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 …Read More
Tag Archives: software as a service
How is sales data like music?
In ROI of SaaS analytic solutions for sales, we described how innovation is changing the ROI of analytic endeavors. This has a profound impact on sales operations where predictive analytics needs to drive profitability – and pay for itself. We’ve passionately embraced this philosophy. So how exactly is the ROI of analytics changing? Just as the distribution and delivery of music evolved from LPs to 8-tracks, cassette tapes to CDs, with innovation continuing online, so has the distribution of data – and analytics – evolved. Remember paying $19.99 for a CD but there was just one song you really liked? That happened an untold number of times to us. The digitization of music for CDs opened the door for online delivery. While CDs existed before Internet became mainstream, when the two innovations converged, the stage was set for a new and efficient way of distributing music. Consider iTunes. You want only one track, not the whole album? You got it. You want to sample before buying? You got that too. Fast, easy. And now streaming is not that far off. Unthinkable back when you were perusing CDs in bins at record stores. Which actually wasn’t that long ago … was it? Today, sales leaders expect to pay for results relevant …Read More
ROI of SaaS analytics solutions for sales: Have you considered the total cost?
We are often asked, what is the Valgen philosophy to SaaS pricing, and how is it a better deal? Our answer always ties back to two critical dimensions: risk and execution. The “total cost to execution” of analytics solutions is a critical decision factor.
Traditional Analytics Solutions
Risk includes the cost of all components needed to just begin implementing an analytical solution. This is because at this point, it’s not known if the desired outcomes can even be achieved. Analytics solutions have typically involved these fixed costs just to get started: Hardware, internal IT expertise, software, statistical analysts, cross-department internal resources, time.
But There’s An Easier, Faster, Less Costly Way of Doing Business …Read More