5 sales blind spots that are costing you millions

SURVEY REPORT

© 2014 APTTUS & Adobe

When it comes to closing deals, is your sales process an asset or a liability?

Recently, Apttus and Adobe partnered on a survey to understand how sales leaders in Fortune 1000 companies are performing in regard to sales effectiveness and process efficiency. The results reveal

that many organizations are unaware their processes are lengthening sales cycles and bleeding top-

line revenue.

While 50% of survey respondents admit to ineffective sales processes, large percentages are confident

in their sales enablement methodology. And although on the surface it appears that all of the pieces are in place, a deeper dive exposed a number of glaring process blind spots that are not being

addressed.

In sales, ignorance is not bliss, it’s a huge disadvantage.

This report reveals obstacles and blind spots that impede sales goals for companies worldwide. It also

outlines a plan for improving visibility, which will in turn improve sales efficiency and effectiveness.

5 Sales Blind Spots That

Are Costing You Millions

Key Results from the Apttus and Adobe 2014 Sales Survey

© 2014 APTTUS & Adobe 2

SURVEY REPORT

About the Survey

About the Respondents

By Industry By Business Department

Apttus and Adobe assessed the impact that sales automation solutions, specifically Configure Price Quote, Contract

Management and E-Signature, have on an organization’s revenue and sales cycles by partnering to launch a world-wide

benchmarking survey. The survey consisted of 35 questions about company revenue goals, sales and contracting

systems in place, and internal processes for closing deals.

More than 140 respondents from Fortune 1000 companies across a spectrum of industries were polled. Below is a

visual breakdown of respondent firmographics (note: there is respondent crossover):

66% 7% 2%

10% 7%

16% 3% 3%

12%

15%

75% 2% 6%

19%

4% 2% 1%

13%

14% 5%


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The Results at a Glance

1 in 4 companies don’t know their

average pipeline multiple, deal size, Quote-

to-Cash cycle time or win rate

4 out of 10 companies require 3 days

or longer to generate a quote

45% of companies report that it takes

over a week to get a contract signed

50% of companies have experienced

costly mistakes on quotes

1 in 3 companies are not managing

renewals effectively and are missing

opportunities to capture value

20% of companies say forecasts are

chronically inaccurate and negatively impact

planning and spending

What are the top obstacles to achieving your sales goals?

Regulatory Compliance

Sales Effectiveness

Process Efficiency

Entering New Markets

Sales Channel Productivity

Insight into Customers

Changing Market

Scaling the Business

New Product Launch

Brand & Product Awareness

Channel Turnover

Monetizing Acquisitions

Tech Infrastructure

Customer Retention

Improving Product Quality

48%

33%

32%

32%

30%

24%

21%

18%

18%

14%

12%

11%

6%

4%

3%


SURVEY REPORT

What You Don’t Know Is Costing You!

The Five Most Critical Blind Spots for Sales Organizations

1. Poor Visibility into the Sales Process

1 in 4 survey respondents do not have any insight into key sales performance metrics

A surprising number of the Fortune 1000 companies are struggling with sales blind spots. While some of the

survey results can be attributed to an individual’s lack of knowledge, the prevalence of checkered responses

indicates alarming gaps in many organizations’ ability to quantify and/or share critical sales cycle data.

20% did not know / couldn’t estimate their win rate

25% didn’t know their average pipeline multiples

Almost 10% didn’t know revenue results from 2013

And perhaps the most compelling blind spot:

25% of sales professionals cannot say if their company is successful or not

Even though increasing sales effectiveness is a top priority for a majority of respondents, without visibility into

the current state of the business, it is impossible to take the necessary steps to eliminate friction and improve

the sales process. As a result, companies are doomed to repeat the same costly mistakes that have been

eating away at revenues and making it difficult to reach their sales goals.


SURVEY REPORT

The final challenge many organizations face when it comes to quoting is syncing quotes with

contracts. The sales process doesn’t end when a quote is submitted, yet many organizations have

no way to quickly turn quotes into contracts, or to speed along the signing with efficiency tools

like E-Signatures. In fact, almost half of our survey respondents were not using E-Signature to

automate getting the deal closed.

2. Delayed Quoting & Contracting Process

Less than 1/3 of businesses can get a quote to the customer in 24 hours or less and

45% report it takes over a week to get a contract signed

When you’re nearing end of quarter—or in a dead heat against a competitor—getting an accurate and easy-to-

understand quote or contract in the customer’s hands is critical. Yet less than 3 out of 10 businesses are able

to turn a quote around in a 24 hour period. And almost half hang on to contracts for over a week!

When product and pricing rules are centralized and up-to-date,

and discounting rules are clear and enforceable, the quote should

be the easiest part of the sales process. So for many businesses,

generating a quote in under 24 hours should be a realistic

benchmark. Yet, 70% of respondents can’t get a quote in front of

a customer in that time frame, and 40% of companies polled

took longer than two days.

