The pandemic forced the world to change how it does business, and as countries went into lockdown, we changed too. Our reimagined sales function and enhanced digital tooling enabled us to thrive in a remote selling environment more than we could have predicted. Here’s how we did it:
Harnessing Data and Technology for Intelligent Sales
Enabled by a suite of capabilities, we enhanced in Salesforce, we drove enablement and focused on smarter, data-driven selling. We standardized the systems of engagement and aggregated customer and third-party data into a single source of truth for seamless access and easier analysis by our sales professionals. We also refined tools in Salesforce so our salespeople could more readily track client relationships, forecast quarterly sales pipelines, and evaluate deals.
For instance, we benefit from a tool that guides our sales leaders through a custom deal qualification checklist to identify and assess various facets of the deal, ranging from budget considerations to the quality of the client relationship. The automated feature, based on long-standing experience, helps sales professionals gain a comprehensive understanding of prospective deals and informs their sales strategies.
Other capabilities include a core toolset and standardized practices for account planning. This common approach has helped our sales teams identify and pursue an unprecedented number of value-creating growth opportunities for our clients. As a result, heading into fiscal 2021, our unqualified pipeline—that is, our portfolio of potential deals—tripled, making it the largest in Accenture history.