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Is a focus on productivity more important in a difficult economic climate?
Productivity is always my top priority. That has not changed. But today's climate is certainly sharpening the focus. In a more robust environment, everyone tends to enjoy the results. But a down market really forces you to focus on the inputs.
Demand generation is tougher for everyone in this market. At the same time, we need to do more with fewer resources. That means we have to optimize what we have to work with and correct where we are suboptimized. And the only way to optimize is by intensely measuring and managing productivity.
How do you define sales force productivity?
We measure and manage productivity in three buckets—coverage, demand generation, and sales execution. In terms of coverage, we look at the ability of our selling teams and channels to get into every account and every market in their addressable universe. This is definitely my first priority. I want to make sure that our selling teams leverage all of their resources, including partners and other sales constituents. We want to know they can string it all together to thoroughly and optimally cover their accounts.
In terms of demand generation, there can be a tendency to measure just the results. We are especially focused on measuring the inputs. For example, are reps getting the right people in the right numbers to our events? We pay a lot of attention to the quality of the demand that is generated, not just how much.
Of course, sales execution is critical, and in our business we are fortunate to have an extraordinary collection of assets and executives who can lend a hand in that regard. But to get to the execution phase, we have to first make sure that we have nailed coverage and demand generation.
How do you measure your team's productivity?
We are actively improving the way we measure and analyze the activity of our sales force. The latest release of Oracle CRM On Demand gives us some amazing tools to accomplish this. We are now measuring all activity on an account. We measure all interactions, including face-to-face, for the entire extended sales force, including partners. And we measure and manage disposition rates of leads generated. We have a much better view into where, how, and why we can enter an account, what their landscape looks like, and how we can be most valuable. This, of course, positively affects efficiency and effectiveness.
Tells us how you expect Oracle CRM On Demand Release 16 to deliver measurable results in terms of productivity at each of the three phases of the sales cycle.
First, let me say that we're expecting a significant productivity boost with our own implementation. It is already proving to be incredible as both a coverage instrument and a demand-generation tool.
In terms of coverage, Oracle Sales Prospector can have a major impact on productivity by identifying prospects and automatically providing actionable information—not just which accounts to target, but also specific products and service recommendations. Effectively, it tells a salesperson every day, ‘Who else is like my customer.’ It gives them insight and visibility into all other customers that may own what we are trying to sell, as well as comparative pricing views, average selling cycle time, etc.
In terms of demand generation, Oracle Sales Campaigns helps people put together effective field marketing events-based analysis of successful past campaigns, enhanced by some powerful social networking tools, so everyone can weigh in on effectiveness of a particular campaign, the content provided, and what they would have done differently to make it more successful.
And at the execution phase, Oracle Sales Library is a remarkable tool. By letting your sales team rate, tag, and comment on sales presentations, other team members can quickly find the content to help close more deals faster.
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