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Sales Forecasting Capabilities

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    To some contemporary B2B sales leaders, the idea of investing in

    a sales analytics solution let alone understanding how itactually works represents an unwelcome detour from the daily

    business of closing deals. Thats a good thing for their Best-in-

    Class competitors. This Research Report defines nine

    competencies that accrue to analytics adopters, and drive better

    business results as well.

    WHY ANALYTICS? NINE MUST-HAVE B2B

    SALES FORECASTING COMPETENCIESAugust, 2015

    Peter Ostrow, VP/Research Group Director,

    Customer Management, Sales Effectiveness

    Report Highlights

    Sales analytics users

    report 10% more

    reps achieving

    quota, and 10%

    better customer

    retention rates

    Best-in-Class

    companies are 13%

    more likely to apply

    weighted variables

    to their sales

    forecast

    Are you able to walk

    away from bad

    deals? Analytics-

    enabled sales leaders

    are twice as skilled

    in this as non-users

    Users of sales

    analytics are 2.2

    times more

    competent at

    delivering trusted

    forecasts to the rest

    of the company

    p2 p3 p5 p9

    https://twitter.com/peterostrowhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/ostrowpeterhttp://aberdeen.com/
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    www.aberdeen.com

    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    2We already know fromSales Analytics: The Path to Better, Faster

    Forecasting(August 2015) that companies deploying sales

    analytics solutions perform better than non-adopters. Around

    both current key performance indicators (KPIs) such as team

    attainment of quota and customer retention, as well as stronger

    year-over-year trends such as growing total company revenue

    and CRM adoption, these organizations report better business

    outcomes that help justify the analytics investment itself and

    strengthen the enterprise as a whole. Let's take a look under the

    hood of this technology stack, in order to understand howanalytics products really work, and the impact they have on both

    tactical and big-picture daily business activities.

    More Mr. Spock Less Captain Kirk

    The most important tenet to consider, when using sales

    analytics tools to improve on forecasting accuracy, is how the

    solution helps sales leaders and corporate executives mitigate

    the predictably subjective nature of the sales forecasting process

    itself. Business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals are humanbeings, deliberately motivated by the dual emotions of greed

    and fear, represented by the prospects of accelerated

    commissions when successful, and job insecurity when they miss

    their number. It naturally follows that when formally

    introducing their closely guarded revenue opportunities to their

    managers, generally by entering deals into the customer

    relationship management (CRM) platform, salespeople will

    portray the facts of their pipeline in a way that supports and

    protects themselves first, and the company's best interests

    second. Thus, at the very beginning of many identified

    opportunity journeys within the sales forecast, the validity of the

    facts being used to determine business outcomes is already

    questionable.

    How do

    enterprises best

    mitigate the

    predictably

    subjective nature

    of the sales

    forecasting

    process itself?

    Sector Definition: Sales

    Analytics

    Sales analytics refers to

    technology enablers deployed

    by organizations to better

    understand their business.

    Beginning with the use of

    predictive analytics capabilities

    to better inform sales forecasts,

    analytics are increasingly being

    used to support real-time dealcoaching and sales messaging,

    as well.

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/10915/RR-sales-analytics.aspxhttp://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/10915/RR-sales-analytics.aspxhttp://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/10915/RR-sales-analytics.aspxhttp://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/10915/RR-sales-analytics.aspxhttp://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/10915/RR-sales-analytics.aspxhttp://www.aberdeen.com/aberdeen-library/10915/RR-sales-analytics.aspxhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://aberdeen.com/http://www.aberdeen.com/
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    www.aberdeen.com

    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    3In order to counteract the understandable human tendencies

    around such "sandbagging" or rose-colored views, companies

    invest in analytics solutions in order to reduce subjectivity and

    give sales leaders more clarity around which data-driven factors

    are more reliable in predicting how sales opportunities will turn

    out. Most analytics products include a predictive capability,

    which analyzes historical sales activity in order to identify

    commonalities within current deals that can signal more or less

    likely outcomes. For example, a sales rep enters a CRM

    opportunity to sell red widgets to a biomedical company inTexas, anticipating a $30,000 deal that will close on November 1.

