• What We Do
    ○
    • Sales Technology Consulting Services
      ○
      • Sales Technology Consulting Services
      • Stakeholder Analysis & Sales Technology Audit
      • Sales Technology Selection Strategy
      • Sales Technology Vendor Moderation
      • Sales Technology Adoption Program
      • Sales Technology ROI
      • Multiyear Sales Technology Strategy
    • Research/Advisory
      ○
      • About Clear View Reports
        ○
        • Outbound Prospecting / Agent Assisted
        • Sales Enablement / Content Management
        • Sales Skills Development and Reinforcement
        • Sales Technology and Training Selector
  • Sales Tech Selection Resources
    ○
    • Certified Sales Technology Landscape
    • Tools and Guides
      ○
      • Sales Tech Stack Selection Tool
      • Sales Technology Buying Roadmap
      • Sales Technology ROI Guide
    • Sales Training
      ○
      • Sales Training Solutions
      • Certified Sales Training Landscape
  • Learning Center
    ○
    • Sales Technology Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Webinars
  • About
    ○
    • Contact Us
    • Our Story
    • News & Press
  • Sales Technology Selection Tool
  • Book a Discovery Call
Vendor NeutralVendor Neutral
  • What We Do
    • Consulting
      • Stakeholder Analysis & Sales Technology Audit
      • Sales Technology Selection Strategy
      • Sales Technology Vendor Moderation
      • Sales Technology Adoption Program
      • Sales Technology ROI Framework
      • Multiyear Sales Technology Strategy
    • Research/Advisory
      • Certified Sales Technology Profiles
      • Certified Sales Training Reports
      • Analyst Research
        • Outbound Prospecting / Agent Assisted
        • Sales Enablement / Content Management
        • Sales Skills Development and Reinforcement
      • Sales Technology and Training Selection Tool
  • Sales Tech Selection Resources
    • Sales Technology Solutions
    • Tools and Guides
      • Sales Tech Stack Selection Tool
      • Sales Technology Buying Roadmap
      • Sales Tech ROI Guide
    • Certified Sales Technology Landscape
    • Sales Training
      • Sales Training Solutions
      • Sales Training Selection Tool
      • Certified Sales Training Landscape
  • Learning Center
    • Sales Tech Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Webinars
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • Our Story
    • News & Press

Sales Tech and Innovation Blog .

Industry Experts and Thought Leaders

Buying Sales Technology and Training is hard. We’re here to help with curated content from leading experts, thought leaders, and analysts.

Scroll Down

Sales Technology Audit Project Winners | Vendor Neutral Partnership with Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University | Carey Business School Sales Force Management Sales Technology Audit Project Winners

Sales Technology Audit & Virtual Engagement (STAVE) project.

Johns Hopkins University | Carey Business School Sales Force Management Summer Class of 2021, led by Prof. Joël Le Bon, Ph.D once again partnered with Vendor Neutral to help students learn to purchase sales technology in the B2B world through the Sales Technology Audit & Virtual Engagement (STAVE) project.

Digital Transformation has dramatically shifted sales, and today’s graduates must have the right tools and knowledge to succeed in this dynamic environment. Vendor Neutral and Johns Hopkins are providing these tools and supporting the next generation of sales professionals through this competition.

The summer program just wrapped up and we are especially excited to announce the final 3 winners of the students’ sales technology assessment projects!

Vendor Neutral Ecosystem

To guide the students in their sales technology selection, Vendor Neutral’s own Dan Cilley, CEO and Steven Wright, Chief Analyst supported the STAVE project in Prof. Joël Le Bon’s Sales Force Management graduate class

Vendor Neutral brought real-world application by sharing some of the capabilities from their Sales Technology Ecosystem that they follow with their own clients. Here’s a sampling of the framework and expertise they provided:

Engage stakeholders and establish goals for them

Identify vital roles within the organization’s sales hierarchy, including Sales Ops, Marketing, Sales Enablement, Sales Leadership, Demand Generation, IT/CISO, Inside Sales, and Field Sales. Including these stakeholders in the decision-making process is vital. Assign specific responsibilities in writing.

Identify technology gaps

What technology already exists within your organization? Does it currently bring value and the ROI you expect? Once you have determined that foundation of solutions, identify at which SalesTech hierarchy level in which you have gaps.

Audit capability gaps.

Understand the organization’s capabilities and opportunities for development. Don’t fall for the “shiny object syndrome.” Think strategically instead of reacting to the latest and greatest tool.

Consider vendors that potentially align to your process, priorities, and challenges.

To do this, organizations must look beyond the features and benefits of a solution. A vendor’s sales pitch is really just marketing spin. Instead, look deeper to clearly identify how they align with your process or match your priorities and challenges.

Analyze solution fit and ROI

Ask the right questions of yourself, the provider, and your peers. Your questions could include:

  • What business objectives does this solution help with?
  • Who and what are the processes necessary to extract value?
  • Will we need to increase incremental headcount?
  • What kind of initial and ongoing training is required?
  • How quickly will we see a ROI?
  • What are the ongoing costs to support the solution?
  • What is the cost of doing nothing?
  • What does the solution need to be integrated with?
  • How much of the solution will we use?
  • How is performance measured?

