Sales Force

Automation Buyer’s
Guide for 2017

Key findings:

01 Top tips on how to drive adoption of

your SFA solution

Key do’s and don’ts businesses

02 need consider in order to ensure
successful implementation

03 Best practices on how to shortlist the

best SFA vendors
 2
SALES FORCE AUTOMATION TO COMPLEMENT BUSINESS VISION

Today, many organizations are considering investing in next-gen SFA (Sales Force Automation) solutions. Sales force automation (SFA) software provides consistent and
transparent control over core sales processes starting from activity tracking, opportunity and lead management, territory and quote management, and sales forecasting.
In order to get the most out of SFA (Sales Force Automation) solution implementation, organizations need to plan a well-thought strategy aligned with their core business
objectives. Prior to starting the research process, sales leaders need to define how this technology will help them accelerate sales and gain a competitive advantage.
The driving point here is an understanding of how the SFA software will support the processes, the strategy and the key business objectives that the company wants to
successfully realize.

• Define vision, strategic goals and objectives you want to reach using the SFA technology.
DO • Correlate your vision and strategic goals with the features and functionalities of the SFA software. Sales Force Automation (SFA)
• Perform a technology audit. Your IT department most likely already has a general picture of what is a type of software utilized
by companies to automate the
technologies are in use within your organization. Think about how the new technology will be
business tasks such as order
integrated within the organization closing information black holes and expanding potential uses cases processing, contact management,
of a new system. sales processing, and tracking
of customer interactions, as well
as analyzing sales forecasts and
evaluating employee performance.
• Don’t expect SFA to fix all of your business issues and boost incomes immediately. Make a
SFA is often integrated part of a
DON`T comprehensive audit and problem analysis to determine the true core of a problem in order to arrive company’ CRM; however, SFA
at a right solution. solutions can be deployed a
standalone product as well.
• Don’t look for a system similar to your previous or current one (if you have any), if you are looking for a
new SFA solution, it means that your previous solution was not a good fit and didn’t meet your
needs.

9,4B

According to Gartner, SFA will be a $9.4

billion market by 2019. (CMSW)
 3
GETTING BUY-IN FROM SALES TEAM

Putting in place SFA ensures that your sales team moves in the right direction navigating sales processes while removing redundancies and complexity. But before
starting the selection process, it is strongly recommended to get a buy-in from the sales team.
It is paramount for sales reps to understand why the SFA system is beneficial to them, not only to top management. For ths purpose, it is strongly recommended to
gather feedback from the sales reps on what features they want to see in a new solution since they are going to its end users. Your salespeople need to know the
strategy to help build trust and feel vital to the SFA selection process, as they are going to work with this SFA software on a daily basis. They should also be shown
how easy and efficient the system will be for them to use.

Reaching a total buy-in from the sales reps is more likely if some of the top salespeople become advocates of the product. This enables companies to move further
and faster with the implementation and adoption of the SFA solution.

In order to ensure the success of the SFA initiative and get the full support of sales reps, businesses need to ask several crucial questions:

• What features will they actually use in the new system.

• How to optimize existing sales processes and build more effective ones with the help of a SFA
system.

• What problems do they face on a daily basis that automation software might help to resolve.

• What 3rd party integrations are the most critical and should be implemented to a new solution.
 4
MAKE AN EXTENSIVE CHECKLIST OF REQUIRED SFA FEATURES
When the problem is analyzed, think carefully and define what product functionality you need to resolve the existing issues and whether the integrations are required.
After that, develop an extensive checklist of features that accommodate your business needs. Make ease of use and maintenance another important criterion in your
selection process. Consider a software that provides features that will jazz up your sales processes and help sales reps boost their productivity. The new SFA system
should provide a full lead-to-revenue cycle so that businesses can align their sales and marketing departments and keep track of the entire customer journey.
The system should feature comprehensive mobile and collaboration capabilities and provide instant access to critical customer data. It should also offer
comprehensive dashboards with data visualization and reports, and feature an attractive UI to support sales reps with their routine tasks. Various vendors provide SFA
solutions with different functionality capabilities. Among top-requested SFA software functionality are contact management, lead management, email marketing, pipeline
monitoring, order and quote management, and sales forecasting.

