At Perpetos, we see an increasing demand for support in establishing better pipeline visibility and more reliable forecasting. Isn’t this surprising, as many companies have implemented a sales process and CRM over the past 15 years?
They were driven mainly by the following challenges in random order:

• Visibility on pipeline and forecast
• Centralised database of prospects and clients
• Marketing searching to add value and better understand the market
• Streamlining pre-sales, sales and marketing activities

Above all, managers were looking for a repeatable process to improve their hit-rate and decrease the cost of sales.
But most of these companies have been facing a couple of negative implications along the way:

• Inward looking organisation
  The ‘process’ forced people to compare and analyse which actions led to deals won or lost. To create a successful repeatable process, companies started pushing actions that presumably have a positive effect on the sales cycle. But those companies who already measure pipeline velocity and decision date visibility, know that the opposite is true in complex buying cycles. Sales will eventually loose focus on the prospect.
• Subjective status and success probability
  I sometimes see implementations where ’sending a proposal’ is being linked to the degree of probability to win the deal. Could anyone explain why sending a proposal after a demo will increase chances, let alone give an indication of the prospect’s decision date? This is another myth created over time by people designing processes.
• Unreliable management reporting
  You only have to look at the amount of deals expected to be closed the last day of a quarter according to CRM data to see what I mean. A CFO recently told me that he is typically using between 22 and 28% of the sales forecast for his budget ..
• Sales management increasing pressure on their team
  Opportunities being created upon or just before closing, is only one of the many symptoms I see time and time again. Sales are hiding opportunities: they are afraid of what full openness might do tho their targets and/or pressure from management.

The sum of all the above is that co-workers in many organisations are:

• Managing spreadsheets and reports
• Managing the end of the pipeline instead of the entry
• Under pressure for unrealistic hit-rates because of a starved pipeline

I will come back with some simple remedies and solutions for the above issues in future blog posts.
What is your experience?