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Develop an IT Strategy to Support Sales

Bring Sales back to your side with a rock star sales technology strategy.

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Thought Model: Develop an IT Strategy to Support Sales

Member Challenge

  • IT must stand ready to support and collaborate with Sales. Armed with a robust technology enablement strategy, IT must provide Sales with the applications, data, and supporting human resources to efficiently and effectively carry out their operations.
  • Many organizations are plagued with outdated or ineffective sales application portfolios, poor sales data, and a support structure that is ambivalent towards the time-sensitive requirements of the sales organization.
  • IT must work hand-in-hand with Sales to build a robust strategy for Sales-IT alignment. This involves building a permanent alignment steering committee that can set shared, strategic direction on how best to enable salespersons.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • IT and Sales should build a program for shared technology governance.
  • IT should build a portfolio of applications that supports all sales processes, using best-of-breed point solutions where necessary.
  • A proactive and corrective program for sales data quality must be implemented and managed by IT.
  • IT should seek innovative, “art of the possible” sales solutions.

Impact and Result

  • IT should develop a robust set of applications that address end-to-end sales requirements. This portfolio can be centered on the CRM platform, but will often also include robust point solutions like lead management automation, sales collateral management tools, and social media management platforms.
  • IT should assist the business in auditing sales data and putting in place both preventative measures (i.e. data stewards) and corrective measures (i.e. automated scrubbing tools) to ensure customer and sales data is current, valid, and free of duplicate information.
  • IT should always keep the “art of the possible” on its radar: Internet of Things and Social are two examples.

Research & Tools

Name Actions

1. Review drivers

Assess the benefits and investigate the urgency for Sales-IT alignment.

Name Actions
Develop an IT Strategy to Support Sales Storyboard Sample
Develop an IT Strategy to Support Sales Storyboard
Sales-IT Alignment Strategy Project Charter
Customer Relationship Management Suite Opportunity Assessment Tool for Large Enterprises

2. Assess current and target states

Articulate business objectives and define vision for future state.

Name Actions
Sales Application Portfolio Matrix and Assessment
Sales-IT Solutions Requirements Documentation Template

3. Design solutions

Identify sales solutions and build the roadmap for Sales-IT alignment.

Name Actions
Sales-IT Initiative Scoring, Prioritization, and Roadmap Tool