    As implemented and instructed by the sales operations team,

    the analytics solution recognizes that: red widget deals

    traditionally close for smaller deal sizes than green ones,

    biomedical companies tend to make decisions faster than the

    average of buyers within other industries, regulatory barriers in

    Texas tend to slow deals down, and that this particular sales rep

    tends to under-estimate the length of their sales cycle.

    Adjustments to the original CRM entry are made accordingly,and the deal is entered into the forecast from a more objective

    perspective.

    Once is Not Enough

    Creating a better, fact-driven understanding of what a B2B sales

    deal looks like from the startis just a start. The Best-in-Class

    companies within this Aberdeen research study (sidebar) are

    13% more likely than All Others (88% vs. 78%) to indicate that

    they continue to apply data-oriented weighting to sales deals at

    one or more points throughout their lifecycle. This is where the

    real power of predictive analytics creates value, in real-time, for

    organizations that recognize the importance of accurate

    forecasting and the impact that poor visibility into the sales

    pipeline can have on overall company performance. In Figure 1,

    The Sales Effectiveness Best-in-

    Class Defined

    In March through May 2015,

    Aberdeen surveyed 322 end-user

    organizations to understand their

    sales effectiveness best practices.

    The performance metrics used to

    define the Best-in-Class (top 20%),

    Industry Average (middle 50%),

    and Laggard (bottom 30%) among

    these sales teams are:

    72% of sales reps achieving

    quota, vs. 48% among Industry

    Average and 37% for Laggard

    firms

    7.4% average year-over-year

    increase in average deal size, vs.

    a 2.8% increase for the Industry

    Average and a 5.7% decline

    among Laggard respondents

    6.7% average year-over-year

    improvement in (reduction of)

    the average sales cycle, vs. 0.4%

    and 15.8% worsening of (growth

    in) cycles, respectively, for

    Industry Average and Laggard

    res ondents

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/http://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    4we look at the first comparison between users of sales analytics

    solutions and non-adopters, which reveals a consistently

    stronger emphasis on re-applying weighting to current sales

    deals.

    Figure 1: Forecast Weighting is Like Voting: Do it Early and

    Often

    Here, we see that a small percentage of organizations actuallyapply forecast weighting to opportunities before the corporate

    marketing team assigns them to sales activity, but that analytics

    users are more than four times as likely as non-adopters to kick

    off the data-driven process at this early stage. They average a

    50% more aggressive stance over the next two portions of the

    sales cadence and, tellingly, neglect to use weights among only

    5% of responding organizations. The takeaway here is that the

    research clearly correlates better performance with the use of

    these solutions, especially when more logic, and less emotion, isrelied upon to understand throughout the sales cycle what the

    most likely outcome of the B2B sales deal will be. Now, let's take

    a look at a series of Best-in-Class competencies that more

    effectively accrue to those organizations taking such an

    approach.

    Most analytics

    products include a

    predictivecapability, which

    analyzes historical

    sales activity in

    order to identify

    commonalities

    within current deals

    that can signal more

    or less likely

    outcomes.

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://aberdeen.com/http://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    5Using Sales Analytics to Perform Our Jobs Better

    No sales manager alive is immune from the traditional, end-of-

    month onslaught of pleas and requests from their reps: Come

    on, boss, let me offer just a little bit more of a discount, and I

    know I'll close the deal"Can we please get the CEO to make a

    call to my buyer? "I need to change the Ts and Cs in our

    standard contract or I'm going to lose the opportunity. Sound

    familiar? Instead of randomly providing support to the reps who

    let them win at golf or complimented their outfit, Best-in-Class

    sales leaders bestow goal-line resources and make objective go

    or no-go decisions based on data not their gut feelings.

    Figure 2: Deal-Making Competencies: Better Data Drives

    Stronger Opportunity Management

    As we see in Figure 2, the same data-based decisions are more

    aggressively adopted by analytics-enabled organizations, who

    understand that the overall team attainment of quota 66% for

    analytics users, compared to 61% for non-adopters depends onmaking decisions that will yield the best outcome for the overall

    company, as opposed to for the benefit of those reps who are

    most in their face. Of particular note is the third element in

    Figure 2, showcasing the fact that sales analytics users are

    exactly twice as likely (30% vs. 15%) as other companies to

    determine that certain deals are simply not worth pursuing. This

    Results are always

    better when more

    logic, and less

    emotion, is relied

    upon to understand

    throughout the sale

    cycle what the mos

    likely outcome o

    the B2B sales dea

    will be

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/http://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    6gap significantly exceeds the 45% difference between Best-in-

    Class and All Other firms (29% vs. 20%) in "knowing when to hold

    em, and when to fold em, a lesson supported by research

    published in"The Price is Right"and Other TV Classics that

    Teach Us Smarter Selling(July 2015). This study showcases how

    price optimization technologies support relatively new trends in

    sales management, that emphasize profits, not merely top-line

    revenue, in delivering overall business value from the sales

    organization.

