A Custom Technology

Adoption Profile
Commissioned By ClearSlide
October 2013
Sales Leaders Need
Improved Sales Activity
Visibility
1
Introduction
In todays world where the strategy of customer obsession
is a competitive imperative, more than ever sales leaders
are expected to ensure that their sales force is delivering
consistent levels of performance. However, increasing
complexity in sales structure and rising volume of offerings
make managing and selling especially challenging.
Modern technologies provide sellers, sales managers, and
sales leaders with access to ever-expanding volumes of
information delivered from throughout the organization
but sales professionals are finding it challenging to
integrate, disseminate, and utilize that information to drive
sales results.
Many companies are investing in sales enablement
technologies and hope to streamline content delivery, gain
visibility into the activities of their reps, engage prospective
customers more effectively, and drive productivity resulting
in more closed deals.
This ClearSlide-commissioned profile of US enterprise sales
leaders evaluates the current adoption trends surrounding
sales engagement platforms as well as the challenges that
sales leaders and sellers face, based on Forresters own
market data and a custom study of the same audience.
2
Sales Leaders Desire More Visibility
Into Their Reps Activities
There is a great need today to focus salespeoples time on
selling activities and reduce unproductive barriers to
success. However, sales leaders have poor visibility into
where, and in what activities, their sellers time is actually
being invested.
Our study shows that most sales leaders have low
confidence in their ability to inspect and understand the
activities of their sales force and the correlations of those
activities to sales outcomes. In fact, more than half of our
survey base reported that they were either somewhat or
very unconfident in the accuracy of their visibility, whereas
only 6%reported that they feel very confident (see Figure
1).
When asked how they gain visibility into the activities of their
salespeople, only 35% of sales leaders reported the use of
an activity log or other automated measurement. Sixty
percent rely upon their salespeople to accurately represent
their own activities (see Figure 2).
Open-ended responses to our survey indicated a low level
of objective and accurate activity inspection the vast
majority of respondents told us that they monitor the sales
process primarily through meetings with their staff, with the
second-most common response being that they only use
post-engagement (win or loss) information.
These lagging indicators include metrics such as
performance to revenue goals or post-decision interviews of
buyers. Activities like this are subject to bias, and, while they
are common sales management practices, they do not by
themselves offer sales leaders sufficient or timely enough
insights to enable identification of potential issues with a
sale or with broader performance.
FIGURE 1
Sales Leaders Have Low Confidence In Their Visibility Into Sales Reps Activities
Base: 52 US sales decision-makers
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ClearSlide, October 2013
3
Sales Reps Are Overwhelmed
Salespeople today are distracted from selling by massively
increased levels of complexity, information, and non-selling
demands; this is driving the need for greater management
visibility into selling activities. These burdens detract from
the time that salespeople invest in communicating with
buyers. In fact, Forrester Research has identified that in a
typical sales force, 50% to 75% of a salespersons time is
spent on non-selling activities (see Figure 3).
Salespeople today face a virtual tsunami of content
(messaging, tools, etc.) that are intended to support sellers
from marketing, product marketing, competitive intelligence,
sales training, product management, sales operations, and
other business functions. However, as noted in Forresters
A SIMPLE Sales Enablement Framework research report,
in most complex businesses today, random and poorly
managed sales support resources drive unneeded costs
while also contributing to overburdening the sales force.
Even as technology advancements enable easier
communications (i.e., mobility), sales managers and
salespeople are being inundated with information and tools
that are not well organized or prioritized for enabling
engagement between sellers and buyers (see Figure 4).
Our custom study supported these findings. When asked
about the top challenges in delivering sales content, leaders
told us that disparate sources of information (58%) and a
lack of integration between sales/marketing content and
their business tools (50%) are major pain points for their
employees (see Figure 5).
FIGURE 2
Only 35% Of Sales Leaders Utilize Activity Logs
Base: 52 US sales decision-makers
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ClearSlide, October 2013
4
FIGURE 3
Salespeople Are Burdened With Many Non-Selling Activities
Source: Understanding The Reality Of Your Sales Force, Forrester Research, Inc., February 28, 2013
FIGURE 4
Random Acts Of Sales Support Create Unneeded Complexity, Overwhelming Sales Forces
Source: A SIMPLE Sales Enablement Framework, Forrester Research, Inc., October 13, 2010
5
Business Leaders Are Looking To
Invest In Better Sales Solutions
Sales leaders need to ensure that their sales reps:
Are focused on enough of the right activities.
Have the ability to access content from any
place at any time.
Are armed with resources that are easy to adopt
and dont create more work for them.
Can improve from visibility into their peers
approaches and success.
Many companies are prioritizing investments in software in
order to meet these needs. Most companies prioritize their
sales organization as the most important focus of software
and mobile software investments according to data from
Forresters Forrsights Software Survey, Q4 2012 (see
Figure 6).
The top capabilities sales leaders identify in a system to
enable and/or improve interaction between salespeople and
buyers are that it:
Is easy to use (58%).
Makes information easily accessible cross-
platform (52%).
Produces real-time metrics about the activities of
a salesperson so leaders can proactively
diagnose and remedy any issues in the sales
cycle (52%).
Additionally, 38% of respondents reported that visibility into
peer and customer sales activities were high-priority
features (see Figure 7).
FIGURE 5
Random Acts Of Sales Support Create Unneeded Complexity, Overwhelming Sales Forces
Base: 52 US sales decision-makers
(multiple responses accepted)
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ClearSlide, October 2013
6
FIGURE 7
Ease Of Use, Cross-Platform Availability And Real-Time Metrics Are Top Capabilities Of Sales Tools
Base: 52 US sales decision-makers
(multiple responses accepted)
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of ClearSlide, October 2013
FIGURE 6
Sales Technology Is Leading Software Investment Priority
Base: *2,200 software decision-makers;

