Focus Research © 2009 All Rights Reserved

Focus Research

CRM Group

January 2009

Sales Force Automation Market Primer

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 2Focus Research ©2009

Our SFA Market Primer is one of several research reports based on the Foucs Research Methodology, which is

designed to support your entire SFA purchase process.

SFA Market Primer — Want to know what SFA is?

SFA Buyer’s Guide — Want help defining your requirements?

Confused about how to define SFA (Sales Force Automation)? That isn’t surprising — SFA has a few basic features and

many “extras” that differentiate various solutions. Our Sales Force Automation Market Primer is intended to provide sales

managers, sales reps and anyone else involved in the SFA-purchasing process with a fundamental understanding of SFA

software. The Market Primer serves as an introduction to our Buyer’s Guide, which helps prospective buyers work through

the purchase process.

Table of Contents

1 SFA Basics: Market definition and the top 10 things to know about SFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 3

2 Market Summary: Market trends and vendor landscape. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 5

3 Product In-Depth: Requirements, support and cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 7

4 Tools: Glossaries, checklists and vendor lanscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 15

you are here

Introduction

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 3Focus Research ©2009

Sales Force Automation Defined

SFA (Sales Force Automation) refers to a set of tools that record all the events in the sales process, as well as all

pertinent data driven by those events. Even before the first SFA products began hitting the market in the early 1980s,

this data was recognized as useful for the cultivation of individual customer relationships and, in aggregate, helpful for

determining sales trends and setting sales policies. SFA solutions automate the collection of this data and instantly

propagate it to where it is needed, eliminating much of the manual administration that would otherwise go into managing

it.

Businesses have many motivations for implementing SFA, but the most prevalent reasons are:

To make sales representatives more efficient•To provide managers with better insight into their sales staff’s activities•To provide visibility into the sales process for other parts of the business •

SFA lets sales reps collect customer data in a streamlined manner so they can access it in an organized form when —

and often where — they need it. It allows managers to understand what’s happening within their sales pipelines and to

change how resources are allocated or how sales reps are selling in near real-time. It also provides data that other teams

in the organization can use to predict the need for raw materials, services or other products, and can feed into the finance

and marketing systems to improve their effectiveness.

Prime Yourself: 10 Things to Know About SFAYou may consider yourself a sales expert, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about SFA. Until you’re actively

working with an SFA solution, you won’t fully understand the complexities involved in deploying, maintaining and profiting

from the technology. Here are 10 things that will help you appreciate what SFA is and how it can help your business.

1. SFA and CRM are not the same. SFA is a part of CRM (Customer Relationship Management), but CRM also

includes a marketing component.

2. SFA requires buy in. Getting sales reps and managers to alter the way they work is difficult. The classic issue that

diminishes SFA effectiveness is poor adoption.

3. SFA comes in many flavors. SFA solutions run the gamut from the extremely simple to the remarkably complex.

4. SFA facilitates other processes. Sales reps and other teams can use the data collected by SFA solutions

to enhance the effectiveness of BI (business intelligence), performance management, pipeline analysis and other

applications.

Basics1

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5. SFA helps sales training. Training components can be built into SFA, allowing reps to stay up-to-date on changes

and providing real-time coaching when they need it.

6. SFA can’t fix a broken sales process. SFA can streamline what you have in place. But organizing a defective

sales process will only get you the same bad results faster. SFA is not a panacea, but rather a well thought-out tool that

can help you find areas for improvement and act on them before the system is fully operational.

7. SFA’s costs go beyond the initial price tag. Be aware that licensing or subscription costs are often accompanied

by expenses for maintenance, consultants and data cleaning. SFA is not a “fire and forget” application — if it’s going to

work well, it must receive continuous attention.

8. SFA asks more of your sales reps. They’ll see the rewards, but they’ll have to get used to entering data into the

SFA system. Ultimately, that data will be hugely important, but expect some grumbling at first. Getting input from your

sales force during the buying process may mitigate some adoption pushback.

9. Company SFA decisions should be sales-based, not IT-based. While it will be important to have IT’s help in

implementation and useful to have some IT input during the buying process, the users and their unique needs should be

what drive decisions.

10. SFA leads to happier customers. By keeping data organized, your sales staff can sell to customers the way they

wish to be sold to, and you can avoid any confusion that can annoy them.

10 Things to Know about SFA

SFA is a subset of CRM.1.It requires buy in from sales reps.2.A variety of solutions are available.3.SFA facilitates other processes.4.SFA helps sales training.5.Products can’t fix a broken sales process.6.Costs can escalate.7.Your sales reps will need to be more hands-on.8.Salespeople will need to make decisions.9.SFA will help you serve your customers better. 10.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 5Focus Research ©2009

The evolution of SFA applications over the last 10 years has been rapid, but many of the basic features have remained

the same. SFA solutions must achieve some essential tasks — most notably, scheduling and contact management — and

they must do so in a dependable, easy-to-use fashion. But the rise of reliable CRM solutions and the trend toward greater

integration of back-office systems is presenting a contradictory challenge: do more in an increasingly complex computing

environment, but remain easy-to-use at the same time.

