaluating salespeople, only 20 percent of respondents can actually measure it with their CRM data. Alternatively, the traits that were ranked important for evaluating salespeople by the smallest number of respondents, “History of Quota Attainment” (12 percent) and “Process and Organization” (7 percent) were the only traits a solid number of organizations are able to track through CRM (54 percent and 37 percent, respectively).
As firms shift to data-driven sales, new tools are emerging to capture and analyze more data about the sales activities. Interestingly, according to the survey, the firms that are adopting analytics, not just measuring sales activities more thoroughly, value it more: Respondents that value “Personal Drive and Hustle” are more likely to utilize cloud analytics in the next year (35 percent), compared to firms that value “History of Quota Attainment” (only 13 percent planning to utilize cloud analytics in the next year).
“Most sales leaders have been staring at the same CRM reports for a decade, and this survey shows that a wave of change has started,” said Nilay Patel, Selligy CEO and co-founder. “Sales leaders have always valued hustle. Now they–re starting to measure it.”
Looking ahead, organizations will need to do more than simply record what salespeople did last week. They will require cloud analytics tools to help optimize the sales process — telling salespeople what to do and the best strategy to achieve that goal — and drive better sales performance for sustained competitive advantage.
–s mobile solutions give sales and marketing leaders unprecedented visibility into the complete revenue pipeline, by making it dramatically easier for salespeople to get data into, and out of, CRM while on the go. Selligy is dedicated to helping sales teams make their numbers by tracking and analyzing the effectiveness of their sales activities. Selligy is backed by DFJ and . Visit us at .
Media Contact:
Michael Kellner
BOCA Communications
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