STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc., nearly 51% of sales organizations have already deployed or plan to deploy algorithmic-guided selling in the next five years. Intended to augment more traditional sales tools, such as sales playbooks, algorithmic-guided selling uses sales data to boost the seller’s ability to engage with prospects, manage the buying process and generate quotes.
In the survey of more than 250 sales leaders across 11 industries globally, respondents evaluated 47 established and emerging technologies to assess how they are currently being used, the return they provide organizations and what bets sales leaders would place on their future importance.
“Although it is a newer, more complex sales technology, algorithmic-guided selling has tremendous potential,” said Tad Travis, Research VP at Gartner. “Compared to other technologies in the survey, algorithmic-guided selling stands out as one of the most sophisticated and complex sales execution technologies to improve sales productivity.”
Algorithmic-guided selling leverages emerging artificial intelligence technology and existing sales data to guide sellers through deals, automating manual sales actions while reducing the need for individual seller judgment in the sales process.
However, despite its potential, its effectiveness relies heavily on the data it draws on to guide sellers. As a result, incremental changes in the quality of the data source can lead to disproportionate changes in the accuracy of its predictions — and ultimately ROI.
“A sales organization with inaccurate or missing sales data will probably not see the same value in this technology as one that ensures data quality prior to launch,” said Mr. Travis. “Nevertheless, it is a technology most sales organizations are actively exploring.”
For sales leaders considering the adoption of algorithmic-guided selling, Gartner recommends they:
- Identify points in the sales process where automation would have the greatest impact to augment seller judgment or automate manual operations.
- Implement strict data hygiene principles prior to launch to ensure accurate recommendations.
- Prepare underlying content for integration so that it is available for algorithmic-guided recommendations.
Additional details on other emerging sales technologies for sales leaders to keep top of mind are available to Gartner for Sales Leaders clients in the report “Current and Emerging Technologies in Sales.”
About Gartner for Sales Leaders
Gartner for Sales Leaders provides heads of sales and their teams with the insights, advice and tools they need to address mission-critical priorities amid mounting pressures to drive growth through new and existing customers. With extensive qualitative and quantitative research, Gartner for Sales Leaders helps sales teams combat commoditization and price-based purchasing, develop critical manager and seller skills, elevate the value of sales interactions, unlock existing growth potential, and optimize sales force enablement.
About the Gartner CSO & Sales Leaders Conference
Sales leaders face unprecedented changes in customer expectations, technology and the talent needed to drive results. At the Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference, taking place September 17-19, 2019 in Las Vegas, sales leaders will learn from the latest research and Gartner experts covering sales talent, customer buying behavior, account-based marketing strategies and leveraging digital channels. Follow news and updates from the event on Twitter at #GartnerSales.
About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities today and build the successful organizations of tomorrow.
Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the issues that matter most. We are a trusted advisor and objective resource for more than 15,000 organizations in more than 100 countries — across all major functions, in every industry and enterprise size. To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit gartner.com.
