Sales Operations: Finding Ways to Work Smarter
Brought to you by:
Service Director, Sales Operations
Strategies@danatherrien
July 19, 2017 Sales Operations: Finding
Ways to Work Smarter
Dana M. Therrien, CSCP
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 3
Dana M. Therrien, Service Director, CSCPDana Therrien is a senior sales operations leader with more than 25
years of sales, sales operations, business and service operations,
and finance experience. He is a forward-thinking leader with a
record of driving results by increasing sales effectiveness and
improving sales productivity while supporting global, multimillion-
dollar sales growth with industry leaders.
Dana is an expert in business planning, analytics and reporting,
quota setting and management, territory design, sales process
optimization, sales force automation, go-to-market strategy design
and execution, sales compensation design, and administration.
He holds an MBA from Boston University and a B.S. in Accounting
from Thomas College, and is a WorldatWork Certified Sales
Compensation Professional (CSCP).
linkedin.com/in/danatherrien/
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 4
All companies want to grow
Markets Buyers Offerings M&A Productivity
Sales Marketing Product
Operations
Management
Marketing
CPO
Operations
Enablement
Demand
CMO
Operations
Enablement
Channel
CSO
High-Performing Revenue Engine
High performance occurs when...
Alignment Results in…
19% Faster Revenue Growth
15% Higher Profitability
Source: SiriusDecisions Economics of Sales Marketing and Product Alignment Study (May 2015)
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 5
Intelligent Growth: How Do We Deliver?
Empowers organizations to solve
growth-related issues
• Role-based services
• SiriusIndex/Command Center
• SiriusTools
• SiriusTemplates
• SiriusMarketplace
Research
and Advisory
Extends the advisory model to
maintain focus, break logjams,
assess progress
• Project engagements
• Workshops
Research-
Informed
ConsultingUpskills B2B professionals to
tackle next-generation challenges
• SiriusPathways
• Curriculum advice
Research-
Enabled
Learning
Research
and Advisory
LearningConsulting
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 6
7 © 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved@SiriusDecisions
• Key issues
• Sales operations knows very well what they do day-to-day, but often struggle to explain
it to other people.
• Sales operations spends their days putting out fires and can’t ever seem to find the time
to work on preventing them.
• Funding and staffing a sales operations organization to handle both short-term tactical
demands and longer-term strategic initiatives is a challenging balancing act.
• What you will walk away with
• A model that explains what sales operations does
• A breakdown of tactical and strategic accountabilities of modern sales operations
• An idea of how to categorize and invest in accountabilities properly
Executive Summary
SiriusPerspective:
8 © 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved@SiriusDecisions
Sales Operations YesterdaySales operations emerged as a tactical and reactive function with undeveloped
structural silos that made the organization largely tactical.
PlanningBudgets,
territories,
quota,
compensation
TechnologySales tools
and
technologies
OtherRFP response,
sales support,
training
ProcessDefinition,
governance,
roles,
responsibilities
and scope
ReportingReports,
dashboards,
ad hoc
reporting
Support/
AdministrationOrder cleansing,
validation, entry
9 © 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved@SiriusDecisions
Seven Primary Accountabilities
Development
and
implementation
of short, medium
and long-term
plans that align
with corporate
objectives and
lead to
achievement of
sales goals.
Strategy and
Planning
Development
and distribution
of information
and insights
about prospects,
customers, sales
activities and
assets that
improve sales
performance.
Sales
Intelligence
Development,
automation,
governance,
measurement
and
improvement of
sales and
revenue
execution
processes.
Process
Design and
Management
Management of
personnel and
functions that
execute sales
support and
administrative
activities.
Support and
Administration
Design and
admin of sales
opportunity
related activities
that result in
higher win rates
and increased
profitability.
Deal Pursuit
Selection,
implementation
and
administration of
sales
technologies that
deliver user and
business value.
Technology
Planning,
execution and
oversight of
projects that
improve sales
performance,
reduce
administrative
burden and/or
improve
profitability.