Market Evolution

SFA tools existed long before the acronym SFA came around. Early incarnations of SFA were branded as contact

managers, and they included MarketMaster, SaleSoft and the first versions of ACT!. These first applications were little

more than the computerization of the sales rep’s “little black book” and initially had extremely limited functionality. Many

of these solutions were far more contact-centric than they were opportunity-centric, hamstringing them in terms of their

usefulness in pursuing new customers.

As developers started to see the value of linking pieces of data, and as sales professionals voiced their needs, vendors

began to evolve and expand their products’ functionality. At the same time, the concept of CRM began to gain momentum,

and SFA became one of the two pillars (along with marketing automation) of CRM applications. This brought a fresh

set of ideas and renewed attention to the concept of SFA. Although first-generation CRM applications had a poor track

record for delivering results, SFA was still evolving successfully, and a group of standalone SFA applications (Prophet, the

Siebel Sales Information System, etc.) continued to flourish.

In the mid-2000s, CRM made a comeback as a concept, and with it came the on-demand delivery model. This made CRM

— and more complex and integrated forms of SFA — affordable to SMBs (small- to medium-sized businesses) for the

first time and helped propagate the modern form of SFA. That said, many SFA vendors targeting the SMB market now

find that they are competing against Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or other very rudimentary home-grown solutions.

Market Trends

The three most significant recent trends in the SFA market are:

1. The rise of on-demand: Thanks to Salesforce.com’s successful implementation — and massive marketing effort —

on-demand SFA continues to gain market share. Recent economic trends favor the growth of on-demand solutions; by

eliminating the cost barriers of on-premise systems and shifting costs from capital to operational budgets, the on-demand

model is allowing vendors to reach new, first-time SFA users.

2. The emergence of the highly productive sales department: Over the past 15 years, major productivity gains

have been made in manufacturing, finance, human resources and other business-process areas. New IT solutions have

made manufacturing more efficient; applications have streamlined accounting and human resources; and financial

2Market Summary

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 6Focus Research ©2009

software and outsourcing have reduced the cost of business accounting. Investing in these areas today means an

incremental productivity increase instead of the dramatic leaps of years past. Only in sales, which has largely escaped

productivity through automation, are major jumps in productivity still possible, making an investment in SFA attractive.

3. The breach of the adoption barrier: Early SFA solutions were developed by software professionals. As a result,

their interfaces often appeared alien to sales reps, which hurt adoption. After all, would a salesperson rather learn how

to use a cumbersome interface or get out and sell? In the past three years, companies ranging from Avidian to Microsoft

have seized the idea of an easy-to-use interface to break down adoption barriers. For instance, many SFA applications

are integrating with Microsoft Outlook; others, like Salesforce.com and Sage, are paying close attention to the welcoming

aspects of their interfaces.

Vendor Landscape

SFA Vendors can generally be broken into two groups: pure-play SFA and CRM. The pure-play vendors (most notably

Avidian, FrontRange and the mixed-model Landslide) sell products very closely aligned to what sales professionals need

and have a slightly better history of focusing on meeting those needs. After all, they don’t compromise in any way to

accommodate the integration necessary to create a CRM solution. Landslide represents a new take on SFA; targeted at

smaller users, it complements its on-demand software with on-demand services for sales reps. This level of commitment

to sales professionals is difficult to match for CRM vendors.

However, there are advantages to choosing the larger CRM-category vendors (such as Salesforce.com, Oracle, SAP, Infor

and many others). These providers offer packages designed with integration between marketing and sales functions, a

powerful feature in an era when marketing is expected to play a greater role in lead generation than ever before. They

also come more equipped for greater integration into other business processes than pure-play options in many cases.

Rather than being point solutions, they are targeted at acting as a platform on which to base numerous interrelated

applications.

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3Before you start the buying process, familiarize yourself with three areas:

1. Product: Feature definitions

2. Cost and benefits: License fees, on-demand costs and delivery models

3. Vendor: Selling, implementation and support

Product Features

SFA solutions can vary wildly in their feature sets, but there is a core set of functionality that every SFA solution

should have — otherwise it should not be considered. Advanced solutions contain many “extras” — features that some

companies may see as “must-haves,” whereas others might view as “need-to-haves.”

Not all SFA solutions will work for your company. Make sure you take into consideration your specific needs before

considering a vendor and its product. Don’t forget to take a serious look at open-source solutions, as well as your

preference of an on-demand vs. an on-premise solution.

The BasicsThere are essential features that any SFA solution should have. Cross any application off of your list if it doesn’t come

with the following features:

Activity list: This function records calls, visits, conversations, demos and other events in the sales process so that sales

reps have a complete, at-a-glance history of each customer’s interaction with his or her organization. More advanced SFA

products can integrate into service-management systems so that reps know when other people in the organization have

contacted a customer; this helps minimize the possibility of a rep being blindsided later.