704 software decision-makers who are purchasing/developing mobile apps

Source: Forrsights Software Survey, Q4 2012
7
Conclusions
Sales leaders and sales managers require better ways of inspecting the activities and effectiveness of their sales teams.
Seller self-reporting methods that are inherently inaccurate, historic (lagging) performance indicators (results rather than
activities), or burdensome reporting methods that sap selling time are ineffective approaches to managing crucial sales
resources.
To ensure optimal return on investments in the sales force, sales leaders need to have accurate and real-time visibility into
the gears that are turning in the revenue factory that is their sales force. Companies that want to improve results should
consider sales engagement software applications that offer management reporting via automated (versus manual entry by
salespeople) and, preferably, real-time sales activity visibility. Once data is captured in real-time and unfiltered (versus rep
self-reported data), the difference in data quality can be eye opening, especially when looking at real activity across an entire
sales team for the first time.
Sales leaders must realize that salespeople are overwhelmed by their supply chain. Sellers are facing increasing levels of
complexity and information that are decreasing their selling productivity. More information (content, tools, etc.) is bombarding
sellers from all corners of their organization, which while it can help them improve engagement with buyers, more often than
not decreases effectiveness in buyer engagement and sales productivity.
Sales leaders should consider how engagement technologies will enable them to simplify the information sellers receive, and
ensure access to the right information right when it is needed for communicating with prospective customers throughout a
sales engagement.
Well-engineered sales engagement software and mobility technologies have the potential to provide a beneficial platform to
streamline content delivery for salespeople, reduce non-selling burden, and increase customer engagement effectiveness.
Such platforms are still dependent upon the quality of the content, however. Sales leaders must therefore be demanding of
cross-functional content producers in their supply chain to coordinate, simplify, and streamline messaging to sales to fully
exploit investments in this technology.
Methodology
This Technology Adoption Profile was commissioned by ClearSlide. To create this profile, Forrester leveraged its Forrsights
Software Survey, Q4 2012, as well as Forresters SIMPLE Sales Enablement Framework. Forrester Consulting
supplemented this data with custom survey questions asked of US enterprise sales leaders (directors and above in title)
directly involved in decisions regarding sales enablement automation for their companies. The auxiliary custom survey was
conducted in October 2013. For more information on Forresters data panel and Tech Industry Consulting services, visit
www.forrester.com.
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Related Forrester Research
Competitive Strategy In The Age Of The Customer, Forrester Research, Inc., October 10, 2013
Understanding The Reality Of Your Sales Force, Forrester Research, Inc., February 28, 2013
A SIMPLE Sales Enablement Framework, Forrester Research, Inc., October 13, 2010
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