“Leveraging the Sales Technology identification and selection resources from Vendor Neutral’s Sales Technology Ecosystem, provided our students with a framework that allowed them to quickly zero in on the technology that addressed their challenges” – Prof. Joël Le Bon, Ph.D

Sales Technology Assessment

Leveraging Vendor Neutral’s framework student teams were required to perform an entrepreneurial audit of a specific sales technology that could be used to improve sales organizations’ efficiency and effectiveness and to recommend areas of improvement.

Specifically, students research the following:

  • Inefficiencies within the sales organization that led to a problem that the new technology can solve.
  • How the technology can help the organization improve its efficiency and effectiveness.
  • What areas can the technology improve on in the future.

The students used both primary (i.e., personal interviews) and secondary (i.e., research) data to perform their analysis. Their approach showed how to leverage the concepts, frameworks, methodologies, and tools studied in class to advance sales force management in the era of digital transformation.

Following the completion of the team projects, each team pitched their conclusions and ideas to the judges, led by Prof. Joël Le Bon, Ph.D., Executive Director, The Science of Digital Business Development Initiative. Acting as venture capitalists, the class voted for the most promising Sales Technology Audit & Virtual Engagement (STAVE) project by allocating funding to the best team and entrepreneurial pitch.

Competition Results

We continue to be amazed by the quality of the presentations and pitches in this competition. And it’s our pleasure to announce the winners of the Johns Hopkins University Sales Technology Audit & Virtual Engagement Challenge (STAVE) projects for 2021:

  1. Coveo– Presented by Team YYDS 
  2. Gainsight– Presented by Team Insight 
  3. Cirrus Insight – Presented by Team Visionaries

Congratulations to the winners and all the students involved for a phenomenal effort! Thanks to Prof. Joël Le Bon, Ph.D and Johns Hopkins University | Carey Business School for providing Vendor Neutral this opportunity to share our framework and Sales Technology Ecosystem with the next generation of marketing and sales professionals.

August 30, 2021 Dan Cilley
  • Sales Tech Procurement for 2023: Trends and Strategy
    Sales Technology Procurement 2023: trends and strategy If there's one thing that's certain as we head into 2023, it's that little is. In a shock departure from...
  • How Company Culture Drives Sales Tech Stack Adoption
    How company culture drives sales tech stack impact and adoption Culture is the heart around which the lifeblood of the company courses. Research by Deloitte has...
  • Sales Technology and Organizational Resilience through sales tech strategy
    Enhance Organizational Resilience through Sales Tech Strategy Excellence After months of the sales tech sector being spent in a state of nervous apprehension, the good news...
  • AR and VR Feature Image
    AR and VR - harness innovation in the digital world for real-world impact on your organization Science fiction has often been the precursor to scientific reality Science...
  • CRM: the rights and wrongs and how to make them work for you
    CRMs: the rights and wrongs and how to make them work for you… A run-down of the problems we see as typical in CRM usage and...
  • Customer Experience powered Digital Transformation: why you need it, how to do it
    Customer Experience powered Digital Transformation: why you need it, how to do it The customer is king, right? Most organizations would say so. But how many...
  • 3 stage sales saas procurement test
    3 Stage Sales SaaS Procurement Readiness Test: Take It Now Things we know: SaaS companies are big and getting bigger. The fastest-growing SaaS companies grow their teams...
  • SAAS Mismanagement and the Unseen Impacts - Sarah Carey
    Employee Spotlight - Sarah Carey - Unseen Impacts of SaaS Mismanagement Attaining utopia with sales technology ... ...ecosystems isn’t an easy feat, whether it be trying to align...
  • SaaS Sustainability and Digital Waste: deal with it now, or face difficult questions about why you didn’t The carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and...
  • Triage Sales Tech Stress and Eliminate it
    Triage Sales Tech Stress and Eliminate It Insight, impact, growth: three times Vendor Neutral triaged organizations’ sales tech stress, and eliminated it. Cloud adoption grew by a...
  • 3 Red Flags to Failing Sales SAAS Ecosystems
    SaaS applications make up 70% of total company software use: if Sales SaaS fails to deliver, then so too does your business. But how do you...
  • Implement A Systems Approach
    Grow Revenue And Enhance The Customer Experience Through Digital Culture Transformation Digital transformation is not a new concept. Digital initiatives have been on the rise in...
  • We’re in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution. Is your manufacturing business implementing digital transformation in the most effective way?
    Are You Ready for Industry 4.0? The Digital Transformation of Manufacturing According to many in the manufacturing industry, we are currently in the middle of the...
  • Top ERP Transformations That Support buyers
    Top ERP Transformations That Support Buyers B2B companies are currently up to their necks in "digital transformation." They're moving at a rapid clip to enhance the...
  • Increase-eCommerce-Adoption-by-including-your-Sales-Team
    eCommerce Adoption and Your Sales Team Internal Resistance Any type of change within an organization is likely to see some resistance. It’s not that change is necessarily...
Vendor Neutral Empowering Business Enabling Growth Logo with Tag line
  • 888-411-8908
  • info@vendorneutral.com
  • Book a Discovery Call
Instagram Linkedin Twitter Rss

Consulting

  • Stakeholder Analysis & Sales Technology Audit

Research

  • Certified Sales Technology Profiles
  • Certified Sales Training Reports
  • Clear View Reports

Information

  • About Us
  • News and Press
  • Contact Us

Sales Technology

  • Sales Technology Solutions
  • Sales Technology Selection Tools
  • Sales Technology Consulting Services
Sign up for our newsletter
  • Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Copyright © 2022 Vendor Neutral LLC. All Rights Reserved