The Challenge of Implementing a Complex Global Sales Forecasting Solution

How Dell, Splunk, Glassdoor, GitHub, RingCentral and Others Cracked The Code

  Today’s massive, complex sales organizations need to have the flexibility to see their quarterly and bi-quarterly forecasts in lots of different dimensions. In many cases they need to see their rollup forecast by product, region, geography, territory, sales VP, sales director AE, splits and more. The primary problem is no CRM system on the market has the flexibility to create a customized multi-hierarchy forecast. Every CRM system has a basic hierarchy structure and these firms often try to convince global multinational companies to simplify their structure to fit into their solutions. In other words, change your business to fit their software. Large, complex sales organizations cannot change how they need to report their forecasts to senior management, so they are forced to look outside of the CRM system. In the past, many gave up trying to get the CRM system to work and just decided to do it in spreadsheets. They created the monster spreadsheet of many tabs, versions, calculations, hedges, etc. Then, with one incorrect key stroke, the spreadsheet and projections tanked...the numbers they were rolling up were wrong. If they were one of the few that didn’t make spreadsheet errors, the sales operations team still had to deal with the heavy burden of maintaining the spreadsheet, emailing them around for updates, etc. and it all consumes a significant amount of time and a very negative effect on productivity. Enter the new age of AI-powered forecasting platforms. Companies like Aviso came to market to solve this huge problem. However, unlike Aviso, most of the platforms created their solution to mimic the sales organization and forecasting hierarchy structure in the CRM system. Hence most forecasting platforms can not truly address creative hierarchies and roll ups. They claim to be able to, but when they are asked to prove it, they fall short. They try to rely on the sizzle of their mobile applications, reporting and ease of data entry to change the rules of evaluation criteria. Savvy evaluation teams don’t let this happen. They put all the vendors to the test to prove it...as they should. Sales and sales operations organizations need the flexibility of evaluating and forecasting their business from various views. How else can they see whether critical categories (regions, geographies, products, counties, etc.) are performing to plan? Businesses need the ability to analyze sales data and spot trends early in the quarter/sales cycle/ buyer journey so sales leaders can prioritize which opportunities need the most resource assistance from lead to close and which are on a path to landing successfully as planned. Aviso clients minimize the surprises and close more deals in a more predictable manner. This ability to view the business along a number of hierarchies and pivots, all of which contribute to overall health of the business is a critical need for them. Combined with our AI for reliable aggregate and deal level forecasts, Aviso clients have created a unique competitive edge for themselves. Let us show you how your business can get that same powerful boost to your sales engine. And check out this video from Dana Therrien at SiriusDecisions as he explains how AI insights have helped eliminate the forecasting interrogation process and can provide a huge productivity improvement for sales teams. To learn more, go to Aviso.com.