Roi calculation

Roi calculation

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  Presented By Calculating Sales Enablement’s Impact on Profitable Revenue Generation A Framework to Measure the Impact of Enablement and Collaboration on Sales Effectiveness & Efficiency Across the Enterprise During the most recent economic bubble, the goal of most sales and marketing organiza- tions was simply to drive revenue at any cost and by any means. However, operating in today’s precision-based business climate, executives are not only charged with driving top-line growth, they are also expected to grow sales profitably and responsibly. In the ThinkForward 2010 report, Denis Pombriant, Managing Director at Beagle Research Group, pointed to today’s market leaders as those companies “that provide solutions that foster business process innovation, cost containment and fully engage cus- tomers as partners.” Pombriant added that the new realities of the market have shifted priorities of today’s chief executives. “In the face of financial crisis, recession, market maturity and skyrocketing energy costs today’s businesses are being summoned again to think about the future. Many front office solution providers have already begun the pro- cess. They have devised business solutions that build profitability into front office business processes by making them more sustainable.” These changing priorities are complicated by the lingering effects of the recent recession – marketing and sales teams are being asked to grow revenue even while their budgets are being reduced. With banks, venture capitalists and boards operating in a risk-averse mode, the old tactics of adding headcount or lowering margins to inflate near-term top-line performance are no longer cutting it. Now instead of expanding staffs, many midsized to large enterprises are looking to consolidate the number of salespeople calling on key accounts and expanding the solutions and products salespeople present. Sponsored by
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  Enablement Increases Another new dynamic re-writing the rules of sales and marketing is that buyers have also Efficiency For Both Sales become more risk-averse and are looking for efficiencies at every turn. “There is a lot of & Marketing strain on the buyer/seller relationship right now in the BtoB sector, mostly from the buyer Sales Enablement tools have shown side,” said Scott Santucci, Senior Analyst, Sales Enablement at Forrester Research. “The dramatic impact for both sales and number of options available to buyers has grown in order of magnitude greater than it marketing departments. Some of was just 10 years ago, thanks to globalization and advances in technology.” the short-term wins achieved by both “sides of the house” As the number of options has increased, Santucci pointed out that the bar has been raised have included: significantly for solution providers competing for the time and attention of buyers. “The amount of time available to deal with salespeople has dried up,” he noted. “Executives Sales Benefits want to deal with anyone who is going to help them solve their problems, but they have • Increased Average Deal Size zero time left over for product demonstrations.” • Improved Win Rate • Reduced Sales Cycle Length “Most vendors recognize the need to elevate their messaging and improve how their • Increased Quota Attainment salespeople communicate and sell, because if their salespeople aren’t adding value they • Increased Number of Opportunities are not going to be relevant, and they are not going to get access to the right people,” Santucci continued. “This scenario forces them into a transactional selling model, which Marketing Benefits you obviously want to avoid because there are no margins in a commodity market.” • Content Workflow Improvements • Self-Service Efficiency for These new market dynamics have created something of a perfect storm for marketing ex- Document Retrieval ecutives. How do they help their sales team add value and communicate more effectively, • Reduction in Printed Documents when at the same time most of their sales team is being asked to handle a wider array of and Unused Files products and solutions? • Increased Collaboration Between Marketing and the Sales Channels The answer for many midsized to enterprise-level businesses has been the deployment of • Detailed Analytics to Understand Sales Enablement solutions. While Sales Enablement has been a hot topic for the last few What Content is Used years, the reality is most companies have really only taken a toe-in-the-water approach to Sales Enablement to date. Some organizations have dabbled with enablement by building out web-based access to collateral, but breakdowns in usability and inability to measure effectiveness have diluted the ability to track real returns on these initiatives. The tide has shifted quickly over the past year however, as progressive companies have shown dramatic top-line revenue gains and bottom-line cost savings results by deploying SaaS-based Sales Enablement solutions that foster increased collaboration, drive a consis- tent message and enable measurement across sales, marketing and other customer-facing areas of the enterprise. This white paper will explore the benefits mid-sized firms and large enterprises have realized by deploying out of the box Sales Enablement solutions. Through a series of case study examples and insights from leading analysts, the paper will demonstrate the impact on productivity, as well as revenue generation and the cost savings of a SaaS-based Sales Enablement platform. 