Contact manager: The essence of any SFA system, the contact manager replaces the manual recording of names,

phone numbers, email addresses and basic company information. Modern SFA products, in addition to allowing reps to

enter data as they collect it, can import data from a variety of sources. The next generation of SFA tools will import data

from what are known as Web 2.0 sources — blogs, social-networking sites and other Web-based locations where people

voluntarily provide details about themselves.

Database: The behind-the-scenes engine that makes the entire SFA system work, this software allows data to be

housed in a manner that is easily accessible and can be correlated.

Product In-Depth

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Email module: This component of SFA integrates your organization’s email system into the SFA system, providing an

automatic way for data from sales-focused emails to be incorporated directly into the SFA database, the scheduling tool

and the contact manager.

Scheduling tool: Not only does this feature keep track of appointments, but it populates scheduling data. By doing so,

it also provides others in the organization with the ability to see the availability of reps and the nature of the clients with

whom they are spending time.

Advanced FeaturesAdditional functionality is built into many SFA products. The following list includes the most important and most common

of these additional features. Buyers need to weigh the usefulness of these tools when selecting a solution since they add

some complexity. If the return in productivity does not offset that complexity, then that feature may actually be a detriment.

Activity workflow management: Organizations with standardized sales processes can employ this feature to

provide step-by-step rules for their reps to guide them through the selling process, based on activities and actions by

the customer. This is not intended to lock reps into a set of behaviors, but rather to provide guidance, help standardize

successful selling practices and offer a measure of training to new reps.

What is SFA?

SFA refers to a set of tools that record all steps in the sales process, as well as all pertinent data driven by those events. The value of this data is inarguably useful for the cultivation of individual customer relationships and in determining sales trends and setting sales policies. SFA solutions automate the collection of this data and instantly propagate it to where it is needed.

The main reasons for implementing SFA are:

To make sales representatives more efficient•To provide managers with better insight into their sales staffs’ activities•To provide visibility into the sales process for other parts of the business •

The essential features of any SFA solution include:

Contact manger•Activity list•Database•

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 9Focus Research ©2009

Advanced contact management: Manually keeping track of buyers moving from company to company is very difficult.

If the process is tied to the email system — and in more advanced products, social media data — advanced contact

management updates contacts quickly. By helping identify the replacement for a buyer at a customer company, this tool

helps preserve accounts.

Automated lead capture: This tool automates the importation of data from forms on your organization’s Web site

directly into the SFA system.

Automated quote generation: A useful complement to mobility, this feature ties into back-office applications

to quickly generate quotes using the most current pricing, discount and delivery data. It allows sales reps to provide

preliminary quotes on the spot in front of the customer, eliminating the need to return to the office and call the prospect

to close the deal later.

Contract manager: This feature tracks and maintains contract information for licensing or services as an integrated

part of the customer-management system. Some advanced forms of contract management allow customers to

electronically sign contracts and offer visibility into the process of delivering a contract to a client, potentially revealing

problems in the sales cycle.

Customer profitability analysis: This tool uses data from the SFA solution to help identify customers that provide

the greatest margin — and the ones who bring in the least — so that sales assets can be more strategically employed.

The tool can be useful in identifying growing customers who are showing large increases in profits and determine how to

allocate resources to help support those customers over time.

Integration with call-center software: Although many view it as something separate from the sales process, the

call center is increasingly being used to up-sell and cross-sell new products and services to the customer. This sales

scenario makes it important for call-center agents to have access to SFA data. It’s also extremely important in inside sales

scenarios, and it provides reps with an idea of a customer’s history with the call center and the organization’s service staff.

Mobility: Many SFA solutions now include mobile capabilities. At its core, this feature lets reps in the field access their

organization’s SFA data, either in its entirety or as a partial set cached on the handheld device (or a combination of the

two approaches). Many vendors develop mobile capabilities for specific platforms, like the RIM BlackBerry or the Apple

iPhone; others support multiple platforms; still others use third-party software to apply a mobile layer to their solutions.

There are few standards for SFA mobility, and different vendors are pursuing it in different ways.

Order management: By tracking the status of orders through manufacture, fulfillment and delivery, order management

prevents sales reps from being blindsided if customers are experiencing delivery issues. It also helps sales reps avoid

promising more than their companies can deliver.

Prospect manager: Since a company’s Web site is the source of many of its leads, and because marketing automation

permits the collection of large volumes of new leads, transferring this data from marketing to sales can be laborious. This

feature lets sales managers assign leads automatically to reps on the basis of preset rules and policies based on the

nature of the lead and its source, as well as the and degree of experience of the sales rep.

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Sales performance management: By automating the commission, bonus and salary processes for sales reps, this

application provides a way to motivate desirable selling behaviors and build better sales programs. It also removes the

hassle of monitoring bonuses, spiffs, contests and other incentives that are often difficult to monitor. Finally, the tool

provides sales reps with visibility into their own compensation and helps them monitor their personal goals.

