Know the ultimate goal

Investing in the journey to a state of intelligent operations yields big, sustained results. Along with those investments come a few critical mindset shifts that drive and sustain momentum toward a state of future-readiness.

It’s a misconception that any time spent not selling is time wasted. Instead, salespeople should focus on strategy—that is, matching the right solutions with the right buyers at the right times. Strategically minded sales organizations and those leveraging digital inside sales models are ahead of the game.

A multinational software company needed to deepen its reach in Latin American and Caribbean countries, and develop a pipeline of consistent, qualified sales opportunities.

Using an expert sales team of native Spanish speakers with deep knowledge of the local market requirements and norms, Accenture developed an outbound sales program with standardized process and management structures to ensure consistency and efficiency in sales and qualification activities. The program not only expanded the pipeline, it also increased the company’s conversion rates.

Ultimately, the demand gen program grew to include inbound opportunity qualification and real-time chat support. And the program expanded as a whole throughout Central and South America.

Only 8% of sales executives say business-technology collaboration is being used at scale, and only 44% say the collaboration will be used at scale in three years’ time. But eliminating barriers between IT and other departments is essential to fueling innovation generally, and specifically for sales. IT must be a symbiotic partner, not just a facilitator.