Sales organizations go through the CRM selection process with great diligence. They spend even more resources redesigning existing processes, integrating the technology and people, training and rolling out the shiny new thing with great fanfare. Making sure every sales person is empowered.
Yet adoption remains at an abysmal level by measures beyond logins, “clicking on plays” and “call blocks.” Why?
Here are three most cited reasons aggregated from numerous research:
It is delivered primarily as a technical tool, relegating the human element.
It is perceived as management pushing something from above.
It is not believed to generate more value: sales, profits, targets.
In other words, it is not adding value to the life of the sales person.
One sales leader I know used to say, “if you don’t know the value of what you’re doing, then stop doing it. You will find out.” Yes, we are asking you to consider the opposite of what every expert says, everything you have heard, and even what we’ve said on these pages – stop doing SFA – if you are not sure of the value being delivered.
But wait, you say! How could we stop using SFA? Well, you start by MAKING IT SCARCE.
If you really believe you are adding value with your SFA, then start by giving it to less people. Select a team, or select reps via a lottery system. If not the entire SFA, then some components which are considered valuable should only go to a select few. Make it a privilege to get these components.
No pushing from the top management tier. If a few sales reps using the system see that their lives are better, they meet goals easier, it is intuitive to use, that data is accurate, analytics is meaningful and timely, and it flows well with their daily activities, then acceptance and adoption of the system will spread throughout the sales force.
Make the SFA about adding value, the people who are using it, and the results being delivered. And forget about adoption rates.
It’s no secret that sales force automation (SFA) was dreaded not too long back, but has now become an indispensable friend to the sales person. There are many who may still be leery of it, but that number is certainly dwindling. Lauren Carlson’s blog at Software Advice reflects on this sales force automation evolution over the past 15 years, and identifies four factors that explain the change. While we agree with those, here’s our take on where this is headed.
The central theme as we see it (of course being a SaaS company ourselves) is 1) the deployment of SFA on SaaS platforms and 2) SFA is more inter-operable in a sales environment. And that is a great fit to how the best sales people think and act: sales is seen in the larger context of client and business needs. So while software engineering has taken great leaps forward with usability, content and inter-operability, it has made it easier rather than harder for sales reps to use these tools.
Let us now envision what the future holds in terms of increasing adoption and further making SFA an indispensable tool for the reps of today and tomorrow.
SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY:
Thanks to Amazon, Google, Apple and iPhones, and other innovators, we now live in a world where our tools and devices instantly empower us with just a touch of a finger. There is no need to over-engineer features and functionality. So we will see SFA applications mimic more closely the way sales reps live and work, intuitively pulling things together for the right communication with customers that build credibility and trust.
BETTER INTEGRATION OF ANALYTICS AND DECISION SUPPORT:
Either through native interface, APIs or other methods, information will become more context-sensitive. In other words not “all the data all the time” – that’s like using a cannon to kill a mosquito! Predictive analytics is not used just to determine which customers to contact and what to sell etc., it will also determine when a particular insight or data point is valuable and present it to the sales rep at the right time. The integration of up-to-date sales intelligence tools is further validation of this trend.
GREATER RELIANCE ON SALES PROCESSES THAT PRODUCE RESULTS:
A proven process is a collection of technology, domain knowledge and best practices that are known to produce a better result. There is enough body of knowledge to show what practices work where and why. Sales organizations are already building on this. In addition, the availability of domain expertise and the relative ease of technology integration further drive the dependence on an established process. No SFA = no process.
With the advent of smart phones, tablets and social media we are now at a tipping point with respect to the next evolution of SFAs. It’s no longer a question of should sales team use sales force automation. Companies and sales organizations that do not embrace it and follow a solid process are at a disadvantage. That only portends more exciting times ahead for those that do.
Our CRM trends to watch in 2011 were among the most-read words here, all year. Now let’s look forward to what’s in store for sales and marketing data in 2012 …
FUSION OF SFA WITH EMA = TRUE CRM:
With continuing innovation, sales force automation systems (SFA) have been transformed into a sales rep’s best friend, as discussed in an insightful blog post at Software Advice: easier implementation, data accessibility and now the benefits of analytics and marketing automation are aiding the success of sales teams using these systems.
The success of CRM and Marketing Automation is no secret. More B2B organizations will take advantage of this profitable alliance to create a true lead generation life cycle platform, so that the handoffs throughout the prospect -> lead -> nurture -> sale pipeline will become more seamless and accountable. To accomplish this, data, analytics and best practices will play an integral part in relevant communication.
The customer value equation will go further so companies and sales teams can generate more revenue and profit from existing customers. This means examining every aspect of customer value, determining where it will come from and coaching/training to empower sales teams with the appropriate tools to realize such value.
CUSTOMER OWNERSHIP:
With relationships becoming increasingly more mobile and social (and perhaps personal too), there will be contention on who actually owns the customer: is it the rep, the company or the data/app provider? We’ve already seen lawsuits on such components like blog subscriber lists, Facebook and Twitter connections etc. This is going to become more blurred with the continued growth of social media. One way companies can keep the upper hand is to establish a fair and transparent process.
EXTERNAL INTEGRATION OF CUSTOMER DATA:
Companies have been bringing data together for many years internally, but they only know about what customers do with them. Now via external providers like Facebook or aggregators, there is going to be great interest in knowing about a customer holistically, not just the two-way relationship that companies already know. Privacy considerations included, these will start becoming available on the market.
BIG DATA:
Data trends we discussed last year continue to play out, but one megawave arching over all is Big Data. At the moment, this trend feels more like a solution looking for a problem at the company level. Although age-old techniques like statistical sampling are more cost-efficient, with the need to analyze data across, within, and outside companies and the larger market, more valuable applications will come to market and help realize the benefit of a Big Data strategy.
