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White Paper on Improving
Sales Intelligence
December 2013
WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013
2
© 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Overview	3
Evaluation methodology of the vendors	 3
Vendor evaluation parameters	 4
Implementation best practices	 5
Benefits	6
Conclusion	7
About the Authors	 7
About HCL	 8
WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013
3
© 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.
OVERVIEW
“Better to arrive late and ready, than early and unprepared”
Successful sales professionals realize the importance of “know before
you go” across all sales scenarios including cold calling, solution/ product
demonstrations, meetings and negotiations.
Business Situation
The focus of most successful sellers has shifted from receiving basic
information about companies and people, to accessing the track record
and gaining a perspective on the business prospects of organizations in
real-time.
Sales Intelligence refers to the information, which helps sales
professionals understand their prospects/ customers better, customize
their conversations as per situation, and demonstrate understanding of
the business context.
EVALUATION METHODOLOGY OF THE VENDORS
A number of vendors (Hoovers, OneSource, Inside view, Data.com)
provide Sales Intelligence. Therefore, it is important to conduct an
objective evaluation using the following approach before finalizing on
a vendor:
•	 Define the business problem & the business case: It is important
to define the business problem which may be lengthening sales cycles
due to unavailability of accurate information on prospects. Similarly,
declining bookings may be due to poor insight into the business
needs of the prospects or it may be attributable to lack of competitor
information.
•	 Short list vendors using industry research/ analysts such as
Gartner’s magic quadrant: Vendors fall into two categories: one set
of vendors are data providers and the other set are process integrated
data providers providing customized data as per the sales processes.
Therefore, it is important to short list vendors according to the
business need.
•	 Objective evaluation of vendors against defined parameters:
(Details are mentioned in the “Vendor evaluation parameters”
section.)
•	 Involve users in vendor evaluation by giving trail licenses: Involve
power users who will run different use cases and help in checking the
accuracy of data provided by the vendors.
•	 Optimize the sales intelligence platform across the organization:
In a large enterprise, teams may be using different Sales Intelligence
systems; consequently, it important to consolidate these databases
and systems to improve efficiency and reduce cost.
Objective evaluations of vendors against defined parameters:
According to a study conducted by the Aberdeen Group, competitor
and customer intelligence, and company hierarchies are important Sales
Intelligence parameters. Refer Figure 1.
WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013
4
© 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.
40%
38% 38%
36%
34%
26%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Competiive
Intelligence
Customer
Intelligence
Company
Hierarchy
Basic
Company
Information
Basic
"Business
Card"
Information
Trigger
Events
All Companies
Percentageofrespondents
n = 215Source: Aberdeen Group, April 2012
Figure 1: Important Sales Intelligence parameters
By assigning scores to the parameters given in the worksheet below, a
cumulative score can be arrived at and this can be used for objective
evaluation of vendors.
VENDOR EVALUATION PARAMETERS
Vendor Vendor 1 Vendor 2
Parameter 1category = Prospect & Contact Overview
Parameter Weightage High 
Company Insights Newsfeed    
Contact Insights Newsfeed    
F500 tag/ G2000 Tag    
Live Updates    
Financial Analysis    
SWOT Analysis    
Latest Industry Activity    
Parameter 2 category = Prospect &Contact Deep Insights
Parameter Weightage Medium 
New Offerings    
Acquisitions    
Partnerships    
Expanding Operations    
Fillings    
Company Data Changes ( Profit, Asset, Revenue)    
Funding Developments    
Bankruptcy & Restructuring    
Social Insights    
Exec in News Insights    
WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013
5
© 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.
Parameter 3 category = Integration/Automation Details
Parameter Weightage High
Native CRM Integration    
Integration with Account Module    
Integration with Lead Module    
Integration with Contact Module    
Integration with Opportunity Module    
Automatic Watchlists (email notification on
specific account events)
   
Import Contacts    
Import Accounts    
Prospect List Creation    
Key facts
•	 85% best-in-class companies use external social intelligence
•	 75% deploy a sales-focused, centralized repository of account, contact
and opportunity information.
IMPLEMENTATION BEST PRACTICES
•	 Integration with Sales Force automation platform: Sales
Intelligence should be integrated with Sales Force automation
platform/ CRM because, the data is enriched with information
such as Company summary, Financial statement, Analyst report, IT
profile, Corporate family, Industry report, Competitor report, New
offerings, Acquisitions, Partnerships, Expanding operations, Fillings,
Latest industry activity, Competitors Peer’s analysis from external
sources. This will reduce the time spent on searching for information
from various sources and help sales professionals prepare for meetings
by providing a 360-degree view of accounts and contacts.
•	 Implementation timelines: Most of the database services are Cloud-
based, and hence providers require 1-2 weeks for implementation.