2 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  “When we lookat the As companies look to replace static sales, partner and customer portals with a full technology hierarchy, and featured, single Sales Enablement platform they must take into consideration what’s the value that each category needed today and in the future. A hosted solution that targets Sales Enablement means “out of the box” functionality while receiving the quickest time to value. provides to sales and marketing, sales enablement and knowledge management Maturation Of Sales Enablement have now become required components.” Shortening Time Joe Galvin, SiriusDecisions Degree of To Value Enablement Value Hosted Sales Enablement Solution SFA Vendor SharePoint/Framework Technology Home-Grown Functionality Source: SiriusDecisions The ROI of Increased Sales & Marketing Efficiency Driving growth in this profit-focused, yet capital-constrained market has shifted Sales En- ablement from the “nice to have” list to an imperative for organizations with distributed sales forces and complex marketing messages. “When we look at the technology hierarchy, and the value that each category provides to sales and marketing, Sales Enablement and knowledge management have now become required components,” said Joe Galvin, VP & Research Director with SiriusDecisions, a leading research consultancy in the sales and marketing space. 3 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  “Creating a strategicsales Sales & Marketing Productivity enablement program allows for a Company with $300 M in annual revenue; 1k employees, 400 reps marketers and salespeople to Productivity Gains Before After Current Company Revenue $300,000,000 $315,109,012 drive significant cost savings Total Revenue Increase with iCentera (Projected) $15,109,012 in the short term while improving their companies’ Annual Revenue Gain For Each Sales Rep $36,094 Sales Productivity ROI 497% competitiveness to thrive in Total Marketing Productivity Improvements $286,800 the new growth cycle.” Total Productivity Gains $15,395,812 Scott Santucci, Numbers based on customer feedback and industry analyst research Forrester Research Rollouts of Sales Enablement solutions have also accelerated due to the increased ability to measure and track the ROI impact of hosted enablement solutions. Early adopters of hosted enablement platforms have consistently experienced the following payoffs across their direct and indirect sales teams: • Increased Average Deal Size • Increased Quota Attainment • Improved Win Rate • Increased Number of Opportunities • Reduced Sales Cycle Length Based on the success of customers and work done with analysts over the years, iCentera has developed a Sales Enablement ROI Calculator, which helps organizations forecast the projected productivity gains they can realize through the deployment of a hosted Sales Enablement platform. Using a conservative productivity gain of .05%, the formula demonstrates that a large enterprise could drive six figures in additional revenue within the first year. “We have seen the majority of our clients increase revenue while decreas- ing costs in year one,” said Craig Nelson, President of iCentera, a pioneer in the Sales Enablement space and owner of www.salesenablement.com. Sales Enablement Productivity ROI Inputs and Assumptions Before After Percentage Revenue Enablement Enablement Increase Increase What is your average deal size? $50,000 $52,500 5.00% $15,395,812 What is your average deal win rate? 25% 26% 5.00% Gain Per Rep What is your average sales cycle length (in months)? 6 5.70 5.00% $36,094 What is your average percentage of quota attainment? 60% 63% 5.00% What is the average number of opportunities you typically have open? 50 53 5.00% Numbers based on customer feedback and industry analyst research While the most obvious payoffs of Sales Enablement are in revenue generation, other immediate beneficiaries of these tools and processes are the product management and marketing departments. Some of the core benefits realized from hosted sales 4 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  enablement solutions include:content workflow improvements with content published in minutes not days, fewer printed documents and unused files, greater self-service efficiency across all sales channels in accessing relevant sales information and increased collaboration to better align marketing and sales. In addition to driving revenue, Sales Enablement solutions with measurement capabilities have had a positive impact on the bottom line for many companies, driving six figure cost savings in numerous cases by addressing many of the inefficiencies that exist in the sales and marketing process. For example: • 10% of documents are either lost or misfiled at a cost of $360 each, according to research from Coopers & Lybrand, Immersion Technologies Inc. • 50-80% of the materials marketing creates for sales never see the light of day, according to the American Marketing Association • The typical cost for document creation, publication and maintenance is $2,500 per item, according to IDC research • Increased collaboration between marketing and the sales channels • Detailed Analytics to understand what content is used Total Cost Savings for Hosted Sales Enablement Solution for a Company with $300 M in annual revenue; 1k employees, 