Putting Off Sales Analytics is Like Putting Off Winning

More and more sales managers now realize that business analytics is the critical other half of their CRM solution. Whereas salesforce.com is designed for easy data input and sales process management, analytic applications are designed for easy information output so you can optimize the sales process with actionable insight. The CRM application will help you see what’s happening today and how you’re doing against your targets. An analytic application will help you understand why things are happening so you can determine what you should do tomorrow and take the appropriate next steps. This article by Jim Dickie at CSO Insights does a nice job of illustrating the challenges of having one half of the solution but not the other:

Suppose that, at the beginning of the quarter, the CRM system is reporting that the Southern Region has a forecast of $10 million. Sixty days into the quarter I see that the forecast is still $10 million. The numbers are the same, so I ought to feel confident they’ll hit their target, right? Not necessarily.
What if you found out that $9 million of the original $10 million had fallen out of the initial forecast and been replaced with deals totaling the same amount, but not nearly as far along the sales process path? Now, that insight might cause some alarm, and based on that knowledge you could come up with plans to address a possible revenue shortfall.

So what’s the difference between an on-demand application designed for transactions and an on-demand application designed from the ground up for business analytics? Here is a high-level summary:

As we discussed in the Sales Management 2.0 webinar this week, the important thing now is to get started. Putting off having meaningful metrics and analytic capabilities that convey insight, not just flat data, is like putting off competing and winning. If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording here and/or view the slides here.

posted by Darren Cunningham at 3:15 pm

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