•	 Integration with sales processes: In order to promote Sales
Intelligence usage, it is important to ensure that the account manager
extracts the information and uses it for opportunity qualification and
to enrich account/ contact information.
•	 Automated data flow to CRM: Most CRM’s have the capability
to create accounts/ contacts automatically and data vendors should
enable this feature to improve the productivity of sales professionals.
•	 Selection of power users: Sales Intelligence enablement involves
investments. Therefore, it is important to identify and provide access
to high performing sales professionals.Organization wide rollout
can be considered once access is enabled for power users and ROI is
realized.
•	 Executive sponsorship: Strong support from the leadership is
required for users to adopt the change.
WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013
6
© 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.
•	 Change management: Leverage targeted user awareness campaigns
using multiple communications, and end user training, to make sales
professionals realize the value of Sales Intelligence.
BENEFITS
Some of the major benefits realized through a Sales Intelligence system
are:
•	 Enriches quality of leads available in the pipeline, which increases the
volume of opportunities
•	 Increases sales velocity as sales professionals are well equipped to meet
specific business challenges of prospects
•	 Enriches the value of the opportunity by keeping sales professionals
updated on crucial metrics such as customer behavior, competitor
activity and booking pattern
•	 Improves efficiency of sales professionals by mapping products and
services to the business challenges of the prospect
•	 Enhances the effectiveness of sales professionals by enabling them to
speak intelligently about the competition and differentiators during
the sales process
One of the important benefits of Sales Intelligence is improved
productivity.Onanaverage,asalesprofessionalspends4hoursresearching
customer/ competitor data. This means 190-210 hours/ person/ year
is spent on non-productive activities. With a CRM integrated Sales
Intelligence product, a sales professional can improve his productivity
by using these hours to bring more business to an organization.
Other benefits include improving knowledge of territory/
industry/ accounts, which leads to more educated, consultative
conversations and identification of high-value prospects through trigger
events.
WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013
7
© 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.
CONCLUSION
In today’s competitive selling environment, consultative guidance
provided by sales professionals plays an important role in closing the
sale. It involves building relationships with prospects and understanding
their business context. This implies that sales professionals need to bring
all the pieces of the sales puzzle together, including – company insights,
contact details, hierarchies, open opportunities, current events, mergers,
and new product launches. However, this meant that sales professionals
had to spend more time on researching and gathering information from
multiple sources and less time meeting prospects.
Consequently, winning organizations have realized the value of
integrating Sales Intelligence with an internal CRM system. This is
an ideal and efficient way for sales professionals to gain deep insights,
aggregate accurate information, receive real-time updates and enable
them to spend more time on selling, than on searching and surfing
the web.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Apurva Chamaria is a part of VineetNayar’s—Vice Chairman,
HCL Technologies —office, and heads DFO (Digital Front Office), &
Brand. He specializes in Business Strategy, Sales and Marketing Strategy
& Operations, Account Management and Client Servicing, Brand
Management & Integrated Marketing Communications. He can be
reached at apurvachamaria@hcl.com
Gaurav Kakkar is a part of the HCL Corporate Marketing team and
leads the Sales & Marketing process excellence team. He specializes
in designing Sales & Marketing processes and getting those enabled
through systems, His other areas of interest are CRM platforms,
Change management & Product management. He can be reached at
gaurav.kakkar@hcl.com
WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013
8
© 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved.
ABOUT HCL
About HCL Technologies
HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company working
with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their
businesses. Since its emergence on global landscape after its IPO in
1999, HCL has focused on ‘transformational outsourcing’, underlined
by innovation and value creation, offering an integrated portfolio of
services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure
management, engineering and R&D services and Business services.
HCL leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and network
of offices in 31 countries to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in
key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing,
Consumer Services, Public Services and Healthcare & Life sciences.
