In addition, speakers from Oracle, SAP and Xactly Corporation will address how metrics, analytics and mobility represent competitive advantage opportunities for today’s BtoB sales organizations.
“When you look at all the changes in the last year, there is a tremendous pressure on sales organizations to perform better,” said Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO of Selling Power and host of the Sales 2.0 Conference. “When you look at all the research that CSO Insights has been doing, there’s no increase in thepercentage of sales people that actually make their quota.” Research has found that, generally, salespeople are meeting only 45% of their forecast, which indicates an increased need for sales effectiveness. To become more efficient, BtoB organizations have moved operations to the Cloud. Further validating the growing trend of Cloud-based solutions, several major brands, including Oracle, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, and most recently Apple, have moved to the cloud, which Gschwandtner said is the “new infrastructure.” Nearly all the applications being showcased at Sales 2.0 are cloud-based. “In order to do better, sales needs to look at operations from a different perspective, look at the core of their business and redesign it so it’s customer focused and analytics-focused,” he noted.
In addition to an increased emphasis on metrics and efficiency, mobility is a hot topic of discussion in the BtoB arena. Research shows that there are more mobile devices available than PCs, as consumers are moving from a delayed economy to a real-time economy, demanding information at their fingertips whenever possible. Social media is also changing the sales conversation, according to Gschwandtner. “Social media has changed everything; the organization is no longer in control of the buying cycle; the customer is in control,” he said, noting how BtoB organizations are increasingly learning from the BtoC “Amazon.com approach.” “Conversations online are pivotal to company success. Salespeople need to reach out and join and lead conversations.”
Key Agenda Highlights:
- Chris Cabrera, Founder, President & CEO of Xactly Corporation, will discuss how sales leaders can use metrics to get the information they need to make quick decisions and ensure they stay on track to meet quota. He will identify the key metrics that can be used to continuously improve the performance of the sales organization.
- Keith Hontz, Vice President of Sales, Line of Business Solutions at SAP America Inc., will reveal how SAP is leveraging integrated analytics to unlock customer insights across SAP’s ecosystem in order to make better decisions that increase sales and marketing effectiveness. Hontz will also discuss how providing these insights on mobile platforms can ensure real-time collaboration, transparency, and visibility.
- Chuck Penfield, Vice President of CRM On Demand at Oracle, will highlight ways in which sales leaders can use predictive analytics to measure the customer experience and heighten levels of customer loyalty, create a stronger presence across social networks, achieve faster growth, and capitalize on progressively larger opportunities.
