Press Releases

San Ramon, Calif.-  August 30, 2011 – Sales force automation has reached it’s potential. It can deliver the ability to automate the development of sales opportunities with related accounts, contacts and interaction, sufficient but not enough. With increasing pressures for sales to achieve revenue targets, companies have deployed sales force automation (SFA) in the cloud at a rapid pace. Yet even the most sophisticated SFA solutions haven’t filled the gaps in managing processes and performance across a range of sales activities from: analytics and collaboration; coaching and learning; deals and playbooks; forecasts and pipeline; commission and incentives; configure, price and quote (CPQ); channel and indirect sales; lead nurturing that can lead to millions in lost revenue. Sales and marketing organizations need to take a deeper look at this broader range of cloud and mobile based applications to provide a unified view of the sales processes and performance for optimizing revenue achievement. 

At Salesforce Dreamforce (http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF11/) in San Francisco, Ventana Research is gleaning the latest in technology advancements and best practices to infuse further knowledge to its newly launched educational and assessment services which help sales organizations improve their operations and performance. The education and advisory based programs take a comprehensive view of the sales processes to determine where and when to advance sales organizations to a higher level of efficiency and improve outcomes. Ventana Research’s Sales Performance Management research finds when sales addresses the scope of requirements across its organization, processes, information and technology needs they can achieve an innovative level of maturity. The new benchmark research underway on sales organizations (http://www.ventanaresearch.com/sales) is one step that sales should do to improve their efforts and understand the need to expand the portfolio of applications to support the span of sales processes. Recent published research on sales analytics found that sales continues to have disparate and manual efforts to assess its own sales performance and do not have the sales metrics and planning capabilities required to really advance. Organizations need to look at refinements to the sales process along with abroad range of applications in cloud-based deployments and make them more easily accessible via mobile devices.

"Sales organizations generate revenue and address customer demands but have had limited access to the right set of tools necessary to achieve their job and reach sales quotas and objectives. Traditional SFA and CRM, whether in the cloud or installed locally, can only deliver incremental improvements to sales," noted Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer at Ventana Research. "Our research into sales has found significant limitations based on perception and historical views of SFA and what it can do, limiting purchases of others applications that would save time and better utilize valuable sales talent. These decisions limit an organization’s competitiveness and impacts their efficiency and outcomes. Just using spreadsheets, electronic mail and sending presentations around with SFA no longer works to operate sales, it’s a flawed approach and error prone. The time to make changes is now. Our advisory and education services help sales cut through the choices with the knowledge how to save time and money in making wise technology investments for their sales organizations."

Ventana Research’s On-Demand advisory services and comprehensive education services provide organizations with actionable recommendations to advance sales processes with the right applications and technology including use of cloud computing and mobile based technologies like smart phones and tablets. Additional information can be found at http://www.ventanaresearch.com/sales.  For a limited time you can, sign up to receive a free 30 minute tune up session, and get a sales analytics benchmark report at no cost. Qualified sales organizations and those serious about change using technology are eligible for incentive.

About Ventana Research

Ventana Research is the most authoritative and respected benchmark business technology research and advisory services firm. We provide insight and expert guidance on mainstream and disruptive technologies through a unique set of research-based offerings including benchmark research and technology evaluation assessments, education workshops and our research and advisory services, Ventana OnDemand. Our unparalleled understanding of the role of technology in optimizing business processes and performance and our best practices guidance are rooted in our rigorous research-based benchmarking of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions in every industry. This benchmark research plus our market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means we can deliver education and expertise to our clients to increase the value they derive from technology investments while reducing time, cost and risk. Our views and analyses are distributed daily through blogs and social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Business Week’s Business Exchange. 

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Media Contact: 

Mendeil Bailey

Ventana Research

(925) 242-2412

marketing@ventanaresearch.com