Research Brief

Sales Analytics: A Role-Based

Approach
Sales analytics enables more
eective, fact-based
decisionmaking

Five whys is a technique for unmasking the true cause of a problem. Originally
developed by Sakichi Toyoda (1867-1930), the inventor who founded Toyota
Industries, the technique is now incorporated into lean manufacturing,
continuous improvement (kaizen) and Six Sigma methodologies. Instead of
simply describing a problem and its immediate cause, an engineer or analyst
using this technique keeps asking why about each cause until the original
source of the problem is identied.

Sales leaders and managers should

leverage analytics to complement
their judgment and experience

While choosing the right metrics to report on sales pipeline, productivity and
performance is important (see the brief The SiriusDecisions Sales Metrics
Framework), these metrics naturally trigger questions about why results are
what they are, or why a metric is trending in a particular direction. Sales
analytics extends beyond historical reporting to generate insights about causal
relationships. In this brief, we dene the types of analysis that sales operations
can provide for three key sales roles sales leaders, rst-line managers and
sales reps to complement their judgment and experience and enable more
eective, fact-based decisions.

Sales operations should

incorporate analytics throughout
the sales process to support the
needs of key sales roles

Sales Leaders

This category includes the CSO and second-line managers such as regional
directors and vice presidents tasked with the development and execution
of the strategic sales plan. Sales operations can provide analysis and insight
to support critical leadership decisions such as market coverage and sales
resource optimization, and the prioritization of initiatives for improving sales
processes and productivity.
Sales resource optimization. Sales resource optimization is the process of
sizing and structuring the sales organization and allocating the available
resources across products, geographies and customers. This process requires
a combination of analysis, modeling and feedback from sales leadership and
management. The sales resource optimization process begins with an
assessment of the total addressable market (TAM), which includes existing
customer accounts and revenue as well as the realistic potential market that
can be served once competitive issues and distribution limits are considered.
Product-level requirements for each market should be integrated into a
portfolio-wide view to enable resource optimization at the company level.
Once country-level sales resource decisions are made, the same account data
and analysis are applied to resources at the regional, territory or vertical
market levels to drive territory design, account targeting and goal setting.
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Research Brief
Forecast process. By uncovering the root causes of
inaccuracies, forecast process analysis can generate
recommendations for process improvement. The analyst
must develop a deep understanding of sales cycle times, the
movement of opportunities through sales stages, win/loss
rates and the characteristics of won vs. lost opportunities.
This analysis should validate or identify critical inection
points in the customer buying cycle that can be used to
dene a common sales process based on observable
outcomes at each stage. Process analysis can identify causes
of inaccuracy such as management adjustments; it can also
identify and document forecasting best practices that
should be replicated across the sales force.

Sales productivity. A sales manager must look at the

productivity of each sales rep on the team, not just the top
performers or the team as a whole. Sales operations can
assist by applying the relative productivity analysis
described above to individual reps, helping the manager
understand the characteristics that dierentiate top
producers. The key is to identify behaviors that drive
consistent, sustained performance, then develop individual
plans for productivity improvements. These may include
training on skills, products or process, augmented by
individualized coaching.
Pipeline management. Insight into pipeline dynamics on
the team and individual levels can help a sales manager
improve forecast accuracy and consistent revenue
production, as well as the teams assessment of individual
opportunities and strategies for closing active deals.
Analysis should include sales cycle times and conversion
rates by stage. The purpose of this analysis is to help dene
the optimal pipeline ratios and quantities for each stage and
identify stalled deals. Win/loss analysis can help a sales
manager formulate eective deal strategies and assess the
quality of individual reps pipelines.

Sales productivity. Productivity analysis begins by

gathering sales performance data and conducting eld
observations such as a time-and-motion study. The next
step is to conduct a relative productivity analysis, classifying
each sales activity based on whether it is a core selling (vs.
non-selling) activity, and whether it is customer-facing or
occurs behind the scenes (see the brief Introducing the
SiriusDecisions Relative Productivity Framework). After
quantifying the amount of time spent and the productivity
yield for each activity type, this analysis should result in the
identication of key levers that drive or impede sales
eectiveness and eciency, followed by recommendations
for improvements.

Sales Reps

Quota-bearing sales reps must achieve revenue goals within

a dened territory or set of accounts. Analysis can help sales
reps by providing customer intelligence and identifying
activities detrimental to sales productivity.

First-Line Sales Managers

A rst-line sales manager is responsible for overseeing a team

of sales reps and is often involved in deals by coaching reps and
providing them with negotiation and direct selling assistance.
Sales operations can perform analyses to help rst-line
managers assign sales territories and accounts and improve
individual reps productivity and pipeline management.

Customer intelligence. Sales operations, often in

collaboration with marketing, should analyze current and
prospective customers for insights to help reps optimize
their account, portfolio and territory plans. Additional
insight (e.g. customer business drivers and initiatives,
market trends, competitors, buying patterns) can help reps
correctly position solutions when pursuing active
opportunities.

Team management. Tasked with deploying and managing

their teams to achieve revenue goals, rst-line sales
managers have concerns similar to those of sales leadership
but at a more tactical level. Information about TAM and
high-potential customers for the teams coverage area
can be correlated with available rep capacity and workload
in order to optimize the design of territories and the
assignment of specic accounts. This type of analysis also
provides guidance for quota assignment and helps improve
the eciency of prospecting activities.

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Sales productivity. Individual reps can improve their

productivity by comparing their own activities to the results
of time-and-motion studies and analyses that identify the
behaviors most likely to turn an opportunity into a win.
Pipeline analytics can identify the optimal time in each stage
and set thresholds for stalled deals, while helping reps
assess their pipelines based on win rate, sales cycle time

Research Brief
and average deal size. Win/loss analysis can identify customer behaviors,
triggers and inection points that indicate a higher probability to close or,
conversely, situations where the rep should disengage from an lowprobability deal.

The Sirius Decision

Eective analysis of business functions can yield signicant benets, as proven

by eciency improvements in supply chain management, manufacturing and
logistics that have been generated via the systematic application of the ve
whys and related techniques. Marketing also has embraced analytics to
develop a keener understanding of customer needs, preferences and
behaviors, which has enabled more precise targeting and more eective
resource allocation. In many organizations, sales is at the beginning of the
analytics journey, applying analysis in a reactive fashion to solve discrete
problems or to explain something that has already occurred. By assessing the
needs of key sales roles and integrating analytics throughout the end-to-end
sales process, sales operations can drive more eective resource utilization
and continuously improve sales productivity.

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