Sales pipeline analysis: Essentially, an extension of the technology of business intelligence, this feature uses the

data in the SFA system and applies statistical analysis to give a real-time view of the sales pipeline. By using them, sales

managers can better understand not just how much potential revenue is in the sales pipeline, but at what stage of the

sales cycles each sale is. This, in turn, can help managers shift resources, spot areas for increased training and improve

forecasting.

Sales training solutions: Although traditional classroom sales training is a regular requirement for many sales

professionals, this technology provides a refresher — or exposure to new policies, ideas and techniques — as a rep is

using the SFA system. It does so through screen pop-ups or other interactive features, and it delivers the training without

taking reps away from the job of selling. Next-generation sales training tools can detect events automatically and pop up

boxes with tips to help in the precise circumstances the rep is facing, and can analyze sales activities to provide reps with

training customized to the areas in which they’ve demonstrated a need for improvement.

Social-networking features: Next-generation SFA tools include the ability to tap into social-networking sources and

import the critical data back into the SFA system. These sources include blogs, social-networking sites, user communities

and microblogging sites. Although at first the data on these sources may seem trivial, it can be used to track lead behavior

and enhance your profiles of existing and potential customers.

Territory management: Another process that’s been largely manual, territory management was ripe for automation.

Although a number of vendors provide territory-management applications that integrate with SFA solutions, several SFA

vendors have started adding some capability into their core products. These features allow managers to adjust territories,

reassign assets and track sales trends across geographic regions.

On-Premise vs. On-Demand SolutionsWhile many view these two delivery models in the context of cost, there are issues concerning their use and deployment

that should be factored into your decision-making process. On-demand solutions — also known as SaaS (Software as a

Service) and delivered over the Internet — are easier to deploy; IT and infrastructure demands are far fewer than with an

on-premise solution; and the vendor handles backups, software upgrades, removing that burden from your organization.

The downside is that on-demand solutions tend to be far less flexible when it comes to customization, so if your

circumstances demand multiple custom features, your ability to use an on-demand solution may be severely limited.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 11Focus Research ©2009

Open SourceOpen-source SFA solutions, written using “open” code bases (as opposed to proprietary code), are beneficial for

economic reasons. In general, they are less expensive than proprietary software. However, to get the most out of these

solutions, a degree of customization is almost always required. If a company has IT skills to do this in-house, or has a

third-party partner who can provide such services, the open-source option offers the ability to craft a solution tailored to

its specific needs with a reduced up-front cost and greater agility than the company would find with typical on-demand

offerings.

Costs

Businesses of every size buy SFA solutions once their selling conditions require them to manage more data than is

practicable to manage manually.

Who BuysThe decision makers most often involved in determining which SFA solution is best for a company are:

Vice presidents of sales•Sales managers•CIOs•

Why Businesses BuySFA is the solution for several major issues that affect sales organizations as they scale their sales operations. These include:

1. The basic sales data needed for reps to close deals becomes difficult to handle through traditional manual means as their

customer loads increase.

2. Sales managers need to be able to shift resources, change programs or alter sales tactics more rapidly. SFA provides

metrics to evaluate past efforts and make appropriate changes.

3. Other parts of organizations can sometimes make use of the data generated by SFA (most notably, marketing,

manufacturing and finance). In the case of the marketing department, the customer information generated with SFA can be

used to cultivate more and better leads, providing a second major benefit to sales reps.

The overarching business benefit of SFA is that it enables fewer sales reps and sales managers to deliver more results. It

makes them more productive because it eliminates manual data-management tasks, reminds reps of what they need to

do and provides a basis for ready analysis of sales data.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 12Focus Research ©2009

What They’re Willing to PayAlthough it can deliver ROI quickly, SFA is not inexpensive. On-demand SFA solutions carry a price tag of about $75 per

user per month, whereas on-premise software licenses can require an up-front payment of more than $1,500 per seat.

For instance, Sage’s CRM 6.1 SaaS solution costs $69 per seat per month, whereas Infor’s Epiphany on-premise solution

will run you $25,000 for 15 seats. The dramatic difference in price tags is in part because of the two distinct ways in

which SFA is delivered.

A conservative estimate of the implementation costs for integration, customization and configuration can amount to 300

percent of the initial costs. Even on-premise SFA solutions carry an ongoing license-fee cost.

On-Premise Software CostsTraditional software is described as “on-premise” because the user company owns and houses it, along with its operating

environment. The software carries a one-time up-front cost, plus an annual licensing fee (typically, 22 percent of the base

price). The user company also has to have an operating environment containing the hardware needed to run the solution

and the on-site staff to maintain the software, install updates, handle security and address any bugs that may arise. The

host company also must provide its own backup solution, its own storage and its own disaster-recovery solution.

One major benefit of on-premise software is that it can be customized more easily than on-demand software. Because

it resides in-house, it can be tailored to the organization’s unique needs, and updates can be made with those

customizations in mind.

From an economic point of view, an on-premise solution is a large one-time investment with an annual outlay for licenses,

hardware and staff. The money typically comes from a company’s capital expenses, making it a more difficult sell during

tough economic times. However, many businesses favor this approach because of perceived benefits in data security.