75% 61% 59% 60% 3 70%

61% of employees typically
Almost 75% of contract
access four or more
processes are not
systems to get the
automated. (SpringCM)
information they need to do
their jobs. (IDC)
59% of companies do Only 60% of sales reps Only a third of sales Over 70% of their time is
not fully use the meet quota. (CSO Insights) reps spend their time spent on administrative
technology they have actually selling. tasks, like data entry, keeping
available. (Ascend2) (CSO Insights) them away from the
customer. (CSO Insights)

It is essential to understand that the higher the fit between the SFA software and the company’s most essential sales processes, the lower the software customization,
training time, consulting costs and implementation risk will be. For this reason, decide at the earliest stages what SFA tool is required to meet your business objectives.
Ideally, your sales software solution should integrate seamlessly with existing IT environment for ease of use and accurate sales data management. In addition, it is
essential to choose a sales automation technology that supports the end-to-end customer journey. According to the Forrester research, 68% of customers want vendors
who “understand my business, my problems – and help me solve them.”
It is critical for a modern SFA to be flexible and easily customizable. Your sales department will change as your business grows and evolves, which will
necessitate altering your processes quickly or implementing new ones. The right SFA should help you speed up your strategy execution process. The faster you can
change your SFA, the more agile, flexible and adaptive your sales team can be.
 5
SHOULD YOUR SFA BE IN THE CLOUD
Next step in the selection process is to determine the right deployment type of your SFA solution based on your business needs and selection criteria. There are two
types of deployment:
• Cloud (SaaS) deployment: when the software is licensed on a subscription basis and can be accessed by a user via web browser.
• On-premise deployment: when the software is deployed and runs on the computers of the company using the internal operating systems and datacenter.

Prior to finalizing your SFA decision, confirm which deployment option is right for your company.

PROS CONS

Cloud • Requires smaller up-front cost • Monthly subscription fees, can be more expensive than
• Always-on access and easily scalable on-premise solution
• Allows to add new software licenses only as-needed • Can appear security issues
• Updates are delivered instantly • Highly dependable on the internet connection and quality
• Backed up data in the cloud of the internet

• Installed on the internal network of a company • More expensive up-front

On-premise • Requires onetime payment • May require an additional investment in servers, storage
• Does not depend on the Internet connection and networks
• More susceptible to data loss in disaster situation

73% 18,5%

‘Cloud application services’ (SaaS) are forecast to comprise 18.5 percent

73% of SFAs are cloud-based. (Capterra) of the market ($ 46.96 bn), representing 20.3 percent year-on-year
growth. (ZDnet)
 6
OUTLINING THE BEST SFA VENDORS

After determining the core product requirements, it’s time to list vendors that address the technical issues, from database compatibility to sales forecasting reports. For
example, if aligning marketing, sales and service is crucial for your business, then you need to look at a SFA system that can easily integrate with the marketing
automation tools, or consider vendor that offers key operations of marketing and sales solution aligned in one system. This way you won’t need to worry about whether
your different integrations will work properly. Also, be careful with the system’s configuration capabilities - it should be clear how to make changes and build and launch
sales processes or you will end up living with whatever you get out of the box. So make sure the platform enables you to change rapidly to keep up with changing
customer demands.