400 reps Cost Savings Total Automated CMS Cost Savings $491,313 Annual SaaS Buy vs Build Savings $728,927 $1,220,240 Total Cost Savings for Year 1 Total Automated CMS Cost Savings = Cost savings from lost documents, unused files, going green savings and headcount reduction for systems maintenance. Annual SaaS Buy vs Build Savings = Total cost of building and maintaining home grown applications less the annual investment in iCentera. The recent Forrester Research report titled, “Engineering Valuable Sales Conversations,” found technology vendors are spending, on average, 19% of their SG&A costs – or $135,262 per salesperson – on support-related activities. In that report, Santucci pointed out that “corralling” the “random acts of sales support” that take place throughout different parts of an organization presents a golden opportunity. “Creating a strategic Sales Enablement program allows marketers and salespeople to drive significant cost savings in the short term while improving their companies’ competitiveness to thrive in the new growth cycle,” he stated. Business owners and stock holders today demand profits, thus the need to rethink the way enablement is implemented and measured. 5 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  Redefining Roles AroundEnablement Sales Enablement has been labeled and categorized several different ways over the past two decades, but the progressive organizations who have seen the greatest impact from a focus on enablement have realized these tools and processes are as vital to marketing as they are to the front-line sales team. In order to be truly impactful in driving profitable revenue growth, the enablement process is not something that marketing can simply relegate to training, sales or the IT department. Given the changing dynamics of the marketplace, Sales Enablement is now centered on knowledge transfer making the right knowledge assets, tools, subject matter experts and other resources available to the sales channels to improve the conversation with buyers to advance each sale. When marketing and sales collaborate effectively on the right content and delivery plat- forms, the vendor is able to bring the weight of the organization’s market and product knowledge to every sales call and drive more profitable revenue growth. By leveraging hosted enablement platforms, progressive marketing departments now have the ability to deliver relevant, up-to-date information on an hourly basis, foster online collaboration, and adjust the Sales Enablement effort based on real-time usage analytics that show the behavior of sales, partners and the customers. As a result, the direct or channel sales rep becomes the “trusted advisor” that Forrester’s Santucci stressed is now required, adding value to the buying process in today’s risk-averse market. The 5th P: Productivity According to IDC data, the average rep spends two hours per week looking for marketing collateral and another five hours per week creating and recreating presentations/docu- ments for customers and prospects. The IDC 2009 data also found that 50% of compa- nies are still distributing information to their sales team via email. The report found only 30% of the IDC respondents were distributing information via a sales portal environment, and of those, less than 20% indicated they were able to measure usage. It’s important to keep in mind these are not just sales productivity issues. With a growing number of marketing executives now incentivized on reaching revenue goals, non-produc- tive reps are costing everyone in the company money. In addition, it has been estimated 6 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  “Selling is anart. Productivity that marketing and product marketing teams in some companies spend up to 75% of is a science. It’s the ability their day explaining and reviewing issues such as pricing, positioning and sharing competi- to add a new opportunity at tive data. Making this information readily available in a self-service platform to sales and partners greatly increases the efficiency of marketing teams. the top of the pipeline and increase the number of active In addition to maximizing the efficiency of sales executives, industry analysts are also recom- opportunities a rep mending marketing departments focus more on Sales Enablement to drive lead acceleration can manage.” to help unclog those deals that are getting clogged later in the pipeline. Once viewed simply Joe Galvin, SiriusDecisions as cost centers, marketing departments at many of the fastest growing companies are now viewed as essential partners in the revenue generation process. By helping to move deals from pipeline to closed, marketing departments are gaining recognition in the board room. Marketing executives have traditionally been trained to focus on the four P’s – product, price, place and promotion. However, SiriusDecisions recently suggested marketers should add the “fifth P” of sales: “productivity.” At SiriusDecisions’ 2010 Summit, the research consultancy added a new perspective on its Demand Creation Waterfall, aimed at helping sales and mar- keting improve collaboration throughout the different stages of prospect engagement. Tony Jaros, VP of Research at SiriusDecisions, pointed out that the role of marketing contin- ues to evolve. “We have witnessed the charter of marketing – and thus its relationship with sales – change twice in a decade,” Jaros said. While the first wave of change had marketing