Leveraging Technology for Sales Enablement - Industry Dynamics Undergoing a Change

Date:   Thursday , January 12, 2017

Headquartered in Noida, Denave is a global sales enablement company focused on driving revenue growth for its customers, which they proved through 17 years and over four billion dollars in revenue contribution to clients.

Since the dawn of time, human beings have developed innovative tools to assist them in pursuit of their personal or professional goals. This has resulted in large technology shifts creating a new set of socio-economic society each time. For example, the industrial revolution brought changes in the manufacturing segment replacing human beings with industrial scale machines, in the 80s and 90s, the world again went through a disruption owing to the descend of the tribe of software visionaries. Technology has indeed revolutionized the way the industry functions. Today, technological advances are rapidly automating most of the manual work whether proletarian jobs, through robotics and IoT, or managerial work, through artificial intelligence.

The story is no different for the sales industry where the advent of technology has spelt an era of evolution and led to the emergence of smart-selling practices. The emergence of sales enablement as a pivotal cog in the engine of sales and marketing is validation of the exponential development which has taken place in due course of time. Be it prospect analysis, or customer database expansion or even customer acquisition, technology has enabled the sales function in an all-rounded manner. Sales enablement practices backed by technology have led to the genesis of several new customer touch points and therefore, the opportunity to increase the size of overall customer pie. Let\'s peek into couple of technological advancements which have energized the sales industry in totality.

Prospective Customer Database

Knowledge of target audience and potential market space is crucial for sales program of any scale. A well-consolidated database ensures that the enterprise outreach is not only defined but also augmented in due course of time. With technological intervention, concepts like Whitespace database discovery have made it possible to identify and reach out to newer set of untapped audience. This whitespace DB discovery has in-turn resulted in increased sales conversion and greater sales impact. The growing trend of big data or analytics is also largely dependent upon the richness of the database and the insights that are driven out of them.

Analytics

A key driver for sales enablement that is still evolving and progressing with gigantic steps is analytics. Concepts like data modeling, big data management etc. have been paramount in giving a new context to the functions of sales and marketing. With utilities such as trend mapping against historical as well as fresh set of data, with analytics and insights, today the marketers are able to comprehend the industry scenario even before the actual results pour in. This allows intelligent strategizing with less manual inputs. The effect can be summed up as that of an overall revenue enhancer since applied analytics boosts the efficiency of the sales team by reducing non-productive efforts and channelizing available time and energy in generating a successful deal.

Digital Marketing Platform

There is no denying the fact that we are living in an age of customization and automation. Be it advanced database extraction techniques, customized response generation basis the analysis or even automated dissemination of that response, digital marketing has indeed caused a disruption in the sales industry. Also, with social media getting embedded into all critical sales strategies, it has become easier for sales professionals to pitch their solutions to the prospects while aligning with their buying behavior. Provision of this kind of mapping has in-turn led to the emanation of contextual marketing which has redefined the way products are sold and deals are closed.

Localization of Speech Recognition

India is a land of diversity and the same is reflected in the widespread demography - 22 major languages, 13 different scripts and 720 dialects. Since timely reporting, as well as, accurate flow of feedback is one of the most critical ingredients of sales function, this diversity often presents a persistent handicap to the sales engine. Localized speech recognition technology will reduce the language barriers and other information transfer challenges. It will take away the need to type, compulsion to own high-end phones or any other unforeseen challenge such as lack of writing capabilities, literacy level etc. By localizing speech recognition, a very important and crucial part of sales cycle can be taken care of in a smooth manner.

Artificial Intelligence

Amalgamation of artificial intelligence in the sales enablement processes has opened a Pandora\'s box of limitless possibilities in revolutionizing the entire industry. It has led to a significant truncation of human labor and thus the rate of error estimate has also shrunk, thereby enabling more streamlined sales processes. It will not be incorrect to say that the foray of artificial intelligence has indeed given a new dimension to an otherwise primarily human capacity dependent world of sales.

Finally,

Identifying the current trends, suggesting opportunities for adaptation, analyzing the trade-offs and then adopting the changes faster than ever before - all these and more aspects have become possible because organizations have started leveraging technology while replacing manual labor, instinct followership, hit-and-trial methods and many other error-prone processes. The upsurge of new and advanced technological platforms has certainly reinvented the way businesses run in the industry.