Over time, if the costs of labor and hardware can be managed, it can be a less expensive option than “hosted” software.

Hosted/SaaS Solution CostsHosted software, sometimes referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service), is delivered via the Internet on a subscription

basis. The terms of these arrangements may be month-to-month or in the form of a contract that can span as many as

two years. In this model, the technical aspects of the software — the computing environment, data storage, IT staffing,

security, backup and recovery and software updates — are all handled by the vendor. This also means that, typically,

getting an on-demand SFA solution up and running takes far less time; because the implementation is essentially similar

to those of other customers, all that’s needed is to integrate some data, assign passwords and start working.

Since the money for a hosted solution typically comes out of the operating budget, a hosted solution may be an easier

sell during tough economic times. For smaller organizations, eliminating the need for IT staff, computing space, hardware

and associated resources may be critical to the adoption of an SFA solution.

The downside of the hosted model is that, in general, hosted SFA is much more difficult to customize than on-premise

software. Hosted solutions can be provided primarily because, from the vendor’s point of view, they are multiple instances

of the same software. Not only would extensive customization be difficult to do in many cases, but it could also upset the

vendor’s economic model. Thus, customization is typically kept to a minimum in on-demand deployments.

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From a pure cost point of view, on-demand solutions start out less expensive than on-premise solutions, but over time

the monthly payments can add up to more than those of an on-premise solution. Researchers place this time frame at

between two and three years. However, for smaller businesses, the value of having multiple IT functions outsourced as

part of the hosted SFA contract may justify that additional cost.

In the past, on-premise and on-demand solutions have been very different products, right down to their code. Increasingly,

vendors are developing on-demand and on-premise versions of their SFA products that use the same code base (the

first of these was Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and CRM Online), enabling customers to move from on-demand to

on-premise if their businesses change and result in an environment where on-demand becomes preferable. These

vendors are also creating schemes that make it much easier to take data from their computing environments and install it

on a customer’s computing environment.

Support costs and third-party services may also add to your expenses. For more about support, see the next section.

Vendor

A list of vendors, current as of January 2009, is included in the back of this primer. Although the big names tend to cater

to large companies, even when their solutions were orginally targeted at small business, there are a large number of

SFA vendors focused on smaller customers. If you’re a small business, there could be a better cultural fit between your

company and a small SFA vendor.

That said, there’s nothing more important than a vendor’s stability, especially if you opt for an on-demand solution, since

you will be entrusting your sales operation to that vendor.

Our research shows that the most important event for you in the decision-making process will be the demo. Since

adoption is critical, testing the interface is very important — a cluttered or hard-to-use interface may destroy your chances

of a successful adoption. Also, the way the vendor treats you during the demo process is indicative of how it will handle

you during your tenure as a customer.

Implementation and Support

Naturally, how difficult your SFA implementation is will be directly tied to the complexity of the SFA product you

select. Simple, standalone applications will be far easier to get up and running than more complex and more fully

integrated applications. It’s important to honestly appraise the skills of your IT staff; if they’re not able to handle the

implemenation, you will need to seek outside help in the form of a consultant, integrator or professional services

organization (often available through your SFA vendor). Once the system is running, be aware that maintaining it is a

job that will last for the length of the solution; regular maintenance and upgrading will be required. Again, you made

need the services of a third party.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 14Focus Research ©2009

Support for SFA comes in a variety of flavors. Most vendors offer basic support, but others sell various levels of expanded

service. Again, the level of support you opt for is based entirely on how technically competent you believe your IT staff and

sales reps are.

Some support offerings provide online help only; others have staff available 24 hours a day. It is wise to match the style

of support to the way the people using the system work; nothing is as frustrating as trying fix a problem remotely with a

support representative who insists that you communicate his or her way.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 15Focus Research ©2009

To assist you in simplifying a complex subject, we’ve included a set of tools that can help you understand SFA jargon, the

vendors currently offering SFA solutions and whether your company is actually ready for SFA.

10 Signs You Need an SFA Solution

The 8 Benefits of Adopting SFA

Glossary of Key Terms

SFA Vendor Landscape

4 Tools

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The exact moment an organization needs SFA is hard to nail down, but far too many realize they need SFA only after they

lose a revenue opportunity. Instead of waiting for a missed sale as an indicator, look for these10 signs to know whether

it’s time for you to invest in SFA.

1. Leads fall through the cracks. These days, the last thing you can afford is to let the leads your marketing

department generates — or that your sales reps gather through prospecting — lay fallow. But that’s exactly what happens

at many companies because lead management and assignment is not properly automated. An SFA system can allow you

to route leads to the right rep — and make sure that the rep follows through with them.

2. Customer contacts change, and you don’t know it. In this economy, the people with buying authority may

change frequently. When they leave one company, they may turn up at another. SFA helps you keep track of these

changes, and should a contact pop up at another firm, it can help reps who may have responsibility for that company

establish an instant contact.