expanding its role in demand creation, Jaros said that has resulted in an over-emphasis on generating leads at the top of the waterfall, and not enough work on lead nurturing and lead acceleration in the later stages of the waterfall. “The over-hype on the ‘create’ task has devalued the other tasks that sales and marketing should be working on together.” As part of the second sea change Jaros also pointed out that some progressive organiza- tions are establishing competitive differentiation by giving prospects an advanced view of what it is like to be a customer. By creating content portals which directly address where the prospect is in the buying cycle, it allows the vendor to provide targeted information and allows the prospect to be self-sufficient in their research. SiriusDecisions’ Galvin added that a collaborative focus on Sales Enablement ultimately drives core revenue metrics. “Selling is an art,” he noted. “Productivity is a science. It’s the ability to add a new opportunity at the top of the pipeline and increase the number of active opportunities a rep can manage. The right collaboration and solutions can help drive the number of new opportunities, the number of active opportunities and lead to shorter sales cycles by improving the conversion rates from phase to phase inside the buying cycle.” 7 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  “We have seenthe majority Improved Access To Key Information Leads of our clients increase To Pipeline Improvements revenue while decreasing While Sales Force Automation (SFA) Systems helped to manage sales cycles, pipelines and costs in year one,” forecasts, Sales Enablement solutions help to manage buying cycles by making the appro- Craig Nelson, iCentera priate content available and enabling the collaboration that matches the customer’s needs. The need for greater efficiency in providing relevant collateral to sales representatives was underscored in the 2009 Sales Performance Optimization Survey from CSO Insights. That report found reps experienced “some effort required” or “significant effort required” to access even basic knowledge, as indicated: Some Effort Significant Required Effort Required Best Practices 43.8% 27.2% Customer References/ 43.2% 21.8% Case Studies Proposal Templates/ 37.6% 15.2% Business Case Samples The CSO Insights Survey also showed that providing easier access to competitive analysis and past marketing/sales information was emerging as a significant competitive differ- entiator. According to the report, companies providing easy access to information were seeing near double digit performance advantages over competitors in key areas: Easy to Access Significant Effort Overall Revenue Plan Attainment 87% 79% Reps Meeting/Exceeding Quota 64% 52% In Forrester’s “Engineering Valuable Sales Conversations” report, Santucci emphasized that the right mix of tools and process improvements is vital to Sales Enablement success. “Engineering these successful sales conversations demands a strategic and systematic process that provides all client-facing employees with the content and tools to consis- tently and empathetically engage with and deliver value to the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life cycle.” 8 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  Enabling Efficiency: CostSavings Via Enablement Top line revenue gains are not the only performance benefit companies are seeing through the deployment of Sales Enablement solutions. “Combining the cost savings from improved distribution of documents and a reduction in printed documents and unused files together with headcount reduction for systems maintenance, means many of our clients have seen six figure cost savings,” Nelson said. In one prime example of the efficiency realized by enablement, a leading global enter- prise software company with more than 70,000 customers and 116 different offices, reduced its printing costs by nearly 90%. By shifting to an iCentera web-based portal to manage its marketing collateral, the software giant reduced printing costs from $130,000 per quarter to less than $15,000 per quarter. At the same time, the software company has made it easier for its marketing and sales support teams to find the most up-to-date collateral, managing more than 5,500 sepa- rate pieces of collateral with the iCentera service, including more than 1,200 data sheets and brochures, more than 400 case studies and approximately 250 white papers that can be used by its marketing and sales teams. Based on the company’s positive impact on sustainability initiatives, iCentera recently received a “ThinkForward,” award from Beagle Research Group, a leading analyst firm in the CRM space. The ThinkForward award for sustainability highlights front office software companies that provide solutions that foster business process innovation, cost containment and fully engage customers as partners. The TCO Comparison: Build Vs. Buy Over the past few years, Sales Enablement has gained mindshare although economic woes have slowed widespread adoption. During this period, budget constraints led com- panies to opt for basic in-house solutions with the idea that it would save them money. Some organizations dabbled with enablement by providing web-based access to collat- eral through home-grown systems or framework development tools, such as SharePoint or Interwoven, but the inability to quickly provide functionality that targets enabling sales and measuring the effectiveness of the content and tool usage has prohibited them from tracking real returns on these initiatives and in many cases spending more money over time as they attempt to “get it right” rather than buying a Sales Enablement solution delivered quickly as a service. 