    A second set of core competencies adopted more aggressively by

    Best-in-Class companies an average of 63% more often than

    under-performers are also more frequently nominated by

    analytics users as management strengths, that relate to the all-

    important care and feeding of front-line sellers (Figure 3).

    As we know from Aberdeen'sSales Performance

    Managementresearch, the importance ofretaining top

    sales talentcannot be overstated. Considering that the

    average cost to replace a B2B sales rep exceeds $29,000,and the time it takes to locate and onboard a full-

    capacity seller is 7.3 months, every percentage point of

    sales employee turnover that can be avoided matters

    significantly to any contemporary sales leader concerned

    with the cost of goods sold that includes payroll. The

    correlation between the use of sales analytics and a 39%

    stronger competency (53% vs. 38%) around this

    management imperative is easy to identify: Sales leaders

    required to make difficult decisions about their reps

    employment are far better empowered when they have

    more data in hand about their performance, beyond

    simply who made quota. For example, the very definition

    of an A-player, traditionally judged by a one-

    dimensional view of gross revenue sold, is nowadays

    Instead of randomly providing

    support to the reps who let

    them win at golf or

    complimented their outfit,

    Best-in-Class sales leadersbestow goal-line resources and

    make objective go or no-go

    decisions based on data not

    their gut feelings.

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/research/10839/10839-rr-price-optimization/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10839/10839-rr-price-optimization/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10839/10839-rr-price-optimization/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10839/10839-rr-price-optimization/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10664/10664-rr-sales-assessments/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10664/10664-rr-sales-assessments/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10664/10664-rr-sales-assessments/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10664/10664-rr-sales-assessments/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10664/10664-rr-sales-assessments/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10664/10664-rr-sales-assessments/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10839/10839-rr-price-optimization/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10839/10839-rr-price-optimization/content.aspxhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://aberdeen.com/http://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    7viewed in the additional context of whether theysell

    profitable deals,contribute to the greater good of the

    company,or provide a bettercustomer experience.This

    represents a whole new world of complexity for sales

    leaders, one that is more manageable with the help of

    data analytics solutions to provide more context and

    color to what previously were black-and-white

    managerial approaches.

    Figure 3: Human Capital Management Competencies:

    Because People Still Buy from People

    Much as Figure 1 earlier demonstrates the need to apply

    analytics to sales forecasting processes at multiple touch

    points through the buyer's journey, so too are these tools

    valuable to coaching sales repsaround their messaging

    and tactics, in real-time as their deals progress. In

    Sheldon Cooper, Sales Whisperer: Applying the Science ofData to the Art of Selling(September 2014), this concept

    is explored in depth, and pre-sages the current market

    trend toward sales enablement technologies that seek to

    provide a sort of "guided selling" or wizard-driven

    application that purports to help sales professionals

    continuously provide the right message, to the right

    Sales analytics user

    are twice a

    competent as non

    adopters i

    knowing when t

    hold em, and whe

    to fold em.

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/research/10619/10619-rr-mature-sales-management/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10619/10619-rr-mature-sales-management/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10619/10619-rr-mature-sales-management/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10619/10619-rr-mature-sales-management/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9325/RR-fire-a-sales-jerk.aspx/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9325/RR-fire-a-sales-jerk.aspx/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9325/RR-fire-a-sales-jerk.aspx/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9325/RR-fire-a-sales-jerk.aspx/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9697/rr-sales-training-coaching/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9697/rr-sales-training-coaching/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9697/rr-sales-training-coaching/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9697/rr-sales-training-coaching/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9697/rr-sales-training-coaching/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9325/RR-fire-a-sales-jerk.aspx/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9325/RR-fire-a-sales-jerk.aspx/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10619/10619-rr-mature-sales-management/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10619/10619-rr-mature-sales-management/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/http://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    8buyer, at the right inflection point during their deal-