3. Sales expectations grow. With fewer sales reps and more demands, the old ways of keeping track of contacts,

appointments and sales notes just won’t scale. Not automating some of the basic tasks of sales scheduling, contact

management and activity tracking will leave sales reps drowning in a sea of paper — and at a disadvantage to their

competition.

4. Sales managers can’t organize sales data. Without a way of quickly aggregating sales reps’ data, managers

spend most of their time compiling reports rather than taking action. SFA allows them to assemble their reports faster and

makes it possible for them to examine data in ways they haven’t been able to in the past. This insight can make managers

more agile in reacting to sales challenges.

5. Team selling results in confusion. Team selling is a good idea, but keeping team members from stepping on each

other’s toes or dropping the ball requires constant communication. SFA provides that communication: at a glance, a rep

can see what his or her teammates have done and can get an understanding of exactly where a customer is during the

buying process.

6. Re-allocating sales assets becomes difficult. When sales managers make changes and reassign reps to

new accounts, there tends to be limited or no time for those reps to transition. This makes some managers reluctant to

make changes at all, even if they’re necessary. SFA allows reps to understand the intricacies of each customer quickly,

eliminating that obstacle to responsive management.

10 Signs You Need an SFA Solution

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 17Focus Research ©2009

7. Disputes arise over compensation and territory. Sales reps are motivated by money, so it’s no surprise that

compensation issues can arise. SFA can organize all compensation plans and policies in one place, and the system can

automatically tally cumulative compensation for specific periods based on results. Similarly, territory-management tools

can help keep clear what geographic region belongs to which rep. These tools also allow managers to make changes to

territory data quickly.

8. Meetings dominate sales reps’ time. Reps should be out selling, not sitting in a room with a sales manager

taking notes. By gathering important data in one place — including internal sales department information — the need for

meetings is cut down and reps have more time for their core responsibilities.

9. Customers know their sales histories better than you do. Sales reps have to keep track of many customer

relationships; customers have to keep track of just one. SFA prevents reps from walking into a situation where a customer

has a standing concern that the rep is unaware of and prevents embarrassing situations before they happen.

10. Customer data goes into a sales black hole. Other parts of a company — marketing, product development and

finance, to name a few — are eager to use customer information, but often it never gets into their hands. SFA provides a

bridge for that data and allows organizations to multiply the power of the information their reps collect on a daily basis.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 18Focus Research ©2009

As the sales process gets more complex, and as reps are expected to manage an increasing volume of leads, sales-

efficiency tools — which are the basis of SFA — are becoming all but mandatory. Here’s a list of the benefits SFA brings;

if three or four address pain points in your company, then you’re probably ready to bring SFA into your organization.

1. Improved collaboration: SFA allows sales teams, managers and other departments to easily swap up-to-date sales

information, from price lists to products specifications.

2. Better managed territories: Having your West Coast-based reps manage New York City-based clients is an

exercise in geographic mismanagement. An effective SFA solution can automatically route leads to the right sales reps

based on territory.

3. Detailed reports: Collecting and integrating data is only the first step to improving the sales pipeline. SFA’s reporting

capabilities allow you to analyze revenue, forecast opportunities, rate sales-campaign effectiveness and track each sales

rep’s success.

4. Empowered sales managers: Allow sales managers to carefully track their sales force’s activities. By identifying

areas of weakness, lost opportunities and undeserved territories, managers can better coach and bolster individual sales

performance.

5. Enhanced sales productivity: Improve efficiency and drive revenue by better managing leads. This also helps you

identify leads that may have otherwise fallen through the cracks.

6. Strengthened field sales: By ensuring anywhere, anytime access to data, including client account information,

inventory availability and delivery schedules, road warriors are better equipped to respond to customers’ questions,

concerns and special requests.

7. Increased opportunities: Get a leg up on your competitors by tracking their pending deals and strategically

highlighting competitive trends and looming threats.

8. Better-educated partners: Don’t leave your channel partners to fend for themselves. Instead, automate your partner

recruitment, training and planning processes to build more mutually beneficial relationships.

The 8 Benefits of Adopting SFA

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 19Focus Research ©2009

BI (Business Intelligence): Dedicated analytical tools that draw data from back-office applications (including SFA),

correlate it and present it in the form of reports.

Call center: A central point for customer calls. These may be service calls (as in a help desk) or they may be outbound

calls for sales. Recent trends have moved away from centralized call-center facilities toward a model in which agents are

geographically distributed and work from their homes but are centrally managed (called a “virtual call center”).

Contact manager: The electronic equivalent of the sales representative’s “little black book,” this was the initial

application that led to SFA technology. It stores information about leads and customers in an easy-to-access way, and

may include other functionality, such as scheduling.

Cross-sell: The practice of suggesting extra items to a customer interested in a purchase.

Customer analytics: Software programs used by organizations to get better insight into their customers. These

programs help analyze customers’ product preferences, channel preferences, inclination to purchase, tenure with the

organization, etc. It enhances the decision-making process by helping to determine which product or services a company

should offer to a particular customer and through which channel, as well as which incentives it should use to attract and

retain customers.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management): A discipline centered on the people, processes and technologies

needed to build more intimate relationships between buyers and sellers. The aim of CRM is to better serve customers

individually according to their tastes and preferences to promote positive buying experiences.

