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The challenge of managing sales performance effectively continues to plague most organizations that have large, dispersed field organizations. Achieving a higher level of sales effectiveness requires a strategy and plan to bring goals, information, analytics, and collaboration into one solution. Reportive, a sales performance management solution provider, has released its new product, Reportive 2005, which can help sales management work more intelligently through using sales information and goals in a direct and efficient manner. Ventana Research believes solutions like Reportive 2005, which can directly align to functional areas and bind people and processes into one solution, will accelerate performance attainment.

Assessment

Reportive is a solution provider for sales performance management, which is a new category of software solutions that helps sales and operations management work directly with their organization in an effective manner. Reportive 2005 provides on-demand access to internal and external information to provide goals, plans, and measurement of activities to assist individuals in taking smart actions for optimal outcomes. Ventana Research believes organizations that have been unsuccessful at gaining improved effectiveness and results out of their existing sales force automation (SFA) solution should examine a solution approach like Reportive.

Reportive is a well-established provider with customers across the pharmaceutical, automotive, high-technology, and financial service industries. These organizations include BMW, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Ford, Pfizer, Zurich, and even Microsoft. Reportive leverages Microsoft Office as a foundation for enabling business professionals to easily and quickly gain access to information across the enterprise and provide guidance on their organizational performance. Its solution enables users of Microsoft Office to dynamically access or automatically receive information through the use of analytic workflow and rules technology. Information processing happens locally on the computer, eliminating the need for the server-centric software which is found in almost all traditional BI or CRM solutions.

Through a capability called ActiveFeedback, the new release improves Reportive’s method of consolidating data and its ability to discover and interact on the data, communicate throughout the organization, and then collaborate on findings and activities from the field to management and back again. The solution provides a method of delivering personalized call and linked bonus plans, external market intelligence and KPIs for sales management and representatives, in order to operate smarter than just providing them accounts, contacts and pipeline information, which is how most sales force automation (SFA) systems work. Through a set of easy to setup and maintain dashboards and KPIs, sales organization can gain quick access to information relevant to their territory and accounts. This is accomplished through the use of the Report Designer for Excel and Project Manager capabilities in Reportive 2005. In addition, by providing a place for electronic collaboration, Reportive is providing a direct mechanism to optimize field activities through the review of historical results.

Market Impact

Reportive has brought to market a new solution for sales performance management. The market for these solutions is just now evolving, as sales management begins to lay out what they really need to run their business. This market has evolved from the intersection of the SFA, incentive management, BI, and broad CRM markets, where the foundational elements of capabilities are now moving into new solutions. Though there are existing CRM and SFA players like Oracle, SAP, and Siebel, many of these solutions are quite costly for organizations to purchase and deploy, thereby requiring a higher commitment than Reportive’s direct approach of leveraging Microsoft Office as its platform. The BI market and vendors like BusinessObjects, Cognos, and IBI have provided much of the dashboard and analytics in recent years. But new solutions like Reportive provide easy and timely access and delivery of information. Ventana Research believes Reportive, who can claim some very large customer successes and deployments, will continue to evolve and challenge the existing sales-related application solution providers.

Recommendation

The opportunity to drive positive change in the sales organization has never been more apparent and vital to organizations. Operating your sales organization from sales force automation and reporting systems leaves a lot to be desired and will not ensure methodical improvement of sales performance. Ventana Research believes that taking a forward-looking approach and leveraging the principles of performance management will greatly improve the customer relationship and revenue potential of sales organizations. Organizations looking for solutions to assist in this area should consider evaluating Reportive to find out how the value of intersecting information, analytics, and collaboration with performance management can help your organization.

Mark Smith is CEO & Senior Vice President of Research at Ventana Research.

Ventana Research is the preeminent research and advisory services firm helping our clients maximize stakeholder value with Performance Management throughout their organizations. Putting research in a business and IT context we provide insight and education on the best practices, methodologies and technologies that enable our clients to leverage assets to understand, optimize, and align strategies and processes to meet their goals and objectives.