    specific journey. Think of the all-too-familiar scenario few

    of us have failed to experience in selling: a seemingly

    interested buyer has suddenly gone dark on us. Most of

    the time, we respond with an Orwellian approach I will

    work harder and proceed to lob more messages,

    across more communications channels, as we grow more

    desperate with each day that approaches the forecasted

    opportunity-close date, without true progress on the

    deal. With better data gleaned from an analytics-enriched, CRM-housed deal library, however, savvy

    managers can guide their reps more precisely around the

    cause-and-effect relationship between certain types of

    "buyer darkness" and various outcomes. They can also

    more objectively advise sellers, as indicated above,

    around when to walk away from such deals and focus

    their energies on more promising opportunities.

    Finally, we know from extensiveresearchthat sales

    training continues to be an area of both great expense

    and significant frustration for modern sales leaders. While

    the average company in our study spends $146,417

    annually to on-board and train sales staff, less than

    two-thirds of survey respondents (63%) indicated high or

    very high satisfaction with the services they received from

    external training providers. This may in part be due to the

    fact that so many of these vendors show up with their

    own methodologies and sales pitch practices, but do not

    have deep insight into the actual products, deals, and

    people within their individual client companies. This is

    where in-house analytics come into play: When the sales

    operations team is able to correlate different learning

    and development curricula to various levels of eventual

    sales rep performance, tinkering with training tactics

    Every percentage

    point of sales

    employee turnover

    that can be avoided

    matters significantlyto any contemporary

    sales leader

    concerned with the

    cost of goods sold

    that includes

    payroll.

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/_aberdeen/sales%20training/-/-/-/search.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/_aberdeen/sales%20training/-/-/-/search.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/_aberdeen/sales%20training/-/-/-/search.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/_aberdeen/sales%20training/-/-/-/search.aspxhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://aberdeen.com/http://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    9becomes less art, and more science. Similarly, a keen

    understanding of which product education, skills

    development, or other on-boarding resources resulted in

    more or less profitable deal management, can further

    influence how the overall sales team is empowered by a

    data-driven knowledge set.

    Creating a Win-Win fo r All Constituencies

    Lets not forget that the act of B2B selling fulfills not only the

    needs of its practitioners and managers, but also of thecustomers that ultimately fund all of this activity. In Figure 4, we

    note a final set of competencies that sales analytics adopters

    more frequently nominated as strong or very strong current

    commercial abilities.

    Figure 4: Commercial Competencies: Achieving More than

    Sales Quota

    The first two items speak to lessons learned inThe 21st Century

    Buying Experience: Say Farewell to the Sales Cycle(July 2014):

    Modern buyers of B2B goods and services are far more educated

    than ever before, and demand an enhanced degree of

    personalization and experience from the messages and

    messengers to which they are exposed. Sales analytics solutions

    With better data gleaned fro

    an analytics-enriched, CR

    housed deal library, sav

    managers can guide their re

    more precisely around t

    cause-and-effect relationsh

    between certain types of "buy

    darkness" and variooutcome

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/9032/rr-21st-century-buyer/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/http://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    10help quota-carriers hone in on the specific product features that

    are most likely to interest their prospects, based on previous

    behavior and purchases from both their target buyer and similar

    organizations in the past. In addition to this type of formal,

    historical audit trail that can point toward future behavior, many

    analytics platforms can also collect unstructured data such as

    social media content, which can further guide a seller toward an

    understanding of their buyer's motivations, needs, and

    concerns. There's nothing like that feeling when a prospective

    customer says, "Wow, it's like you read my mind!"

    Finally, 42% of Best-in-Class companies indicate high or very

    high proficiency in Delivery of a sales forecast perceived as

    accurate and trustworthy by senior management and the

    company as a whole,compared with 22% of Industry Average

    companies and only 17% among Laggard organizations.

    Analytics-enabled sales teams are over three times more likely

    than non-adopters to indicate the same (44% vs. 14%) because,

    simply, they are providing a more objective and accurate set of

    data points that the C-suite and other line-of-business leaders

    need to run their respective departments. Why is this important?