HCL takes pride in its philosophy of ‘Employees First, Customers
Second’ which empowers its 87,196 transformers to create real value
for the customers. HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries,
had consolidated revenues of US$ 4.8 billion, as on September
30th 2013 (on LTM basis). For more information, please visit
www.hcltech.com
About HCL Enterprise
HCL is a $6.3 billion leading global technology and IT enterprise
comprising two companies listed in India – HCL Technologies and
HCL Infosystems. Founded in 1976, HCL is one of India’s original
IT garage start-ups. A pioneer of modern computing, HCL is a global
transformational enterprise today. Its range of offerings includes product
engineering, custom & package applications, BPO, IT infrastructure
services, IT hardware, systems integration, and distribution of
information and communications technology (ICT) products across
a wide range of focused industry verticals. The HCL team consists of
over 90,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, who operate from
31 countries including over 500 points of presence in India. HCL has
partnerships with several leading global 1000 firms, including leading IT
and technology firms. For more information, please visit www.hcl.com

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Improving sales intelligence

  • 1. White Paper on Improving Sales Intelligence December 2013
  • 2. WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013 2 © 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved. CONTENTS Overview 3 Evaluation methodology of the vendors 3 Vendor evaluation parameters 4 Implementation best practices 5 Benefits 6 Conclusion 7 About the Authors 7 About HCL 8
  • 3. WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013 3 © 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved. OVERVIEW “Better to arrive late and ready, than early and unprepared” Successful sales professionals realize the importance of “know before you go” across all sales scenarios including cold calling, solution/ product demonstrations, meetings and negotiations. Business Situation The focus of most successful sellers has shifted from receiving basic information about companies and people, to accessing the track record and gaining a perspective on the business prospects of organizations in real-time. Sales Intelligence refers to the information, which helps sales professionals understand their prospects/ customers better, customize their conversations as per situation, and demonstrate understanding of the business context. EVALUATION METHODOLOGY OF THE VENDORS A number of vendors (Hoovers, OneSource, Inside view, Data.com) provide Sales Intelligence. Therefore, it is important to conduct an objective evaluation using the following approach before finalizing on a vendor: • Define the business problem & the business case: It is important to define the business problem which may be lengthening sales cycles due to unavailability of accurate information on prospects. Similarly, declining bookings may be due to poor insight into the business needs of the prospects or it may be attributable to lack of competitor information. • Short list vendors using industry research/ analysts such as Gartner’s magic quadrant: Vendors fall into two categories: one set of vendors are data providers and the other set are process integrated data providers providing customized data as per the sales processes. Therefore, it is important to short list vendors according to the business need. • Objective evaluation of vendors against defined parameters: (Details are mentioned in the “Vendor evaluation parameters” section.) • Involve users in vendor evaluation by giving trail licenses: Involve power users who will run different use cases and help in checking the accuracy of data provided by the vendors. • Optimize the sales intelligence platform across the organization: In a large enterprise, teams may be using different Sales Intelligence systems; consequently, it important to consolidate these databases and systems to improve efficiency and reduce cost. Objective evaluations of vendors against defined parameters: According to a study conducted by the Aberdeen Group, competitor and customer intelligence, and company hierarchies are important Sales Intelligence parameters. Refer Figure 1.
  • 4. WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013 4 © 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved. 40% 38% 38% 36% 34% 26% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Competiive Intelligence Customer Intelligence Company Hierarchy Basic Company Information Basic "Business Card" Information Trigger Events All Companies Percentageofrespondents n = 215Source: Aberdeen Group, April 2012 Figure 1: Important Sales Intelligence parameters By assigning scores to the parameters given in the worksheet below, a cumulative score can be arrived at and this can be used for objective evaluation of vendors. VENDOR EVALUATION PARAMETERS Vendor Vendor 1 Vendor 2 Parameter 1category = Prospect & Contact Overview Parameter Weightage High  Company Insights Newsfeed     Contact Insights Newsfeed     F500 tag/ G2000 Tag     Live Updates     Financial Analysis     SWOT Analysis     Latest Industry Activity     Parameter 2 category = Prospect &Contact Deep Insights Parameter Weightage Medium  New Offerings     Acquisitions     Partnerships     Expanding Operations     Fillings     Company Data Changes ( Profit, Asset, Revenue)     Funding Developments     Bankruptcy & Restructuring     Social Insights     Exec in News Insights    
  • 5. WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013 5 © 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved. Parameter 3 category = Integration/Automation Details Parameter Weightage High Native CRM Integration     Integration with Account Module     Integration with Lead Module     Integration with Contact Module     Integration with Opportunity Module     Automatic Watchlists (email notification on specific account events)     Import Contacts     Import Accounts     Prospect List Creation     Key facts • 85% best-in-class companies use external social intelligence • 75% deploy a sales-focused, centralized repository of account, contact and opportunity information. IMPLEMENTATION BEST PRACTICES • Integration with Sales Force automation platform: Sales Intelligence should be integrated with Sales Force automation platform/ CRM because, the data is enriched with information such as Company summary, Financial statement, Analyst report, IT profile, Corporate family, Industry report, Competitor report, New offerings, Acquisitions, Partnerships, Expanding operations, Fillings, Latest industry activity, Competitors Peer’s analysis from external sources. This will reduce the time spent on searching for information from various sources and help sales professionals prepare for meetings by providing a 360-degree view of accounts and contacts. • Implementation timelines: Most of the database services are Cloud- based, and hence providers require 1-2 weeks for implementation. • Integration with sales processes: In order to promote Sales Intelligence usage, it is important to ensure that the account manager extracts the information and uses it for opportunity qualification and to enrich account/ contact information. • Automated data flow to CRM: Most CRM’s have the capability to create accounts/ contacts automatically and data vendors should enable this feature to improve the productivity of sales professionals. • Selection of power users: Sales Intelligence enablement involves investments. Therefore, it is important to identify and provide access to high performing sales professionals.Organization wide rollout can be considered once access is enabled for power users and ROI is realized. • Executive sponsorship: Strong support from the leadership is required for users to adopt the change.