Slow quotes are caused by a number of factors, including

complexity of product catalogs and pricing, poor product

knowledge among sales reps, error-prone manual steps, lack of

anytime, anywhere access to quoting tools and business rules,

and limited mobility. If a rep has to be tied to a desk to create a

quote, getting a reliable 24 hour turnaround time is impossible.

Average Quote Turnaround Time


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3. Too Many Errors in Quotes

50% of companies have lost business due to quoting mistakes

In addition to lengthy quote cycle times, many survey participants

indicated that errors in quotes hurt revenue and margin, while increasing

exposure to risk, and damaging the customer experience. A staggering

50% admitted to these costly mistakes. This number is higher when

adjusted for unreported mistakes.

When selling in an extremely competitive industry, even small quoting errors can make the difference between

winning and losing the deal, as the survey results corroborate. 60% of companies who experienced errors

identified ‘sales effectiveness’ as a top barrier to achieving their sales goals, whereas only 35% of companies

that did not report errors in their quoting process, reported ‘sales effectiveness’ as a top barrier.

Mistakes are commonly the result of manual steps in the quoting process, use of unapproved, and risky, terms,

and complexity in selecting the right products and services for the customer. In addition, byzantine, difficult-

to-understand quote proposals and informal back and forth “chain email” quotes can confuse customers and

slow down the approval process.

Without an integrated contract management system, manual entry of information increases the potential for

mistakes in the contracting process and can unintentionally cost companies untold revenue.

Mistakes are commonly the result of manual steps, unapproved terms and complexity in selecting the right products and services.


SURVEY REPORT

4. Struggle with Selling to Existing Customers

1 in 3 companies are missing opportunities to capture value from existing customers through contract renewals

Selling to existing customers is one of the most effective ways to meet goals for revenue, margin and growth.

Unfortunately, even though most businesses generate at least half of their revenue in renewals—with almost

35% of respondents generating 80% of revenue through renewals—businesses have an abysmal amount of

visibility into their renewals. Companies are commonly unaware of both where it comes from and how

effectively it is captured.

One third of survey respondents admitted they don’t know what their annual increase clauses are, or if

their deals even contain them. To compound the pain, the survey data shows that half of all companies are

not successfully upselling and cross-selling at the time of renewal. Point blank, many companies are simply

leaving money on the table

Business Tied to Renewals


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What You Need to Know

About Forecasting

The average forecast error is

anywhere from 13% to 39%

(Courtesy of Forecasting Blog)

74% of industry leaders have a

process for tracking prospect

engagement

(Courtesy of salesforce.com)

About 40% of companies think

that forecast inaccuracy has

impacted their stock price by at

least 5% (Courtesy of KPMG)

Accurate forecasters performed

noticeably better, growing

share prices by 46%, which is

12% above average

(Courtesy of KPMG)

5. Forecasting Inaccuracies

20% of businesses reports their forecasts are not effective for business planning and

spending decisions

Revenue forecasts determine what purchases can be made, how much

employees are paid, what programs are adopted and what interest rates

money can be borrowed at. And for public companies, the forecast directly

effects market capitalization and stock value.

Despite the importance of accurate forecasts, many firms admit they are

at risk for revenue shortfalls, and, in extreme cases, revenue re-

statements because their revenue forecasts are inaccurate. 50% of these

firms report that forecasts are occasionally inaccurate, while 20% report

their forecasts are chronically inaccurate and negatively impact planning

and spending.

For many organizations, a lack of visibility into contract data—specifically,

insight into the latest agreed-upon terms, commitments, and pricing—

contributes to errors, especially when it comes to revenue recognition and

forecasting.


SURVEY REPORT

Why Quote-to-Cash

and E-Signature?

70% of CPQ users

agree that they have a

standard selling

processes, which is 20%

higher than non-user

80% of CPQ users

agree that they price

their products fairly and

accurately, which is more

than 10% higher than

non-user

Without e-signatures,

35% of people take 1-2

weeks to approve and

sign sales contracts, and

10% take over 2 weeks

to approve and sign

With e-signatures, 30%

get contracts approved

within a day, and 45%

in a week

Optimizing the Organization

Reduce Blind Spots and Close Faster with Quote-to-Cash and E-Signature Solutions

Quote-to-Cash is the end-to-end business process between the buyer’s interest in

a purchase and the realization of revenue. It includes creating a quote,

submitting a proposal, negotiating and managing the contract, getting the

contract signed, fulfilling the order, tracking payment and managing renewals. In

addition to being more capable of effectively managing the five aforementioned

blind spots — companies that are able to sell effectively and efficiently have an

advantage in three other key aspects as well: Control, Visibility, and Speed.

1. Control

If you’re familiar with customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as

salesforce.com, you know that CRM effectively tracks the activities that move a

lead to an opportunity to a closed deal. However, there is often a knowledge gap

between what happens between the opportunity and the realization of revenue.

An effective Quote-to-Cash solution, consisting of Configure Price Quote (CPQ)

integrated with Contract Management and E-Signatures, eliminates costly,

potentially deal-killing errors, halts maverick discounts and speeds time to

revenue.

