The Next-Generation Sales
Operations Team –
Companion Presentation
[The Next-Generation Sales Operations Team
(IDC#224122, July 2010)]
Michael Gerard
Program VP
IDC Sales Advisory Service
www.idc.com/salesadvisory v2
For Internal Use Only. Not for
Copyright 2010 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved. Distribution without IDC Permission.

Sales Operations as a Driving Force
of Change
Customers Technology Vendors
“The pace of
“My technology vendors change is speeding
do not understand my up” [Sales Exec.]
business” [CIO]
“Our customers are
more knowledgeable
before our first “I am unable to leverage
meetings than ever what my organization
before.” [Sales Ops] has to offer me”
[Sales Rep]
Sales Operations needs to be the driving force for
productivity improvements across sales, setting its vision
for the future and maintaining the path towards this vision.
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Mapping the Transition to the Next
Generation Sales Operations Team
Current Sales Operations The Next Generation Sales
Function Operations Team
• Tactically focused • Strategic driver for sales‟
• High decentralized, with poor executives
alignment within sales and • Center of Excellence structure
with other areas • Process engineering and change
• Limited involvement across management expertise, leveraging
IDC‟s Sales Productivity industry best practices
Levers • Managing or governing
• Mired in traditional CRM improvement across IDC‟s Sales
technology and redundant Productivity Levers
systems • Fluent in the use and leverage of
• Unable to directly or indirectly next generation sales automation
measure performance • An expert in sales performance
measurement
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Sales Operations Organizational
Strategies - Agenda
 Clarifying Terminology
 Study Objectives and Methodology
 Current State Analysis, Challenges
 Best Practices
 IDC Essential Guidance
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Clarifying Terminology:
Sales Operations
Global and local sales staff responsible for developing and orchestrating
the processes and systems required to enable an efficient and effective
sales organization: strategic planning, financial management, sales
performance measurement, sales infrastructure, marketing and sales
alignment, and overall sales excellence.
Sales Strategy & Sales Compensation
Planning
Sales Forecasting Sales Enablement
Quote to Order
Sales Analytics
Sales Operations
Sales Automation
Infrastructure
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Sales Operations Study:
Research Objectives and Methodology
 Methodology
 Conduct executive interviews with sale operations
professionals at leading firms
 Leverage data from other IDC Sales Advisory Service research
 Participant Demographics*
 Company interviews(partial list): Amdocs, CSC, Fujitsu, HP,
Intel, Juniper, Kronos, Microsoft, MTE, Oracle, Siemens,
Sungard ($1B+ companies with complex sales processes for
large customers)
 Representative titles: VP, Global Sales Strategy &
Performance; Dir. Strategy and Planning, WW Enterprise
Business Operations; Dir. of Sales Model Design
*This study also includes insight from attendees at IDC’s May 2010 Sales Leadership Board
meeting where initial results of this research were first presented.
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What‟s the Mission of your Sales
Operations Team?
Optimize the sales organization‟s
productivity
“Allow sales management to focus solely
on revenue-generating activities”
Drive process improvement
Own the quote to order process
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Sales Operations Challenges
 Identifying the roles and responsibilities of sales operations: strategic
and tactical
 Too many sales operations folks in the regions are doing too many tactical activities
 Collaboration with other teams (e.g., marketing, finance)
 “Do we have the right skill-sets across sales operations to be more strategic?”
 Managing Change
 Reorganization of the sales force
 Gaining credibility and buy-in from sales management
 Identifying the greatest opportunities for improvement (“low hanging
fruit”)
 Lack of Focus
 Poor process (and technology) adoption
 Optimizing Sales reps time
 Performance measurement of sales operations
 “Budget money keeps coming in without any formal assessments.”
 “How has sales operations impacted our business?”
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Sales Operations Best Practices
 Global Sales Operations Functions as a Center of Excellence (COE)
 A global sales operations team is responsible for establishing and governing best
practice processes and infrastructure (top down support)
 Regions are empowered to execute locally - they have a sales operations function
for localized activities
 Strong Alignment Between Global and Local SO Teams
 Common reporting hierarchy: “We all report to the same boss.”
 Common functional structure: “Each functional group has steering committees.”
 Clearly established communication and interaction points
 Sales Operations Sets Priority Objectives, Initiatives: evaluate current state
vs. best-in-class, identify key gaps in sales‟ productivity, develop and
prioritize initiatives
 “We have a „war room‟ run by SO to track key issues across the world. . key sales
execs are on a weekly call to highlight and discuss these issues and reps can
create a „case‟ in our SFA.”
 “I run weekly staff calls for the sales executive team.”
 “Sales operations provides channels for sales reps to escalate key productivity-
related problems.”