9 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  While defining whatis required to enable sales there are capabilities that are fundamen- tal to the success of such a solution. Industry experts suggest a Sales Enablement solution should provide the five following key features for successful knowledge transfer: 1) Targeted Messaging 2) Guided Search 3) Real-Time Coaching & Collaboration 4) Content Delivery & Tracking 5) Usage Pattern Analysis Key Capabilities of a Sales Enablement Solution • Delegated Content Publishing Targeted Messaging • Content Workflow Support • Targeting Specific Roles • Accurate Information Available Guided Search • Personalized Portals to Meet Specific Needs • Customized To User Preferences • Discussion Forums Real-Time Coaching • Subject Matter Portals & Collaboration • On Boarding Portals • Automatically Assemble Acrobat or PowerPoint files Content Delivery • Integration with Salesforce.com & Tracking • Ability to Create Customized Portals • Understand Buyer Behavior Usage Pattern • Help Marketing See Which Content Analysis Is Being Used Many of these companies opted for what appeared to be the quick fix of providing web-based access to collateral through tools such as SharePoint or Interwoven, but the inability to quickly provide functionality that targets enabling and measuring the effec- tiveness of the content and tool usage has prohibited them from tackling real returns on these initiatives. 10 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  “When you thinkabout sales The key differentiators between IT-developed versus hosted solutions, according to indus- enablement, and many try analysts, are the level of analytics offered, the breadth of enablement features to drive companies are today, it has to more effective selling, and delivery of targeted selling and buying environments, which can be specific to verticals or even individual accounts. begin with how you are going to deliver value then in turn Most home grown solutions in use today typically only push out mass messaging via measure the impact.” email, provide flat pages and links for content. They usually have no real-time sales Joe Galvin, SiriusDecisions coaching capabilities, and they require users to first download content prior to emailing the file attachment. Perhaps the biggest drawback of home grown solutions has been the inability to provide analytics around usage of the system. Analytics provide market- ing with critical feedback on the content that is most valuable to the sales team and provide the executive team with support that the right information is being distributed throughout the enterprise. “As we have learned over the past 20 years, sales will quickly adapt to the use of solu- tions that add value to their day,” said Nelson. The famous saying “it’s easier to be a critic than a creator” certainly applies to sales and channel sales staff. Given their hectic schedules, sales executives prefer to refine something that has already been created and proven rather than to create it from scratch. However, they must first be able to easily locate and understand the enablement material prior to refining it. While home grown systems built from scratch or on framework portals and content management technology provide flat HTML environments where sales representatives can search for relevant documents, users and analysts have reported that documents are often hard to locate with no support for real-time sales guidance or collaboration and other functionality (see diagram above) and therefore adoption has suffered. These systems are also dependent on support and maintenance from over-burdened IT staff, which often hinder their effectiveness. The biggest limitation with SharePoint and most home grown Sales Enablement systems has been the inability to add value to a salesperson’s day and to measure usage and compliance, or to analyze the effectiveness of different collateral. “When you think about Sales Enablement, and many companies are today, it has to begin with how you are going to deliver value then in turn measure the impact,” said Galvin. “If you can’t measure it in terms of simple activity – what gets used, how often, who is using what – you are really only amplifying old problems. One of the critical truths of Sales Enable- 11 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  ment is therequirement to measure. In order to be successful you have to generate and embed feedback from sales into the system.” The most immediate business driver for hosted systems versus an internal build-out is time to value. Building out a system can take anywhere from six to 18 months to get right, compared to the two to four weeks it typically takes to deploy a hosted solution. For many companies new initiatives only gain “green light” status if they provide value to the bottom line within six months. However, after tabulating the total costs of developing and maintaining a home-grown system, many have realized the annual investment in a hosted solution actually has a substantially better total cost of ownership (TCO). “We’ve seen mid to large enterprises invest $200,000 to well over $1 million trying to build a first generation Sales Enable- ment system