With CPQ automation, managers can define what a good deal looks like —

including discount level, product, status, customer restraints and required

approvals — to ensure reps deals are aligned with important company goals. The

addition of Contract Management and E-Signatures ensures customer and quote

data is automatically merged from the system into the contract, eliminating

mistakes due to data re-entry. If required, additional customer data can be

collected as part of the approval process, further ensuring process consistency.


SURVEY REPORT

2. Visibility

Lack of visibility into the sales cycle can cause a variety of problems, all of which can result in lost revenue.

Companies with optimized sales processes understand that visibility comes in three varieties: ensuring

managers have visibility into what reps are doing, giving reps full visibility into their pipeline, approvals and

product catalog, and finally, ensuring customers and partners have insight into pricing and the products and

services catalog. When all three parties are informed, the experience is a vastly more efficient and effective

sales process.

Sales organizations equipped with an automated CPQ solution can enhance sales effectiveness with system

driven intelligence. CPQ allows sales leaders to manage strategies for different channels or geographies by

giving full visibility into sales trends and channel effectiveness, so executives can course-correct when needed.

Easy to use guidance for the right products and services, pricing, margin targets, customer’s existing assets

and contracts help steer reps towards optimized deals so money isn’t left on the table.

An automated CPQ solution integrated with Contract Management will make the sales process more efficient.

Once contracts are sent for E-Signature, the approval status is automatically updated throughout the entire

cycle. Sales managers and reps can view the approval stage and status; in addition, they can easily find

previously signed documents and maintain a detailed audit trail at the same time.

This will also ensure revenue opportunities aren’t being overlooked. Automating contract renewals and

streamlining the approval with E-Signatures improve renewal rates and revenue growth, in some cases, by

15% or more, which at the enterprise level can boost your top line by millions. Linking quotes to contracts is

a crucial step in aligning once siloed processes into a full Quote-to-Cash solution, which will provide greater

organization wide optimization and improved sales numbers.


SURVEY REPORT

3. Speed

By automating quoting processes, sales organizations can tame complex catalogs, eliminate manual steps, and

drastically shorten quote generation time. Getting a quote in front of a customer before the competition is

critical; first-mover advantage, in many cases, will seal the deal.

But the benefits of speed can be lost if contract management and approval isn’t also automated. What’s the

value of having an accurate, speedy quote if the deal is bottlenecked at the contracting phase and doesn’t get

signed in a timely manner? Or, if all of the quote information has to be manually entered into another point

solution or, even worse, transferred to paper, re-exposing the deal to the risk of costly errors?

If it takes weeks to negotiate terms and conditions and

get a signed contract, many of the advantages of an

automated CPQ solution can be nullified. Quoting

should flow seamlessly into a contract so deals close

and get booked as fast as possible. One important way

to accelerate contracting is by integrating E-Signature

into the process, which can cut contract finalization

time from weeks or days to minutes.

Speed is one of the most valuable assets to any

business. Companies that have created a full

integrated Quote-to-Cash process experience a much

more streamlined and efficient sales cycle,

resulting in:

Companies with CPQ Report Greater

Overall Win Rate

CPQ: Yes

CPQ: No

500% faster signature-based approval times

105% larger deal size on average

49% higher proposal volume

28% shorter sales cycles

26% more reps achieving quota

17% higher lead-to-conversion rate

4% 28% 28% 16% 10% 14%

6% 20% 30% 16% 2% 28%


SURVEY REPORT

Closing Comments

The Apttus and Adobe sales survey revealed that organizations that have automated CPQ, Contract

Management and E-Signatures have a clear advantage over those that didn’t. They are more aware of and

better manage the sales blind spots that erode sales and revenue. They also benefit from shorter sales cycles

and face fewer obstacles in rapidly reaching their sales goals.

Apttus and Adobe will continue to conduct market research to identify further points of friction in critical sell-

side business processes and ways to improve them.

About Apttus

Apttus, the category-defining Quote-to-Cash software company, drives the vital business process between the

buyer’s interest in a purchase and the realization of revenue. Apttus is delivered on the Salesforce1 Platform,

the world’s most trusted and comprehensive cloud delivery infrastructure. Applications include Configure Price

Quote (CPQ), Renewals, Contract Management and Revenue Management. Additionally, Apttus’ patent pending

X-Author technology enables Microsoft Office to be a user-interface with full interaction and control between

Salesforce and Microsoft Office. Apttus is based in San Mateo, California, with additional offices in London, UK,

Bozeman, Montana and Ahmedabad, India. For more information visit: apttus.com.

About Adobe EchoSign

Adobe EchoSign is an e-signing solution, trusted and used by businesses of all types, including Fortune 1000

companies, healthcare organizations, and financial institutions, to accelerate critical business processes in

Sales, HR, Legal, Procurement, and Operations. From the global leader in secure digital documents for more

than 25 years, EchoSign quickly integrates with existing systems, extends mobile productivity, and reduces

signature cycle times from days to minutes. For more information, visit: echosign.com

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