Cool Vendors in CRM Sales, 2013

G00250331

Cool Vendors in CRM Sales, 2013 Published: 25 April 2013

Analyst(s): Patrick Stakenas, Ed Thompson

The 2013 Cool Vendors in CRM sales offer new technologies that improve sales performance and effectiveness. They use mobile, social, big data analytics and the cloud to help salespeople improve their selling skills and find new prospects.

Key Findings Cloud applications combined with mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) are enabling salespeople to be more engaged in the sales cycle in real time at the source of the interaction with the customer, thus making them more effective and efficient in capturing, managing and updating information throughout the sales process. Internal and external social network intelligence applications are emerging to assist salespeople with finding and developing new sources for lead generation and moving these newfound contacts and opportunities to a quicker close and with greater certainty. Discontinuous, or sporadic, classroom sales training is approaching a fast demise; sales technology applications that help salespeople use sales methodologies and automate sales processes are showing great promise.

Recommendations Sales operations and sales management should explore the 2013 sales innovations in this report to identify solutions that will improve their lead generation activities, sales process and methodology adoption and management of customer buyers and influencers. Sales forces with complex team-selling-based processes and the need to target the right individuals by blending traditional business intelligence, industry data, and information from social networks should examine Lattice Engines and Datahug. Sales operations and sales management should explore The TAS Group to improve the effectiveness of their salesperson's selling activities, selling capabilities and behaviors.

Analysis This research does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

What You Need to Know Sales technology has taken on a new life with the advent of functionality designed to assist sales management and salespeople in improving a salesperson's skill set and enhancing the customer interaction. Sales management now has greater visibility into opportunities and the behavior of the salesperson, delivered via the cloud and accessible through mobile devices. A key theme in 2013 is using technology to move information closer to where a salesperson interacts with the customer and providing tools to collaborate with the sales team and sales management. These technologies enhance and improve the selling experience, presale, during the sell cycle and postsale, allowing for upselling and cross-selling. Traditional sales processes and training methods are being challenged as the premise of discontinuous annual sales training is fading quickly from business landscapes. Sales leadership is looking for immediate, actionable information on sales process, sales performance initiatives, sales coaching and lead-generation activities. Sales technology spending continues to be focused on sales force automation applications. However, new technologies are appearing that have an appeal to sales management, sales operations and salespeople that provide usable, actionable information. Through intuitive interfaces, these technologies are providing salespeople and sales management insight on what to do, what to propose, who to call next, and what salespeople may need help in developing sales opportunities. This Cool Vendors report looks at examples of vendors that provide solutions that generate real, actionable leads, automate sales methodologies and training, and manage customer interactions unlike ever before.

Datahug Dublin, Ireland (www.datahug.com) Analysis by Ed Thompson Why Cool: Datahug is a simple, easy-to-use "enterprise relationship cloud" application. In the mid-2000s, when Gartner first recognized this type of technology, we referred to the technology as "social network analysis." The Datahug application analyzes email, contacts, calendars and VoIP interactions to provide a picture of "who knows who" outside the organization. The output of the analysis provided is typically an indicator of which internal colleague knows a contact, the strength of that relationship and the contact details of the colleague.

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There are four key factors that make Datahug cool and differentiate it from its competitors. The first factor is how they present information. For example, Datahug has the ability to click on a client or customer website and see how many contacts they know and how many employees have contacts at that firm. Their output can be presented in email, browsers, LinkedIn or CRM applications like Microsoft Dynamics CRM and salesforce.com through plug-ins. Second, they use more sources of data than many others who only use contact data to build analysis. Third, they are cloud-based, and fourth, they are strong on permissions-based privacy compliance in different geographies. Challenges: Founded in 2010, Datahug is new to the space, only has 23 employees and 27 enterprise clients ranging from 100 to a few thousand users each with estimated revenue to be between $2 million and $3 million (USD). Challenges include its risk of being acquired, their limited service partnerships and, therefore, the choice of Datahug skills other than directly from Datahug, and their limited R&D budget (although they have 50% of their resources in R&D) to enhance and develop the product. Who Should Care: The typical user is a consultant, accountant, lawyer, venture capitalist or banker who sells and does some business development rather than a classic B2B salesperson. Their application is generally used for referral management, researching prospects, and maintaining warm connections for business development. They have contracts with professional services and financial services companies like Grant Thornton, BDO, and Balderton Capital.

