Forecasting Enabling Technology

Aberdeen Group research published in 2012, Better Sales Forecasting Through Process and Technology, highlights how top performers better deploy process and technology to achieve not only more accurate forecasts, but better business results.

Forty-one percent (41%) of Best-in-Class (top 20%) firms within this research (defined as superior customer retention and sales quota attainment metrics, as well as shortening sales cycles) support “integrating sales content into the CRM to better inform the forecast with sales activities executed during the selling/buying cycle,” while 21% of Industry Average firms (middle 50%) and only 12% of Laggards (bottom 30%) do the same.

Additionally, Aberdeen points out that 90% of Best-in-Class firms use enabling technology for sales forecasting and analytics, vs. 76% of Industry Average firms and 58% of Laggards.

These numbers are somewhat surprising, particularly that so many firms are still “lagging” at some level on this topic. Technology indeed can be overdone in sales organizations; however, it certainly must be used.