Top questions to ask while

evaluating the SFA vendor:
• Review analysts’ reports that evaluate vendors in your segment. Getting an RFP response
DO from a SFA vendor focused on the enterprise segment only when you are a small business
• Should we select a cloud or on-
premise solution?

or medium sized business will end up in the delay of your SFA initiative because the system • How easy is the solution to
customize?
might be out of your budget and the features not relevant for your business model.
• How easily can I import my existing
• Check at least three sources of information before going into an actual search. Examples of data?
such sources are CRM Magazine, Gartner or Forrester reports.
• How intuitive user-friendly is the
system’s interface?
• Take into consideration crowdsourced outlets like g2crowd.com, softwareadvice. com, or
capterra. com that provide feedback from real software users. • What are the system’s integration
capabilities?

• Do not create too long or too short of a list. A too short list really limits your options and • Does the SFA system provide
DON`T a mobile app and collaboration
reduces your chances at getting the best deal, while too long list creates chaos in your capabilities?
search as you lose track of features, value propositions and estimates. • Does the system provide AI
(Artificial Intelligence) powered
functionality?

• What is the estimated SFA project

ROI?
 7
PRODUCT DEMO AND SFA BUDGET

It is crucial to hold in-depth conversations with vendors on software product and service demonstrations. Usually companies either send an RFP or run test-drives of the
systems on the list. When reviewing a demo look at the out-of-the-box functionalities and only after you have a good understanding of how the pre-configured capabilities
answer your business needs should you proceed to exploring the customization. This will help you to understand the difference between pre-set demos and the full
capabilities of the system you are evaluating.

45% of SFA buyers report that a good
demo is the most useful thing a vendor
45% can provide during the selling process.
(Focus)
Three quarters of respondents did demonstrations of at least two
solutions to compare their options. Shockingly, the other 25% of
25% respondents either did no demos of CRM software before
making a decision, or they decided to purchase the first CRM
they demoed without looking at any alternatives. (Capterra)

The next step is to determine a suitable price. As with any technology purchase, the total costs of the project entail implementation, customization and maintenance
costs as well. For this reason, it is paramount to factor all the costs (initial and additional) when drawing up the budget. The additional costs of SFA initiative may
include:

• Internal hardware expenses

• Third-party integration costs
• Training costs
•
•
Recurring software license fees
Costs for regular upgrades
12% The adoption of the technologies can bring about cost savings to
the extent of 12%. (Businesswire.com)
• Costs for features not part of the initial purchase (e.g., mobile app)
• Support costs
 8
ARRIVING AT A FINAL DECISION
Utilizing a suitable SFA solution saves times for salespeople as it automates repetitive and routine tasks, and reduces the need for manual human intervention. To have
a successful SFA initiative, it’s recommended to request a full scope of the project from the vendor and the implementation objectives. This will give you a clear
understanding of whether the proposal addresses your initial strategy.

• Set a decision-making timeframe and process. Make sure that your implementation due date is not rolled into the decision buying deadlines. Sign up
for phase-by-phase implementation with a set of specific KPIs to evaluate the success of the implementation at every step of the process.
DO
• Get buy-in from the top down. Try to engage every member of the team in agreement on the project. Having buy-in from end-users will help to
maintain the accuracy of data within the system.

• Focus on user adoption. Look for features that reinforce user adoption. It’s not just a matter of having a simple interface, the system should make it
clear what the users need to do next.

• Develop a defined plan, also known as a “technical blueprint”, which provides a detailed description of the project. The plan describes and outlines all
integrations, customizations and configurations.

The modern business environment is rapidly changing, that’s why the SFA system that you select has to be scalable and flexible enough to grow with you while
adjusting the processes on the fly as well to provide tools to help you streamline your marketing, sales and service processes.

According to IDC research the right SFA software:

30% 18% 14% 41%

increases deal closure by 30%. reduces sales cycle by 18%. cuts down the sales administrative increases revenue by 41%.
time by 14%.
 9

PROCESS-DRIVEN SALES FORCE AUTOMATION SOFTWARE TO MANAGE THE

COMPLETE SALES CYCLE — FROM LEAD TO REPEAT SALES

ABOUT BPM'ONLINE

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