    After an eternity of delivering widely criticized and mistrusted

    sales forecasts, modern sales leaders and also individual

    contributors are finally being held accountable for providing

    believable guidance to the rest of the enterprise around their

    pending business results. Indeed, we know fromWhat Do You

    Mean, "There's a Debit on My Commission Check"?(July 2015)

    that compensation for both personas is increasingly being

    influenced by sales forecast accuracy. After all, the fastest way to

    change the behavior of sales professionals is through their take-

    home pay.

    When the sales operations team

    is able to correlate different

    learning and development

    curricula to various levels of

    eventual sales rep performance,

    tinkering with training tactics

    becomes less art, and more

    science.

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/research/10701/10701-rr-sales-compensation-forecast-accuracy/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10701/10701-rr-sales-compensation-forecast-accuracy/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10701/10701-rr-sales-compensation-forecast-accuracy/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10701/10701-rr-sales-compensation-forecast-accuracy/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10701/10701-rr-sales-compensation-forecast-accuracy/content.aspxhttp://aberdeen.com/research/10701/10701-rr-sales-compensation-forecast-accuracy/content.aspxhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://aberdeen.com/http://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    11Conclusion and Recomm endations

    Once considered little more than a joke by the rest of the

    enterprise, the sales forecast is maturing into a crucial tool with

    which contemporary business leaders run their business more

    effectively. By minimizing the impact of flawed human emotions,

    and instead focusing on lessons that can be learned from the

    seemingly endless flow of data about their customers and

    prospects, Best-in-Class companies are turning to the power of

    sales analytics solutions to drive better activities, results, and

    customer successes. The research in this study proves the value

    of focusing these analytics solutions around the real-life, daily

    activities of sales deal management in the B2B space, as well as

    the challenges of motivating and managing high-performance

    quota-carriers. If your organization is considering an analytics

    solution, be sure that it offers:

    Integration with the CRM, so that a single platform

    interface is demanded of your sellers, and so that

    historical data about prospects and customers can bemined for insights into how to manage current and future

    deals in the pipeline.

    Real-time analysis of existing sales deals, based on past

    business results, that can guide sellers and managers

    alike toward the smartest and most profitable behaviors.

    The opportunity to run if-then scenarios, e.g. if we

    discount this product by 5% more, how does that change

    the likelihood that the buyer will sign the contract withinthe current month?"

    Data to help sales leaders manage not only opportunities,

    but people. Your reps will respond much better to

    coaching that is based on the tribal knowledge of the

    organization, as opposed to "when I carried a bag, this is

    how I handled things."

    There's nothing lik

    that feeling when

    prospectiv

    customer sayWow, it's like yo

    read my mind

    http://www.aberdeen.com/http://aberdeen.com/http://www.linkedin.com/company/aberdeen-grouphttp://www.twitter.com/aberdeengrouphttp://www.aberdeen.com/
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    Why Analytics? Nine Must-Have B2B Sales Forecasting Competencies

    12For more information on this or other research topics, please visitwww.aberdeen.com.

    Related Research

    Sales Effectiveness 2015: How in the World Are We

    Going to Hit Our Number?; May 2015

    Once is Not Enough: Why Sales Training

    Reinforcement is a Must-Have;May 2015

    Flash Forward: Remember When we Called it

    "Predictive" Analytics?; April 2015

    Six Ways to Guarantee You're a Social Selling

    Failure;April 2015Making Sales Enablement Work: Nine Must-Haves

    for the Modern Sales Ops Leader;March 2015

    Beyond the Commission: Will You Stay Ahead of

    the SPM Maturity Curve?; November 2014

    Sheldon Cooper, Sales Whisperer: Applying the

    Science of Data to the Art of Selling;September

    2014

    Would You Buy from a 20th-Century Sales Rep?;

    August 2014

    CRM + Sales Leadership: Building a Platformfor More "A" Players;February 2015

    Author: Peter Ostrow, VP/Research Group Director; Customer Management, Sales Effectiveness

    ([email protected])

    About Aberdeen Group

    Since 1988, Aberdeen Group has published research that helps businesses worldwide improve their performance.

    Our analysts derive fact-based, vendor-agnostic insights from a proprietary analytical framework, which identifies

    Best-in-Class organizations from primary research conducted with industry practitioners. The resulting research

    content is used by hundreds of thousands of business professionals to drive smarter decision-making and improve

    business strategy. Aberdeen Group is headquartered in Boston, MA.

    This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group and represents the best analysis

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