Thursday, April 10, 2008

Mobile SFA: Empowering the 24/7 Road Warrior

Empowering the sales force with tools to work remotely has evolved dramatically since the first wave of smart phones hit the streets nearly ten years ago. Sales reps have grown adept at basic applications such as email and web browsing, but often still wait for an end-of-day laptop session to access their CRM system. A recent study conducted on mobile SFA conducted by Aberdeen reveals that companies are increasingly turning to mobile SFA tools in order to boost sales force productivity, shorten customer response time, and increase executive insight in sales activities. Best-in-Class companies are 3.8 times more likely than Laggards to reduce the amount of downtime for field personnel through the use of mobile SFA devices.

The top pressure causing all organizations to focus resources on mobile SFA stems from the most fundamental sales goal: to increase sales productivity. Best-in-Class companies indicated that they currently perform on-the-spot customer demos (63%) and have access to centralized repository of accounts, history, contacts, tasks, inventory, and pipeline (53%).

The report demonstrates the value of collectively leveraging organizational practices in process, performance measurement, knowledge management and technology to provide a foundation for sales effectiveness. By utilizing mobile access to sales management tools and linking customer records with incoming correspondence, Best-in-Class companies are able to positively affect both sales productivity and customer satisfaction.


More information on Customer Relationship Management can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

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