Even in turbulent times the firms with higher levels of customer relationships and process implementation perform more predictably.
Boulder, CO February 5, 2009 CSO Insights today released its 2009 Sales Performance Optimization (SPO) report to its sponsors and survey respondents. This annual report in its 15th edition has become the benchmark for sales effectiveness research and is eagerly anticipated each year. Over 1,000 companies have responded to the survey each of the past six years with that number steadily increasing to over 1,800 this year.
Study results indicate the percentage of reps achieving or exceeding quota is down over two percentage points from last year and many other performance metrics have remained flat or declined as well.
“The numbers continue to mount in favor of firms that implement sales process and enable this with appropriate technologies,” says Jim Dickie of CSO Insights. “It is apparent to everyone that 2009 will represent a host of new challenges for Chief Sales Officers (CSO’s) but we see some firms much better able to anticipate and adapt to this difficult environment; others need to ground themselves and focus on those initiatives that will pay dividends this year.”
The report is sponsored by Accenture, Dow Jones, Kadient, Microsoft, and Sales Performance International. Media sponsors include Selling Power and CustomerThink.com as well as support from Sales Marketing Executives International. “We are pleased to welcome Dow Jones and Microsoft to our list of returning sponsors who have continued their commitment to this project the past four years,” said Barry Trailer, co-founder with Dickie.
CSO Insights continues to refine and update its survey questions and this year has expanded and reorganized the SPO report’s sections. The 2009 report includes:
· Project Overview and Introduction
· Sales Force Demographics
· Sell Cycle Analysis
· Sales Strategy Development Assessment
· Sales Cycle Execution Assessment
· Account Management Assessment
· Sales Management Assessment
· Sales Process Assessment
· Core CRM Utilization
· CRM 2.0 Utilization (new)
· Internet Sales Knowledge Management
· Sales Marketing Alignment
· In Closing: Where Do We Go From Here?
About CSO Insights
As in past years the report provides a clear unbiased snapshot of the current state of sales today, highlights what has changed, and suggestions on how firms can address the challenges they’re confronting in attracting, retaining and expanding customers.
CSO Insights in also now able to provide SPO charts for several industries (e.g., software, professional services, manufacturing, etc.) and for very large, small and medium size enterprises to enable CSO’s to draw more concrete peer comparisons.
CSO Insights is a research firm that specializes in benchmarking how companies are leveraging people, process, technology, and knowledge to optimize the way they market and sell to customers. Over the past 15 years, CSO Insights’ sales effectiveness survey of over 10,000 sales effectiveness initiatives has become the benchmark for tracking the evolution of how the role of sales is changing, the challenges that are impacting sales performance, and most importantly, what companies are doing to address these issues. For more information on this research go to: www.csoinsights.com.
Jim Dickie Barry Trailer
(303) 521-4410 (415) 924-3500
jim.dickie@csoinsights.com barry.trailer@csoinsights.com
Website: www.csoinsights.com
