By: David Johnston, President, Surgesoft

The concept of Sales 2.0 being the future of selling is fraught with a number of unresolved issues and tenets that while not nullifying its influence, certainly add caveats to the claim. To quote Selling Power magazine, Sales 2.0 will bring "productivity-enhancing technologies that transform selling from an art to a science". In no way do I deny the positive impact that customer-focused technologies will have on the selling process, I do believe that their adoption and ability to influence buying decisions will take time and require structural changes in the relationships between buyers and sellers.

In particular, the current "gate-keeping" accountability of many procurement departments are limiting the potential for Sales 2.0 to accelerate, collaborate or align the buying/selling processes. While it might reduce time to respond to requests or produce quotes, the rendering of even small to medium corporate purchases into the RFP process will reduce the efficiency of the sales effort and continue to increase the sales cycle.

Technology is, and will continue to have, a dramatic impact on the sales environment. It must however be an enabler for performing salespeople with good sales management and strong customer relationships. Providing only a software solution without the infrastructure support of the selling organization, willing and engaged customers and sales processes that facilitate the use of the technology will not result in sustained performance improvement. I welcome your thoughts.

The phrase, 'Garbage in... Garbage Out' is often used to describe the problems associated with poor data quality in systems applications. Nowhere is this more applicable than in Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) and Sales Performance Management (SPM) SaaS applications. Most often, the data used in these applications is pulled from different legacy systems (e.g.: Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), Financial, Order Entry, ERP). The trouble is that these systems have been developed over the years to address different and specific needs for the organization, and usually not for sales. Therefore, when you attempt to integrate the data from these disparate systems you find that it doesn't always align nicely the way that you would like it. This why a SaaS application is so beneficial in addressing the incentive/performance needs of the sales organization.

The flexibility that is associated with SaaS is crucial. Having the ability to populate the transaction tables through either some type of middleware or using look-up tables to modify or add required formatting to the transaction allows greater consistency in the data. Further, loading data directly from the legacy systems without any data entry or 'cutting and pasting' of spreadsheets, reduces the potential for errors or omissions.

The configuration of the system in this regard is essential to the tracking and analysis that enables better decision-making and accuracy in payouts. Configuration requires not only knowledge of the application, but also the understanding of sales compensation and sales operations. It is very important to customers that the requirements and design of the system are addressed precisely and completely. Otherwise - and this is where a lot of implementations go awry - the post implementation changes and costs become astronomical. Be careful when third party implementations are undertaken, as the customer sales plans and processes, and education and understanding of the sales environment for two different groups (the contracted consultants and the software designers), will often result in the customer spending a lot of time and money on revisions and system modifications.