Lattice Engines San Mateo, California (www.latttice-engines.com) Analysis by Patrick Stakenas Why Cool: Lattice Engines uses big data to help sales and marketing predict which prospects and customers are most likely to buy which product or service. Lattice Engines takes unstructured sales and marketing intelligence and combines it with industry data and social media interactions to create highly specific sales leads organized around when and how potential prospects and existing customers will buy. Through the management of big data (e.g., external social network data, industry data, internal CRM/ERP data), Lattice Engines assists sales and marketing in determining which customers and prospects to accurately target, which product or service offerings will most likely attract interest, and develops specific leads. Using predetermined, customer-specific algorithms, they use historical behavior buying patterns across the data that is gathered to create granular targeted opportunities. Their cloud-based platform allows salespeople to find the right conversation discussion elements to use when engaging with customers or prospects and provides information on what may be available to cross-sell. Challenges: Lattice Engines was founded in 2006, and is venture-backed ($35 million). Challenges include the risk of being grouped with sales analytics firms or social CRM for sales technology as a purely sales analytics vendor. Their target market appears to have a specific focus on larger


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companies, potentially indicating a larger ticket price. However, they are releasing a lighter product later in 2013. Who Should Care: Sales leadership, sales operations and marketing of enterprise sales organizations looking to better manage or bolster the lead generation processes should pay close attention to the rising market of using data and social CRM for sales for lead generation. The company's big data approach has attracted larger companies such as ADP, Dell, EMC and SunTrust, with companies reporting a 15% or more lift in sales productivity, often in the first year, along with improvements in pipeline, conversion and win rates.

The TAS Group Kirkland, Washington (www.thetasgroup.com) Analysis by Patrick Stakenas Why Cool: The TAS Group's cloud-based Dealmaker suite of sales process tools is one of the first technology firms to automate the sales process by integrating selling methodology, coaching, training and deal forecasting simultaneously. Dealmaker provides intelligent advice and coaching suggestions on how to better position an opportunity, identify the decision makers and influencers, and provide guidance on moving the deal closer to a win. The technology is designed to work regardless if customers utilize their proprietary TAS methodology, configure the methodology to meet their own business needs, or use their own existing methodology and processes. The TAS Group first went to market with technology built on their methodology in 2007; beginning in 2011, the company made a fundamental transition from a sales training company to a cloudbased technology company that offers tools to manage the sales process while incorporating sales methodology in the sell cycle. Their tools enable salespeople to navigate through the opportunity and selling processes, while providing sales management with analysis of the sales team's actual performance and analytics on when the deal will close based on data gathered during the sell cycle, enhancing forecasting processes. In 2012, they built Dealmaker native on the Force.com platform. With Dealmaker software and data residing in the salesforce.com cloud, enterprise-class reliability, scalability and security can be expected. Challenges: The company is still in the process of becoming a pure-play technology firm even with over 100 Dealmaker customers, including Fortune 500 enterprise companies and training customers that are in the process of migrating to Dealmaker. Their challenges include shaking the discontinuous training moniker, scaling the technology to include a broader set of sales performance management functionality, and opening up the technology to allow companies who are committed to competing sales methodologies to manage their processes. Who Should Care: Sales organizations that are looking to create a more effective and efficient selling organization and wish to leverage exiting sales methodologies or bring in a sales methodology to sell smarter, manage better, potentially grow revenue or achieve higher levels of

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sales quota attainment should consider using technology to manage the sales process. Customers include selling organizations from Hewlett-Packard, Autodesk, Xirrus, and GHX.

Recommended Reading Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription. "MarketScope for Sales Performance Management" "Hype Cycle for CRM Sales, 2012" "Key Issues for CRM Sales Strategies, Processes and Technologies, 2011" "What's 'Hot' in CRM Applications in 2012" "Yesterday's Cool CRM Vendors, Where Are They Now?"


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