ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Varicent Advances SPM and New Revenue Intelligence

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 21 July 2021

As mentioned in my Analyst Perspective, Revenue Performance Management: Leadership and Operations for Optimal Outcomes, there is continuing pressure on sales leaders to deliver against sales targets in increasingly competitive markets. Among the various levers that sales leadership can use to support these efforts, are applications and processes that best position sales teams to achieve targets,...

Topics: Sales, Analytics, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

Sales Forecasting: Have the Process and Technology for a True Revenue Forecast?

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 22 June 2021

There has been a lot of market activity around vendors offering sales-forecasting products (or functionality to address sales forecasting) as part of a wider technology offering for sales and revenue management. As I have discussed in my Analyst Perspective: The Art and Science of Sales from the Inside Out, the pandemic accelerated the prior trends that are now forcing sales leaders and sales...

Topics: Sales, Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Planning, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, AI and Machine Learning

Revenue Performance Management: Leadership and Operations for Optimal Outcomes

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 14 June 2021

As laid out in my recent Analyst Perspective, Revenue Management: The Opportunity for Innovation and Optimization, revenue management is a new way look at generating and managing the top line. It unifies multiple sources: the traditional focus on new customers to existing customers as well as all types of revenue from new, additional channels. This could include customer retention, upsell and...

Topics: Sales, Analytics, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Subscription Management, AI and Machine Learning

Subscription Pricing Changing for Sustained Customer Growth

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 20 May 2021

Subscription pricing models are no longer new. Many companies have experience with this pricing model even if there has not been complete adoption across their entire product and service offerings. Companies that use this model, or have spent time looking at the approach, understand the approach of a recurring revenue stream based on a repeating flat fee.

Topics: Performance Management, Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Subscription Management

The Science of Sales Professional Effectiveness

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 10 May 2021

Observed both here and elsewhere, average sales quota attainments appear to be in an exorable decline. As I discussed in my recent Analyst Perspective, "The Art and Science of Sales from the 'Inside Out'," vendors of sales technology have reacted to this by adding a slew of new functionality including the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to be a game changer for sales. One can argue...

Topics: Sales, Human Capital Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Sales Performance Management, candidate engagement, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

SugarCRM Brings the Sweetness in AI Driven Sales

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 04 May 2021

As I have discussed in my Analyst Perspective, The Art of Sales, from the Inside Out, the challenges facing direct sales leaders are not going away. Declining quota attainment, lack of visibility into deal health and difficulty in forecasting quarterly sales remain a challenge for sales leaders, resulting in a continuing reduction in duration of tenure.

Topics: Sales, Analytics, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

The Experience of Digital Commerce

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 09 April 2021

Digital commerce affects almost everyone’s lives. It is hard to remember a time when one could not sign on to a website like Amazon, order a product, pay for it and have it delivered to your front door within days, not weeks. Although catalogues have been around for a century or so, the digital-commerce revolution has changed the way we think about shopping for many of our everyday and special...

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, AI and Machine Learning

Salesforce Sales Cloud: Evolving to Meet the 360 Needs of Sales

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 18 March 2021

There is no doubt that the pandemic has accelerated the existing need for new technology that can help sales professionals do their jobs well in this quickly evolving market. In addition, market trends are driving the need for functionality that is aimed at the front-line sales professional and the manager, highlighting the demand for tools that can help arrest the decline in quota attainment, as...

Topics: Sales, embedded analytics, Analytics, Internet of Things, Sales Performance Management, natural language processing, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

Revenue Management: The Opportunity for Innovation and Optimization

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 15 March 2021

With modern enterprises adopting and expanding their digital business with subscription and usage business, organizations need to think beyond the primacy of sales as their source of business success. A sustained customer experience is key, representing an organizational and cultural shift from the traditional emphasis on new sales to an equally important focus on customer retention and...

Topics: Sales, Marketing, Analytics, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Subscription Management

Oracle Sales has Priority on Engagement and AI

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 03 March 2021

The current pandemic has disrupted many of the traditional sales methods used by field-sales organizations to engage, and sell to, buyers. In an effort to provide help, many vendors have recently announced new features that focus less on the management of sales organizations and more on tools to help salespeople sell. This has been coupled with a renewed interest in using data to help with the...

Topics: Sales, Analytics, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Digital Technology, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

The 2021 Market Agenda for Office of Sales: The Revolution for Revenue

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 25 February 2021

Ventana Research recently announced its 2021 research agenda for the Office of Sales, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations realize optimal value from applying technology to improve business outcomes. Chief sales and revenue officers are experts in their respective fields but may not have the guidance needed to employ technology effectively. As we look...

Topics: Sales, Analytics, Financial Performance, Internet of Things, Data, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, mobile computing, Subscription Management, extended reality, intelligent sales, partner management, Machine Conversational Computing, Office of Revenue, AI and Machine Learning

The Necessity of Sales Performance Management

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 06 January 2021

True leadership is the ability to motivate sales organizations to perform at their best. But the demand to do so requires the support of an orchestrated process and tools designed to help sales teams work in a directed manner that can help attain quotas through compensation plans. To manage quotas and resources and optimize sales compensation, everyone in the sales organization, from managers to...

Topics: Sales, Sales Performance Management, intelligent sales, sales enablement

The Art and Science of Sales from the “Inside Out"

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 25 November 2020

Although historically there has been a hard divide between what are colloquially called “Inside and Field Sales,” changes over the last 10 years have narrowed the distinction. The pandemic has only accelerated the path to unifying sales activities commonly performed to engage buyers and customers. Characterized by a very disciplined and controlled endeavor, inside sales teams have been heavier...

Topics: Sales, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Sales Performance Management (SPM), natural language processing, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

Zuora and Subscription Management: Suite and Platform to Address Digital Business

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 28 September 2020

The last decade has seen exponential growth amongst subscription-based business models. Pioneered in the B2C market with cloud-based SaaS offerings, the last decade has seen exponential growth in the share of the economy that is now subscription based. Increasingly, this modern business model is permeating throughout more traditional style industries and companies. But regardless of whether a...

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, robotic finance, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

Subscription and Usage Management Technology Needs for the Modern Economy

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 11 September 2020

Subscription-based business models have seen exponential growth over the last decade. The growth of this recurring revenue business model, where a subscriber commits to repeatedly pay for a good or device for a fixed or indefinite timeline, has been caused by the shift from the one-time selling of physical products to selling digital services on a subscription basis. The first phase of this...

Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, natural language processing, robotic finance, revenue and lease accounting, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning

Why I Joined Ventana Research to Lead Office of Sales

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 21 August 2020

I’m very excited to announce to my network as well as the ever-expanding Ventana Research community that I’m now directing Ventana Research’s Office of Sales practice. The focus is to guide and educate sales and business professionals on the selling applications and technology including digital commerce, price and revenue management, product information management, sales enablement, sales...

Topics: Sales, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning