SiriusDecisions Sales Leadership Exchange: Sales Operations Key Takeaways

Sunny San Diego, great content and networking with your peers – what more could you ask for?

More of all the above, of course!

First, I would like to thank all of the delegates who attended the 2nd annual SiriusDecisions Sales Leadership Exchange. You are the reason it was a great event. Next, for those who could not attend, please put a reminder in your calendar to join us in 2016. But for those of you who made it, or are curious about the content delivered, I would like to summarize some of the key takeaways for sales operations leaders.

We are all in the same boat (now you know why we used a sailboat in the event image), and our destination is to reach more revenue this year than last year. But how will we get there? This is exactly the reason many sales operations leaders are in the office early and are some of the last people to leave at night. Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet that will quickly give you the formula to exceed your target, but the following takeaways will help your sales operations team be more strategic and proactive in terms of organizational growth:

• Focus. When trying to identify growth challenges and associated critical issues, do not overanalyze. Identify one or two (e.g. competition, offerings) and spend quality time (not quantity) understanding why these challenges exist, what are the potential solutions, and how you can work with product and marketing to take combined action.
• Tools and technology. SiriusDecisions research has shown that sales organizations are investing more in sales technologies. Sales operations must assess the business and user value (not just adoption) of the current technologies it has in its sales application landscape before budgeting for new investments. Always start by evaluating current processes prior to any technology assessment, as the technologies will be impactful only when processes are formalized, governed and measurable.
• Plan to succeed. Changes in growth strategies are transformational for sales organizations. They require a focused leadership role, review of organizational structure, specific skills, strong infrastructure and proper incentives to drive success. A sales operations leader must look at each of these transformational elements and create a plan, or playbook as we described it, for the function to align with corporate goals and sales objectives. This playbook must be shared, communicated and have a defined timeline that is regularly reviewed to keep it relevant.

These three high-level takeaways encapsulate how sales operations should help drive intelligent growth. To our delegates, please review all the content from the event, as it is now available for download.