and they are typically disappointed with the functionality and the ongoing headcount needed for maintenance,” Nelson said. While the initial development of code to deliver web-based access to content may seem attractive, many companies have realized that is only the “tip of the iceberg,” as the real costs for an on-premise system start to pile up once companies take a longer-term view. Nelson said the company’s ROI/TCO calculator tool has helped companies realize the true costs associated with factors such as: Ongoing Resource Costs: These costs should include the IT staff required to build and support the system, which has been conservatively estimated at $100,000 per year, per resource for most mid-sized organizations. This variable alone can quickly rise to close to $1M. Hardware Acquisition & Maintenance Costs: Conservatively, the cost of the serv- ers and other hardware required to run a robust Sales Enablement system, which is accessible to a distributed sales force, is in the $200,000 - $1M range. Software Acquisition Costs Including CMS, Document Generation, Analytics & Reporting Engines, and Other Component Costs: In order to realize the functionality offered by most hosted systems, IT organizations are required to acquire and deploy several different software applications. The integration costs alone to patch these tools together can approach the licensing fee for a hosted application. Training & Support Costs: The initial training across an enterprise can represent a full- time job, even before the ongoing support costs for IT are factored in to the equation. 12 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  Three Degrees of Enablement Asorganizations migrate from focus- Comparing the current state of Sales Enablement deployments to the early days of the ing exclusively on enabling their sales CRM category, SiriusDecisions’ Galvin pointed out that many companies tried to build teams, three types of engagement in-house systems and ultimately migrated to packaged solutions. “I think we learned that platforms are emerging: very few of our organizations are set up for application development,” he said. “It is not a core skill set for most IT departments, which are often over-burdened and understaffed.” Customer Communication Enablement: When is the last time your intranet/extranet was down? In addition to measurement and tracking capabilities, up-time availability has emerged as another core differentiator In order to keep pace with the fast between in-house and hosted solutions.“We have invested a substantial amount in infra- break speed of its high powered structure and provide a 99.99% uptime assurance for our enterprise customers,” Mark marketing partners, the NBA recent- Tasseel, VP of Engineering at iCentera, pointed out. “Sales and marketing teams cannot ly worked with iCentera to set up a afford to have a server crash or their in-house support to be unavailable when they need portal site for its marketing and busi- a key document or a proposal.” ness development teams to share “pitch books” and large multimedia In today’s highly competitive markets many companies are moving to solutions that files on new advertising and sponsor- enable all customer facing roles as well as the customer. Key benefits derived in taking ship programs with partners. Based this more holistic approach include: on the measurement and increased collaboration with its partners, the league has expanded the portals to more than 200 marketing and sales Customer • Improved relationships with prospects and customers reps around the world, and to be- Communication • Enabled cross-selling and up-selling tween 300 and 400 external partners. Sales Channel Enablement: • Increased productivity of both direct and Sales Channel indirect sales channels A best practices example of optimiz- • Reduced marketing costs for distributing materials Enablement across complex and disparate networks ing sales enablement across a com- plex sales network is NetApp, a lead- ing supplier of innovative storage and • Enabled entire staff and supply chain with single data management solutions that ac- Enterprise source of truth, access to current information celerate business breakthroughs and Enablement • Better customer retention and profitable revenue growth deliver outstanding cost efficiency. Known for its industry-leading chan- nel program initiatives, NetApp has made investments in infrastructure and enablement tools to make it easi- er for partners to do business with the 13 • A D e m a n d G e n R e p o r t (cont’d on next page) 13 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  company. Using theiCentera for Sales The ROI of 360 Degree Enablement Channel Enablement solution, NetApp now supports a sales team of 25,000 One common mistake executives make when mapping out their Sales Enablement direct and indirect representatives, strategy is that they consider only the needs of their internal sales and marketing teams with 65% of communications now when other staff must also be considered. A Sales Enablement system should ideally arm driven through portals. an entire organization with the ability to enable sales and access the insight, experts and information to drive all revenue generation initiatives. There is no doubt, companies that Enterprise Enablement: “bring the weight” of the entire organization to every deal have an edge over Aviat Networks, Inc., a leading wire- the competition. less expert in advanced IP network A