  • 6. WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013 6 © 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved. • Change management: Leverage targeted user awareness campaigns using multiple communications, and end user training, to make sales professionals realize the value of Sales Intelligence. BENEFITS Some of the major benefits realized through a Sales Intelligence system are: • Enriches quality of leads available in the pipeline, which increases the volume of opportunities • Increases sales velocity as sales professionals are well equipped to meet specific business challenges of prospects • Enriches the value of the opportunity by keeping sales professionals updated on crucial metrics such as customer behavior, competitor activity and booking pattern • Improves efficiency of sales professionals by mapping products and services to the business challenges of the prospect • Enhances the effectiveness of sales professionals by enabling them to speak intelligently about the competition and differentiators during the sales process One of the important benefits of Sales Intelligence is improved productivity.Onanaverage,asalesprofessionalspends4hoursresearching customer/ competitor data. This means 190-210 hours/ person/ year is spent on non-productive activities. With a CRM integrated Sales Intelligence product, a sales professional can improve his productivity by using these hours to bring more business to an organization. Other benefits include improving knowledge of territory/ industry/ accounts, which leads to more educated, consultative conversations and identification of high-value prospects through trigger events.
  • 7. WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013 7 © 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved. CONCLUSION In today’s competitive selling environment, consultative guidance provided by sales professionals plays an important role in closing the sale. It involves building relationships with prospects and understanding their business context. This implies that sales professionals need to bring all the pieces of the sales puzzle together, including – company insights, contact details, hierarchies, open opportunities, current events, mergers, and new product launches. However, this meant that sales professionals had to spend more time on researching and gathering information from multiple sources and less time meeting prospects. Consequently, winning organizations have realized the value of integrating Sales Intelligence with an internal CRM system. This is an ideal and efficient way for sales professionals to gain deep insights, aggregate accurate information, receive real-time updates and enable them to spend more time on selling, than on searching and surfing the web. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Apurva Chamaria is a part of VineetNayar’s—Vice Chairman, HCL Technologies —office, and heads DFO (Digital Front Office), & Brand. He specializes in Business Strategy, Sales and Marketing Strategy & Operations, Account Management and Client Servicing, Brand Management & Integrated Marketing Communications. He can be reached at apurvachamaria@hcl.com Gaurav Kakkar is a part of the HCL Corporate Marketing team and leads the Sales & Marketing process excellence team. He specializes in designing Sales & Marketing processes and getting those enabled through systems, His other areas of interest are CRM platforms, Change management & Product management. He can be reached at gaurav.kakkar@hcl.com
  • 8. WHITE PAPER ON IMPROVING SALES INTELLIGENCE | DECEMBER 2013 8 © 2013, HCL Technologies. Reproduction Prohibited. This document is protected under Copyright by the Author, all rights reserved. ABOUT HCL About HCL Technologies HCL Technologies is a leading global IT services company working with clients in the areas that impact and redefine the core of their businesses. Since its emergence on global landscape after its IPO in 1999, HCL has focused on ‘transformational outsourcing’, underlined by innovation and value creation, offering an integrated portfolio of services including software-led IT solutions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D services and Business services. HCL leverages its extensive global offshore infrastructure and network of offices in 31 countries to provide holistic, multi-service delivery in key industry verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Consumer Services, Public Services and Healthcare & Life sciences. HCL takes pride in its philosophy of ‘Employees First, Customers Second’ which empowers its 87,196 transformers to create real value for the customers. HCL Technologies, along with its subsidiaries, had consolidated revenues of US$ 4.8 billion, as on September 30th 2013 (on LTM basis). For more information, please visit www.hcltech.com About HCL Enterprise HCL is a $6.3 billion leading global technology and IT enterprise comprising two companies listed in India – HCL Technologies and HCL Infosystems. Founded in 1976, HCL is one of India’s original IT garage start-ups. A pioneer of modern computing, HCL is a global transformational enterprise today. Its range of offerings includes product engineering, custom & package applications, BPO, IT infrastructure services, IT hardware, systems integration, and distribution of information and communications technology (ICT) products across a wide range of focused industry verticals. The HCL team consists of over 90,000 professionals of diverse nationalities, who operate from 31 countries including over 500 points of presence in India. HCL has partnerships with several leading global 1000 firms, including leading IT and technology firms. For more information, please visit www.hcl.com