Dashboard: A graphical user interface that allows reps to view customer data on a single screen. This may consist of

account details, complaint status, customer history and more. It presents the user with relevant information and files, as

well as the customer’’s immediate status and an evaluation of the current project or process. A dashboard enables users

to access the required information from multiple sources at the same time.

Data scrubbing/cleansing: The process of cleaning an entire database of irrelevant or bad data. Data-cleansing

software tools and applications help identify, dispose of and/or rectify redundancy in databases and eliminate any data

that is inaccurate or incomplete. Data cleansing also helps maintain consistency in data that has been imported from

multiple databases. The goal of data cleansing is to maintain standard, consistent and reliable data to be used across the

organization.

Dirty data: The term associated with erroneous, unnecessary or irrelevant data. Spelling mistakes, improper punctuation,

incorrect data, duplication in data collection and obsolete data are a few examples.

Glossary of Key Terms

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 20Focus Research ©2009

Field force automation: The use of mobile applications for real-time support of orders, arrangements, administration

and reporting in the field. The software blends the functions of CRM, mobile computing amd management of work orders

into a unified solution.

Knowledge base: A centralized storehouse of information. In the IT context, a knowledge base can be defined as a

machine-readable resource for the distribution of information, typically online. It can be successfully employed in CRM, as

it helps customers gain easy access to information without staff intervention.

Lead: A potential customer and his or her contact information.

Lead aging: The period of inactivity between the generation of a lead and the time a lead is acted upon. Generally,

the majority of leads are not acted upon as they do not reach the appropriate hands in time. If a business pays proper

attention to diminishing lead aging, it can attain a remarkable competitive advantage.

Lead generation: The discovery of possible customers through marketing efforts. Modern lead generation uses email

responses, Web site visits and other interactions to collect leads as opposed to the simple purchase of lists or other less

precise methods.

Lead qualification: A means of separating inquires from leads and determining where those leads are in the buying

process. The system determines a lead’s needs, willingness, position in the company and attributes. Lead qualification

plays an important part in targeting sales resources and attaining sales efficiency.

Marketing automation: A tool that helps organizations examine, prepare, devise, implement and assess marketing

campaigns. It helps identify target markets, marketing-delivery methods, budget and several other related activities.

Marketing segmentation: The sorting of customers based on responses to advertising, interactions and other

marketing variables. It helps attain the greatest market response with limited marketing resources by differentiating

between the response traits of several parts of the market.

Microsegmentation: A marketing strategy to narrow and refine a market into smaller segments on the basis of

common characteristics — age, gender, income, possessions, expenditure and preferences. Microsegmentation is critical

for direct marketing messages aimed at niche customer segments.

On-demand: A subscription-based software or service. See also SaaS (Software as a Service).

SFA (Sales Force Automation): The task of automating the entire sales process, including order tracking and

processing, contact management and customer interactions, information sharing, inventory control, lead management,

sales forecast analysis, sales processing, etc.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 21Focus Research ©2009

Sales pipeline: A set of sequential activities that starts with the generation of sales leads and ends with the closing

of the sale.

SLA (Service Level Agreement): A contractual agreement between a client and a service provider which outlines

the criteria on which the performance of the service provider will be judged. It requires the provider to meet a minimum

performance or delivery standard. An SLA also spells out the punitive measures or changes in the contractual relationship

if the vendor fails to meet the service standards.

Social networking: The use of Internet-based sites and forums to connect with other people. Examples of social-

networking sites include Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Yelp!.

SaaS (Software as a Service): The delivery of software by a vendor to a customer on a subscription basis over the

Internet. The software is hosted on the vendor’s hardware at a remote location, and the vendor handles security, backup

and software updates in exchange for a periodic payment.

Territory management: A technology that simplifies the task of managing the geographic areas handled by sales reps.

Up-sell: The practice of suggesting cost products and services, generally of a better quality, to a customer interested

in a purchase.

VAR (Value-Added Reseller): A company that selects an existing product, adds more features, repackages it and then

sells to customers as a new product. There are several ways to add value, such as adding a novel functionality in keeping

with customers’ needs. Value can be added through various means, including customization, integration and consulting. It

is most common in the computer and electronics industries.

Web 2.0: An expression used to describe Internet applications that permit user-generated content and interaction.

Social-networking and social media sites, blogs and Internet tools that harness user-generated data are the primary

components of Web 2.0.

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 22Focus Research ©2009

The following summarizes the vendors serving various areas of the SFA market. While we have tried to be comprehensive,

there may be smaller SFA vendors or SFA modules to other business applications we have not included. This list is

current as of January 2009.

We’ve broken vendors into five categories; the first three are based on the size of the SFA customer they serve, while

the last two provide hosted products and solutions for vertical-specific industries. Be aware that vendors may appear in

multiple categories.

