In the world of sales enablement software, there are practitioners, managers, contributors, purchasers, critics, administrators, and of course the all-important end-users – sales and service professionals who depend on this advanced software to “Learn faster, sell smarter, and win more”. There has been much discussed, reviewed, and written about this category of software over the past five years and for good reasons: it’s one of the few categories of software that helps improve what is the absolute lifeblood of virtually every for-profit organization on the planet: the art and science of selling.
The sales enablement solution category has exploded in popularity over the past 5 years and continues to exponentially grow as more organizations adopt the technology, and invest more spending, with some experts forecasting the appetite for sales enablement software surpassing $5 billion over the next three years.
If market demand for SE software is an accurate indication, there’s lots of interest and different definitions of exactly what sales enablement software is and what it can do for you. So, if you’re a sales manager, purchaser, actual user, or just starting to come up to speed on the products and purveyors of this exciting technology, we’d like to offer you a quick look at how we at Bigtincan, together with several of our industry friends size up and define this rapidly growing market. Read away, and you decide, what’s your definition?
We believe in smarter selling. Simply put, Sales Enablement Automation increases sales and service team success by helping them improve training, meeting preparation, customer engagement, and collaboration with peers. The result is shorter sales cycles, higher win rates, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty – and improved business results. Period. You can learn more about how Bigtincan Hub platform helps manage your sales assets and improves sales productivity by visiting our Platform and Solutions pages.
The Sales Enablement society (SES) has accomplished much in helping define this category and explains “SE ensures buyers are engaged at the right time and place, and with the right assets by well-trained client-facing staff to provide a world-class experience along the customer’s journey. They add “while utilizing the right sales and performance management technologies, in addition to synergizing cross-organization collaboration, Sales Enablement optimizes the selling motion in order to increase pipeline, move opportunities forward and win bigger deals more efficiently to drive profitable growth.” Well stated.
Gartner is a leading industry analyst firm that defines sales enablement as Digital Content Management for Sales. According to Gartner, “DCMS applications encompass repositories, authoring tools, collaborative environments, and interfaces for publishing, versioning and presenting content, to help salespeople (both direct and indirect) efficiently and effectively develop and close business. These applications improve the delivery of internal- and external-facing content to salespeople, or improve engagement with prospects and clients, and increase win rates, deal velocity and deal sizes.”
SiriusDecisions is an industry advisory firm that focuses on helping product marketers and sales leaders increase performance. Their definition states “Sales asset management (SAM) solutions address the needs of content consumers and creators by organizing, delivering and tracking internal and external sales content. An effective SAM offering supports sales enablement efforts to ensure sales reps have the best content at the right time to maximize the effectiveness of buyer interactions.”
According to Aragon, “Some sales enablement providers are now offering a complete digital selling platform—called a Sales Engagement Platform (SEP). SEPs streamline and condense digital selling tools to make it easier for sales teams to generate leads, engage with prospects, and support their customers.”
Forrester’s definition is strategic and speaks directly to how organizations can benefit from SE technologies: “Sales Enablement Automation systems are all about becoming buyer-obsessed: meeting the buyer where they are in the sales process and ensuring that sellers understand and cater to their buyers’ needs. The future will focus on marrying buyer obsession and sales productivity to ensure that sellers are not only effective, but efficient as well.” According to Forrester the three critical SEA capabilities include user experience, integration, and prescriptive content, respectively.
The experts have spoken. And while your organization might have or require your own definition of what sales enablement is and what it can do for you, the sheer growth and expansion of this software category is proof positive that SE Automation technology is helping sales people win more and be more productive on a daily basis.
So, how will you define Sales Enablement?
