Sales Enablement Benchmark Report

Our Sales Enablement survey is already revealing some insights.  There are two that I think are pretty significant.

The first has to do with how Sales Enablement is understood.  The top answer to the question we ask to determine this is:  "It develops strategy to help improve the sales process."  Note the word "strategy" in that statement.  It connotes that Sales Enablement, as it is understood by the survey participants, is a strategic function.  However, when we ask the participants to tell us if their Sales Enablement function is oriented more operationally or strategically, only 18% said it was oriented strategically.  I think it is hard for a strategic function to be effective when it exists in a day-to-day, operational world.

Another interesting insight is revealed when we compare responses from organizations that claim their Sales Enablement function is making a significant contribution, to those who say their function is making no discernible contribution or only a slight one.  The differences show up in several areas:

• Sales Enablement is poorly understood where it is not making a contribution
• It is doing different things - focused less on providing training and assets to the sales team where it is not making a contribution
• It is a much younger function where it is not making a contribution (56% of orgs report that the function is less than 2 years old vs. 24% for orgs where it is making a contribution)
• It is measured differently, if at all - 48% report no measurement or accountability for Sales Enablement - in orgs where it is not perceived as contributing

There are other insights as well.  The first draft of the Sales Enablement Benchmarking Study report is about 2 weeks away from completion!  We'll present the results at an upcoming webinar and at DemandCon on Oct. 1st.

This report is now complete! Click here to check it out!