Sales Management Takes a Step Forward July 03, 2008 Cloud9 Analytics increases revenue with new application package
By Jonathan Tannenbaum
For sales managers and executives, there's nothing worse than learning your sales forecast has suddenly dropped—and with no explanation for why. To help companies move beyond this ordeal, Cloud9 Analytics will soon release its Pipeline Management Suite, an application package featuring real-time presentation of all crucial changes. The system analyzes changes in team performance and grants sales operations complete access to vital CRM information.
Cloud9 Analytics, a California-based provider of business intelligence, devised the Pipeline Management Suite to incorporate a series of applications—Pipeline Accelerator, Forecast Accelerator and Cloud9 for Excel—for the purposes of alleviating revenue risk and generating increased productivity in a three-prong solution:
• The Pipeline Management Suite's signature product, the Pipeline Accelerator (PA), helps sales managers address problems by sending up-to-the-minute changes in the forecast, pipeline and historical trend data. Evaluating this information, managers can compare changes between any two points in time, allowing for comprehensive knowledge-acquisition. The PA also sends reports via e-mail or mobile device, so users can evaluate changes away from the office.
• The Forecast Accelerator (FA) takes data from the PA tool and automatically identifies and examines each team member's individual track record, helping sales leaders formulate accurate benchmarks for sales performance and better allocate resources. Of particular importance, the FA shows the contrast between a sales rep's forecasts and his actual returns. This enables sales managers to fine-tune employees' mindsets, as well as generate more reliable forecasts themselves.
"Everyone's behavior is just a little different," notes Cloud9 CEO Swayne Hill. "Some salespeople are overly optimistic, some predict too low. So with the Forecast Accelerator, as a manager I can take that into account when I present my own forecasts to the company."
• Cloud9 for Excel analyzes all acquired sales information to provide reps with a customer's entire data history. Aiding sales operations, Cloud9 displays both standard and custom data objects by automatically updating in response to changes in Salesforce.com. Additionally, it enables users to share reports with associates online for faster inquiry-response time.
Describing the purpose of the Cloud9, Hill says that "Sales operations suffer from the fact they don't have the data they need all the time. We have completely solved this underlying issue with a window to the entire CRM warehouse system."
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