ClearView Reports: Sales Enablement, KPIs, and Stakeholders
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is one of those acronyms that always strikes me oddly. I keep breaking it down into pieces for some reason. KP – Kitchen Patrol or Kitchen Police as it was once known – was often a punishment duty always conjures up in my mind a scene from some World War II movie with some long-suffering Kowalski in black and white peeling potatoes. But, one can peel back the KPIs Sales Enablement/Content management vendors select and map it to stakeholders to get an interesting view of what matters to whom.
KPIs are one of the best ways to identify the value and benefits of a solution. As part of Vendor Neutral’s ClearView Reports, we categorize those KPIs across vendors and then map them to their value to various stakeholders:
| KPI/ROI | Marketing | Sellers | Sales Enable-ment | Sales Mgmt | Sales Ops | ||||
| Shorter Ramp Time | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Sales Activity – Follow-Up | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Compliance/Risk | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | ||||
| Shorter Sales Cycles | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Engagement Usage | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| Save Time/More Selling Time | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Win Rates | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | ||||
| ROI – Content and Other | 4 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Average Value of KPI/ROI for Stakeholder | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | ||||
| Value to | 0 = Limited | 2 = Good | 4 = Essential | ||||||
| Stakeholder: | 1 = Some | 3 = Strong | |||||||
Across stakeholders, SE/Content solutions deliver broad and deep value.
From one perspective, all benefits, KPIs, and value of SE/Content solutions benefit all stakeholders just as a rising tide raises all boats. But the degree varies. Across the board, all stakeholders receive significant value, with Win/Rates and Compliance/Risk, at least for regulated industries, being of uniform high value across the board. On a more granular level:
- Marketing gains greatest value insights into engagement and usage and improved content ROI.
- Sellers benefit from better activity follow-up, shorter sales cycles, and more selling time
- Sales Enablement benefits from nearly every KPI category.
- Sales Management also gains across the board, with the only limited value in engagement and usage reporting.
- Sales Operations also receives broad value though perhaps less from content ROI and usage information.
It should come as no surprise that Sellers and Sales Enablement receive the biggest value. Sellers are highly focused on using content to engage, and for Sales Enablement practitioners, ensuring the right content is being used and delivered is a core responsibility.
That’s just a preview of some of the valuable information in the report. Other topics include:
- What is it? A high-level view of the sales tech category.
- What challenges are addressed by the solutions? Covers the top 10 challenges addressed by solution as chosen by vendors and defined in terms of Sales Enablement/Content Management.
- What does it do?
- Capabilities: Based on a set of common capabilities and functions. Vendors’ top 10 capabilities.
- Functions: A detailed review of common functions across the solution category.
- Measuring Success: This section looks at the Key Performance Indicators provided by vendors that demonstrate the benefits of the solution.
- What do you need to do? A discussion on what users need to think about in order to succeed with the solution.
- Do you need it? Ideas to consider when deciding if you need this type of solution.
- Parting Thoughts – A few Concluding thoughts on the category, the marketplace and the future direction of the category.
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Steven is Vendor Neutral’s Chief Certification Analyst and has years of experience in sales enablement and sales tech. As both a practitioner, and as a former Forrester Analyst, he brings a breadth of experience and insight into how to get the most out of your sales tech investments.