Vendors Serving Small Businesses

AppShore Itility CRM Salesboom

Avidian Landslide Technologies SalesCenter

BizManager LeadMaster Salesforce.com

Caspian LeadTrack Software SalesJunction.com

ClienTracker LongJump SalesMate

Cobault LookOut Software Stone Software

Concursive Market Master SalesPage Technologies

Consona Maximizer Software SamePageSolutions

ContactBook.Net Microsoft SmartCompany

ContactAdministrator.com NetSuite SugarCRM

Dalco Technologies NOVAData Information Systems SuperOffice

DataForceCRM Nxtranet Surado Solutions

Dovarri OpenBOX Terrasoft

EBSuite Oracle VanillaSoft

Everest Software ProspectSoft vtiger

FreeCRM.com Relenta xsalesOnline.com

FrontRange Solutions RightNow Technologies Xtenza Solutions

InsideSales.com Sage Zoho

Intelisis Sales Team Automation

Interchange Solutions SalesAhoy

SFA Vendor Landscape

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 23Focus Research ©2009

Vendors Serving Medium-Sized Businesses

Aplicor Maximizer Software SmartCompany

Caspian Microsoft Soffront Software

Cobault NetSuite Software Innovation

Concursive NOVAData Information Systems SugarCRM

Consona Nxtranet SuperOffice

ContactAdministrator.com OpenBOX Surado Solutions

DataForceCRM Oracle TechExcel

Dovarri ProspectSoft Terrasoft

EBSuite RightNow Technologies VanillaSoft

FreeCRM.com Sage Vertical Solutions

InsideSales.com Sales Team Automation vtiger

Intelisis SalesAhoy xsalesOnline.com

Interchange Solutions Salesboom Zoho

Itility CRM SalesCenterLandslide Technologies Salesforce.comLeadMaster SalesJunction.com

LeadTrack Software Stone Software

LongJump SalesPage Technologies

LookOut Software SamePageSolutions

Market Master SAP

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 24Focus Research ©2009

Vendors Serving Enterprises

Aplicor LeadMaster SalesJunction.com

Cobault LeadTrack Software Stone Software

Concursive LongJump SalesPage Technologies

Consona Maximizer Software SamePageSolutions

Dovarri NOVAData Information Systems Soffront Software

EBSuite Nxtranet Software Innovation

Entrepids OpenBOX SugarCRM

IFS Oracle SuperOffice

Infor RightNow Technologies TechExcel

InsideSales.com Sage VanillaSoft

Intelisis Sales Team Automation Vertical Solutions

Interchange Solutions Salesboom xsalesOnline.com

IItility CRM SalesCenter Xtenza Solutions

Landslide Technologies Salesforce.com

Vendors Providing Hosted Solutions

Aplicor InsideSales.com Salesboom

Cobault Landslide Technologies SalesCatalysts.com

Concursive Microsoft Salesforce.com

ContactBook.Net NetSuite SalesJunction.com

ContactAdministrator.com OpenBOX SalesPage Technologies

DataForceCRM Oracle SamePageSolutions

Dovarri Relenta SmartCompany

EBSuite RightNow Technologies VanillaSoft

Everest Software Sales Team Automation xsalesOnline.com

FreeCRM.com SalesAhoy Xtenza Solutions

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 25Focus Research ©2009

Vendors Serving Specific Vertical Industries

AIMcrmMortgage, addiction treatment, insurance, franchisers, higher education, home

improvement, printing and graphics lead aggregation

BNTouch Mortgage

CDC Software Financial services, medical-device manufacturing, construction and real estate,

manufacturing, legal services, health care insurance

CoreTrac Financial services

LeadOrganizer Insurance

MEI Consumer goods

ProfitCenter Software Direct marketing

RW3 Consumer packaged goods

SalesChain Office equipment dealers

Satuit Technologies Energy, financial services

StayinFront Life sciences, consumer goods, business

Surado Solutions Banking and finance, health care, education, homeland security, manufacturing and

technology

Target Software Fundraising

TreeHouse Interactive Channel sales

Trimble Consumer goods

XTEL Consumer goods manufacturing

Sales Force Automation Market Primer 26Focus Research ©2009

About FOCUS

Our Mission

Our mission is to support business professionals’ critical purchase decisions by creating and distributing the highest

quality, most relevant purchase research and tool sets.

Our Approach

To ensure maximum insight and relevancy, Focus has designed a four factor approach to buyer-centric research. All

research at Focus begins with defining the buyer factor. Categorized in our research as Buyer Types, the buyer factor

identifies the buyer needs and preferences in a market that make a difference in selecting the right product and vendor.

Buyer Types are studied and developed based on Focus’ interaction with thousands of buyers across a category. The

buyer factor in turn shapes Focus recommendations on how buyers approach three other critical factors: 1) product

requirements, 2) cost considerations and 3) vendor relationships.

Buyer Feedback

In addition to speaking with industry experts and other participants, a critical priority is to integrate feedback

from experienced buyers. We speak with thousands of buyers each month and conduct our formal buyer surveys

throughout the year.

For more information on our research approach, please visit Focus.