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IDC Sales Operations Maturity Matrix
Operational
Excellence
• Lack of global alignment • Good executive support
• Inability to execute • High level of productivity
• Agile sales organization
Role of Sales
process improvements
Operations
• Market forces will drive
change
• Struggling to build credibility • Good executive support
• High level of redundancy • Improvement needed across
• Inability to focus on longer- SO staff and structure
term initiatives • Need better SO processes
Tactically
Focused
Decentralized Global Sales Operations Global Sales Operations
Forming, SO in Regions, as a Center of
BUs Operate in Silos Excellence
Level of Centralization
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Sales Operations Best Practices
• Directly impact sales reps to improve productivity and increase SO visibility
• “We are working with sales management including FLSMs to develop a gap/skills assessment process for
reps improve their training and overall productivity.”
• “We‟ve established a shared services model for some of our sales operations processes – e.g., order
management and pricing.”
• Preparing for customer interactions
• Sales Enablement as a High Priority
• “We have a dedicated team focused on sales enablement within sales operations.”
• “Sales playbooks have made our selling efforts more prescriptive . . . . Reps spend more time asking the
right questions of prospects.”
• Customer Intelligence as a High Priority
• “We‟ve significantly increased productivity with our new CI solution: what used to take five days, speaking
to 3 different people now takes under five minutes.”
• “All information can now be accessed through one system – our SFA.”
• “Our reps can now spend time on deals and in front of customers, and less time constructing a
transaction.”
• Collaboration with Marketing
 Clear identification of points of process overlap (e.g., lead management, sales enablement)
 Inclusion of marketing in more tactical sales operations activities: “Our sales operations team meets with the
CMO and marketing operations teams at least weekly.”
• Integration with Marketing Automation – e.g., marketing and sales‟ pipelines
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Sales Operations Organizational
Structures: Center of Excellence Model
Global Head of Sales Regional VP Sales
VP Global Sales Regional Sales
Operations Operations Teams
Strategy &
Planning
Analytics
Forecasting Local
Sales Execution of
Finance, Compensation Global
HR Practices
Sales
Marketing Enablement
RFPs, Pricing
& Order Mgmt.
Sales
Automation
Mission: Process & Mission: Local Execution and
Technology Infrastructure Collaboration with Global Ops
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Sales Operations Performance
Measurement
 “Our performance is based upon how much we improve the „productivity‟
of the sales force.”
 Quantitative Metrics
 Financial metrics (revenue (quota attainment, cross-sell/up-sell), profitability, cost of
sales)
 Pipeline metrics (% aging)
 Order Management: quality holds (e.g., reduce the number of delayed orders – revenue
recognition, human error, configuration error)
 Forecast accuracy
 Other: Return of time to sales: “Our goal is to give the reps back 4 to 5 hours per week.”;
% up-time for sales applications as well as other SLA-related metrics
• Qualitative Feedback
 “Productivity has increased with deployment of CI tools – allowing sales reps to easily
find data they need, and freeing up the fields ops support people who were gathering the
data for them.”
 “Productivity in the sales area is measured on fulfillment of roles and responsibilities to
allow other team members to function efficiently in their assigned areas.”
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Sales Operations Experience
 Varied backgrounds: sales, sales operations, marketing, finance
 Cross-functional experience: “Allows managers to understand the
different challenges that can arise and have a large pool of experience to
draw on to resolve challenges.”
 Sales Automation: “Sales technology and training skills have increased in
importance.”
 Communication: “Being able to train and communicate clearly on
applications, processes, and the strategic vision is key.”
 Diplomacy in working with sales folks: “We need to work with people who
think they're a gift to the organization and in some cases a gift to the
world“.
 Consulting skill-sets: “Experience with business process management
and project management is mandatory to elevate the role and impact of
sales operations.”
 Global experience: Experienced with different types of selling models and
cultures across the world as well as. “Improved ability to empathize with
the regions.”
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IDC Guidance for the Sales Operations
Function
 Sales operations must provide greater strategic insight and impact
 SO initiatives must have greater impact in a shorter amount of time
(i.e., short-term achievements in parallel with long-term initiatives)
 Process consistency and technology adoption: More consistent
adoption and leverage of processes and sales automation, allowing
for regional nuances
 Improved ability to foresee future challenges and improve
organizational agility (e.g., acquisitions, shifting coverage models,
greater reliance on the channel)
 Greater rigor in sales performance measurement will help SO and the
sales organization as a whole (e.g., drive dashboard development)
Sales Operations needs to be the driving force for
productivity improvements across sales, setting its vision
for the future and maintaining the path towards this vision.
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Contact Information
Michael Gerard
Program VP
Sales Advisory Practice
mgerard@idc.com
Phone: 508-988-6758
Irina Zvagelsky
Research Analyst
Sales Advisory Practice
izvagelsky@idc.com
Phone: 508-988-6916
www.idc.com/salesadvisory
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