- IT must stand ready to support and collaborate with Sales. Armed with a robust technology enablement strategy, IT must provide Sales with the applications, data, and supporting human resources to efficiently and effectively carry out their operations.
- Many organizations are plagued with outdated or ineffective sales application portfolios, poor sales data, and a support structure that is ambivalent towards the time-sensitive requirements of the sales organization.
- IT must work hand-in-hand with Sales to build a robust strategy for Sales-IT alignment. This involves building a permanent alignment steering committee that can set shared, strategic direction on how best to enable salespersons.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- IT and Sales should build a program for shared technology governance.
- IT should build a portfolio of applications that supports all sales processes, using best-of-breed point solutions where necessary.
- A proactive and corrective program for sales data quality must be implemented and managed by IT.
- IT should seek innovative, “art of the possible” sales solutions.
Impact and Result
- IT should develop a robust set of applications that address end-to-end sales requirements. This portfolio can be centered on the CRM platform, but will often also include robust point solutions like lead management automation, sales collateral management tools, and social media management platforms.
- IT should assist the business in auditing sales data and putting in place both preventative measures (i.e. data stewards) and corrective measures (i.e. automated scrubbing tools) to ensure customer and sales data is current, valid, and free of duplicate information.
- IT should always keep the “art of the possible” on its radar: Internet of Things and Social are two examples.