second common mistake is the idea that direct sales and indirect sales need to have migration, came together though separate Sales Enablement solutions. A Sales Enablement strategy should be built to a merger between two companies facilitate the information needs of both direct and indirect sales channels using a role- each with their own very different based approach that puts the right news, messaging, content and tools in front of the communication methods in place. right sales audience. Following the merger, the company needed a simple way for marketing A third common mistake is leaving out the customer. A Sales Enablement solution must to share information and to enable reach and provide custom portals with built-in analytics for the buyer/customer to fully sales in a more timely and effective realize the value that 360° Sales Enablement® brings. In the end a custom portal that manner. To help present more than can be used to collaborate with the buyer will differentiate vendors from their competi- 1,400 documents across a distributed tors by providing a high level of service. In addition, similar to the benefits that solutions organization in an organized, easy from companies like Omniture provide in tracking website behavior, the same level of to access format, Aviat Networks tracking should now be in place for intranets/extranets and private customer portals. utilized iCentera’s hosted platform. With the documents now stored in one central place, critical informa- tion is easily accessed enterprise- wide, with audience specific portals created and managed entirely by the business user. Prior to using the portals, Aviat’s marketing team was spending 48 hours per week updat- ing content on an intranet. After de- ploying the portals, the marketing team now gets information into the hands of sales in just a few minutes as opposed to days. 14 • A DemandGen Repor t 14 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  CONCLUSION In her new book, “SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales & Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers,” author Jill Konrath said busy prospects now evaluate a selling com- pany based on relevancy, urgency and value. “If the seller adequately addresses these concerns, the conversation continues and the sale advances. If not, they get deleted and opportunities get derailed.” Operating in this climate of time-starved prospects, the bar has been raised for sales and marketing organizations to improve productivity and information. Salespeople can’t afford to waste time searching for information or recreating basic information. Marketing departments that focus on productivity, the 5th P, make it easy for dispersed sales teams to access vital information and put their organizations in a favorable position by: • Speeding up ramp time for new reps • Improving the flow of content turnaround times from days to hours • Shortening the sales cycle Industry leaders who have made Sales Enablement a priority have increased profitable revenue generation by optimizing the flow of information to sales as well as customers. By providing reps more time to understand the needs of customers, salespeople increase their value and ultimately drive more revenue. At the same time, marketing departments are seeing the payoffs of Sales Enablement solutions – spending less time distributing information and instead spending more qual- ity time creating meaningful content that provides real value to the revenue generation process. Adopting a Sales Enablement solution ensures that a company’s resources are equipped with the appropriate news, messaging, content and tools to help them focus on their jobs and gain a head-start with the 5th P. Today there are numerous success stories that illuminate how marketing has impacted the 5th P which leads to immediate gains in the profitable revenue growth. In the end 360° Sales Enablement® is about knowledge transfer — making the right knowledge assets, tools, subject matter experts, product and company news, and other resources available to the sales channels and customers. If done right with targeted portals users are no longer required to seek and find Sales Enablement content and resources, the resources find them. 15 • A DemandGen Repor t
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  Presented By iCentera’s patentedapproach provides Intelligence Centers for a new era of sales and marketing, available as a service today. In the new era of marketing the right expertise, tools, and content finds the sellers and buyers. This leads to better sales conversations while making it easier for the customer to buy your solution over the competition’s. The iCentera sales enablement platform replaces static sales, partner, and customer portals with a single sales enablement platform that adapts to the needs of each user with functionality that increases win rates and deal size while reducing the cost of sales – this is what iCentera calls 360° Sales Enablement®. Visit us at www.salesenablement.com or www.iCentera.com. DemandGen Report is a targeted e-media publication spotlighting the strategies and solutions that help companies better align their sales and marketing organizations, and ultimately, drive growth. A key component of our coverage focuses on the sales and marketing automation tools that enable companies to better measure and manage their multi-channel demand generation efforts. For more information, visit www.demandgenreport.com.