Co-sponsored by Salesforce, the study looks to uncover strategic insights to help companies succeed in 2018

DUBLIN, IRELAND and SAN JOSE, CA – Thursday 19th October - Altify, the digital sales transformation software company, announced the opening of the second annual business performance benchmark study, focusing on the key business trends, company growth drivers and sales best practices from around the world. The goal of the study is to uncover insights to help companies succeed who are battling with digital transformation in a customer first world. Last year, 833 respondents based in 60 countries, across 12 different industry sectors took part in the 2017 Business Performance Benchmark Study.

The 2018 Business Performance Benchmark Study builds on previous work which last year found 62% of enterprise sales teams tended to misidentify the correct decision makers, which contributes to wasting $579Bn on dead-end meetings. The 2017 study also found that regardless of investments in technology, artificial intelligence and other factors, more gender and racially diverse sales teams and organizations, performed better compared to their peers.

This year the study will once again examine the overall business sentiment and confidence in global markets while also looking to identify areas of potential disruptive factors. While the 2017 study uncovered an overall positive business outlook globally, the impacts of digital transformation, workplace diversity, currency volatility and the impact of anti-globalization policies such as Brexit are key disruptive figures to global organizations.

The 2018 study will further explore these and other disruptive forces uncovered in 2017, while also uncovering best practices in sales, marketing and strategy to provide actionable insights to improve sales velocity and drive business performance such as:

Connecting to the people and the customers who matter:
Retaining customers was identified as the number one strategic priority for 2017, ahead of capturing new business. However, 32% of companies reported that they were not effective at uncovering and understanding their customer’s business problems.

Diversity is key to sales success:
With diversity, a hotly debated topic in the media, the 2017 study respondents understood the value of a diverse workforce on their organization’s bottom line as 70 percent believe a diversity policy impacts the business performance of their organisation. Companies who reported a strong policy on diversity and inclusion reported 50% greater success in retaining their customers.

Aligning the entire team around the customer:
Customer Retention is a core goal for sales teams in 2017 as 87 percent of respondents in the 2017 study said it was their organization’s strategic focus. Just 50 percent of sellers reported that they believe marketers understand their customers.

"Business success in global organisations requires a customer-focused sales strategy leveraging data-driven insights, and the skills, processes, methodologies and tools to execute the strategy” said Anthony Reynolds, CEO at Altify. "Businesses are looking to accelerate their sales velocity by better understanding their customers and the markets they compete in. Our goal with the study is to provide actionable insights to help companies grow in 2018.”

Please click here to participate in the study.

The 2018 Business Performance Benchmark Study is open for responses until December 1st and only takes 10 minutes to complete. Participants will receive a copy of the study findings and an invitation to the presentation of the study results at the end of January 2018.

For further insights on how organisations can improve their business performance, Altify recently published Thriving in the Whirlwind, Four Strategies to Grow Revenue Now. The book provides updated insight on sales performance best practices uncovered in the 2017 study as well as previous research from Altify. The book is available now at https://www.altify.com/ebook-thriving-in-the-whirlwind/ and at Amazon.co.uk.

For more information about the Altify Platform, visit www.altify.com or connect via social media:

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About Altify
Altify is the digital sales transformation software company, helping sales teams win the deals that matter and increase wallet share with a suite of software products that improve opportunity and account management. Built natively on Salesforce platform, Altify helps salespeople, managers and executives achieve sustained revenue growth and sales success. Altify customers include: Autodesk, Brocade, BT, GE, Honeywell, HP Enterprise, Johnson Controls, UnitedHealthcare, Optum, Salesforce and Software AG. Find out more at alitfy.com.

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