Accelerating sales readiness to drive profitable growth
Accenture research reveals high-performing companies achieve better sales outcomes than their peers by focusing on the key elements of sales readiness.
OVERVIEW
Accelerating Sales Readiness to Drive Profitable Growth
In a hugely competitive marketplace, a select few high-tech companies are increasing their sales force productivity to drive revenue growth. How? By accelerating sales readiness within their organizations.
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Sales leaders in these companies typically achieve the following results:
Sales quotas delivered on Day 1 of the selling period
Increase flexibility and speed to market by up to 40%
Improve sales force productivity by up to 30%
There’s no magic involved, just a structured approach that equips you to be sales ready.
Is your organization sales ready?
If it is, you’ll have interconnected business processes that allow you to make changes to sales hierarchies, account assignments or quotas – and instantly communicate those changes to the sales force.
Gauge your organization’s sales readiness with the following questions:
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INSIGHTS
The majority of sales leaders in the high-tech industry are not sales ready
95% of sales organizations have increased their sales target……50% of sales leaders doubt they can achieve them
80% of sales leaders communicate sales targets late (up to 2-4 months’ delay) even though typical selling cycles are under 1 year for 93% of companies
65% of sales leaders say improvement is needed to close deals within forecasted timeframes
48% of sales leaders have no formal sales process in place …23% point to the lack of a common sales process as a key challenge
Sales reps spend just 1/3 of their time selling
RECOMMENDATIONS
What does good look like?
High-performing companies achieve better sales outcomes than their peers by focusing on the key elements of sales readiness
Deliver sales quotas on Day 1 of the selling period
Increase flexibility and speed to market by up to 40%
Increase sales force productivity by up to 30%
Increase sales quota attainment by 10%
How can sales leaders capture the benefits of sales readiness?
Align all functional groups involved in the target sales readiness strategy
Communicate sales readiness execution approach and plan
Sustain through leadership commitment and ‘sales readiness czar’ role.
MUST-HAVE CAPABILITIES FOR SALES READINESS
What are the must-have capabilities for sales readiness?
High-performing companies accelerate sales readiness by addressing the ‘What’ and the ‘How’:
End-to-end sales readiness strategy, using analytics to complement operations excellence from financial forecast to quota acceptance
Cross-functional governance, managed end-to-end by a single stakeholder
Single, standardized and documented global process, tools and policy
Control tower’ approach to define milestones, communicate progress and manage corrective actions
KPI-driven to ensure execution visibility and continuous improvement
SOURCE
CSO Insights 2014 Sales Compensation Performance Sponsored by Accenture for Technology Companies with >USD1B revenue
Accenture 2015 analysis of Technology Companies with >USD1B revenue