Web 2.0 and Sales Process Management

WhiTepAper Survey Web 2.0 and Sales Process Management by Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D. A Whitepaper Sponsored by The Customer Collective and Oracle 1 The CUSTOMeR COLLeCTIVe | Web 2.0 AND SALeS PROCeSS MANAgeMeNT INTRODUCTION Web 2.0 and Sales Process Management how can Web 2.0 systems and applications support management of sales processes? ThIS RePORT DISCUSSeS hOW Web 2.0 SySTeMS example, while involvement with the social and AND APPLICATIONS CAN SUPPORT MANAgeMeNT professional communities surrounding business Of SALeS PROCeSSeS. prospects may improve market intelligence instead of focusing on specific technologies about business prospects, such communica- such as social networking, blogs, wikis, or other tions are not as controllable as traditional one- technologies, it focuses on business processes to-one communications between buyer and and addresses the following questions: sellers. internally, collaboration that cuts across organizational boundaries might be impacted by 1. how satisfied are sales managers with the existing organizational rivalries. different processes currently involved in locating, managing, and closing sales? 3. Some within-sales-force collaboration may be 2. What can this tell us about where Web 2.0 resisted by sales people if this raises fears of applications would provide the most benefit reduced competitiveness or shared commis- to the overall sales process? sions. To promote such collaboration it may be necessary to modify compensation plans to input to this report was provided by a special online reward certain types of collaboration. survey (Appendix A) and by telephone interviews (Appendix b). Appendix C explains the project’s 4. Sales process maturity may strongly influence organizing concepts. Appendix D provides defini- adoption of Web 2.0 techniques. Well-defined TAbLe Of CONTeNTS tions for “sales processes” and “Web 2.0.” To see and formalized processes, such as those that the Overview of findings from this project Appendix e. occur closer to the end of the sales cycle, ben- Introduction ............. 2 efit differently than activities that are less struc- findings ................... 2 tured or performed independently by members Discussion ............... 7 of the sales team. Challenges .............. 7 Findings: Conclusions ............. 9 SUMMARy Of fINDINgS 5. The lengthier and more complex the sales Appendix A .............. 11 1. The most immediate perceived benefits of process, the more participants will be involved Appendix b .............. 11 applying Web 2.0 techniques to sales are pro- as the process evolves. Making information Appendix C .............. 12 vided by improving the outcomes of prospect- gathered at one stage available to other partici- Appendix D .............. 13 ing and customer qualification. pants “downstream” will help ensure a smooth Appendix e ............... 14 2. When addressing Web 2.0 support for sales- transition from sales to delivery and servicing of Appendix - fig. 1 ...... 15 related communication and collaboration, it’s the customer. Organizational or departmental important to distinguish whether participants barriers that restrict collaboration across groups or processes being considered are internal or should not be allowed to disrupt the sales pro- external to the sales team’s organization. For cess and satisfaction of the customer. RETWEET THIS WHITEPaPER 2 Click here to post on Twitter The CUSTOMeR COLLeCTIVe | Web 2.0 AND SALeS PROCeSS MANAgeMeNT fINDINgS OVeRALL SATISfACTION WITh SALeS PROCeSSeS This point, when discussed with sales managers in the online survey we asked respondents to in the telephone interviews, was not surprising. rate their overall satisfaction with how well their One interviewed manager said, “My sales peo- sales team performs the processes of: ple are always complaining about the quality of the leads they’re given to go after!” prospecting, Qualifying, pricing, proposing, Negotiating, Closing, Delivering, and Servicing. Another manager, when asked about the influ- ence of the size of the sales team on satisfaction, The purpose of this question was to identify said that, “theoretically at least, the larger potential areas of opportunity for the application sales team might have better support and as of “web 2.0” based tools. Figure 2 a result might be more likely to pursue higher quality leads which would lead to higher satis- Of the 299 respondents who answered this faction with prospecting and qualifying.” question, the average satisfaction rating ranged from a low average of 2.95 (for prospecting) to Another manager commented that, “You always a high average of 3.78 (for Delivering). Figure want to close more of your prospects no mat- 2 also shows that the three sales processes ter how many you get,” and that this might that have the lowest average satisfaction rating explain why “closing” received a relatively are prospecting, Qualifying, and Closing. The lower score. highest average ratings occur for Delivering and Servicing. When commenting on the higher ratings for Deliv- ering and Servicing, one manager said, “That’s to be expected. In our company the processes for doing these are very defined and structured. Fig. 2 Our people are really good at doing these once Overall Satisfaction With Sales Processes the sales are closed.” exploring this point further, this manager specu- “Respondents are, PROSPeCTINg 2.