Project
Management
10 © 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved@SiriusDecisions
Action Items
SiriusPerspective:
The SiriusDecisions
Sales Operations
Sunburst Model
defines the seven
primary
accountabilities that
sales operations
delivers to the
organization.
Sales
Operations
Sunburst Model
11 © 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved@SiriusDecisions
Action Items
Deal
Pursuit
Technology
Strategy
and Planning
Sales
IntelligenceProcess Design
and Management
Support
and Admin
Project Management
SiriusPerspective:
The SiriusDecisions
Sales Operations
Sunburst Model
defines the seven
primary
accountabilities that
sales operations
delivers to the
organization.
Sales
Operations
Sunburst Model
Applying the Sales Operations Sunburst ModelWhere to Invest
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 13
U.S. Employment Market Trends Since 1975
Seismic shift employment
trends are pressuring sales
operations to optimize costs
while expanding support
SiriusPerspective:
14 © 2016 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved
#SDSummit
@JStevenSilver @danatherrien
Classifying Job FunctionsThe United States Federal Reserve Bank classifies labor categories in
four quadrants that are useful in guiding sales operations investment decisions.
Types of Work
• Routine manual
• Routine cognitive
• Non-routine manual
• Non-routine cognitive
Cogn
itiv
eM
an
ua
l
Routine Non-routine
Independent process-
oriented workers
• Office assistants
• Sales agents
Laborers
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Assembly line
work
Advanced-degree
workers
• Managers
• Engineers
• Doctors, nurses
Service workers
• Health care
assistance
• Wait staff
• Travel and Hospitality
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 15
Applications
Excel
Should Sales Operations Finally Kick Its Excel Habit?
BI
Developing
New KPIs
• Intellectual - Strategic custom analysis required
to assess and revise each year’s sales go-to-
market model, financial plan, quotas,
compensation plans and corresponding accrual
calculations.
Intellectual
Analytical
• Analytical – Impromptu correlative analysis that
answers sales management’s deeper questions,
such as: Why are some reps more productive
than others?
Operational
• Operational - KPIs sales leadership and sales
reps use to manage and track their day-to-day
business.
Ma
nu
al
Co
gn
itiv
e
Analy
tics C
om
ple
xity
Routine Non-Routine
Production Type
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 16
Routine Manual
Cogn
itiv
eM
an
ua
lRoutine Non-routine
Operational BI
• Reporting
• Dashboarding
• Data governance
• Operational - KPIs sales
leadership and sales reps use to
manage and track their day-to-day
business.
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 17
Routine Cognitive
Cogn
itiv
eM
an
ua
lRoutine Non-routine
Analytical BI
• Forecasting
• Ad-hoc reporting
• Ad-hoc analysis
• Analytical – Impromptu correlative
analysis that answers sales
management’s deeper questions,
such as: Why are some reps more
productive than others?
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 18
Non-Routine Cognitive
Cogn
itiv
eM
an
ua
lRoutine Non-routine
• Intellectual - Strategic custom
analysis required to assess and
revise each year’s sales go-to-
market model, financial plan,
quotas, compensation plans and
corresponding accrual
calculations.
Intellectual BI
• User empowerment
• Aligned metrics
• Data strategy
• Predictive analytics
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 19
Non-Routine Manual
Cogn
itiv
eM
an
ua
lRoutine Non-routine
Mixed Analytical and
Intellectual
• Customer insights
• Prospect insights
• Ad-hoc analysis
• Intellectual - Strategic custom
analysis required to assess and
revise each year’s sales go-to-market
model, financial plan, quotas,
compensation plans and
corresponding accrual calculations.
• Analytical – Impromptu correlative
analysis that answers sales
management’s deeper questions,
such as: Why are some reps more
productive than others?
© 2017 SiriusDecisions. All Rights Reserved 20
Sales Operations Staffing Strategies
• Leverage technology to automate
routine, manual processes
• Centralize and standardize
duplicate activities across regions
• In-region activities are time-zone,
language or local-market sensitive
• Allow non-standard processes only
where there is economic reason to
do so
Automate
How can Anaplan help?
Planning
Execution
Operations
DataData People
Plans
Anaplan for Sales
• Territory Planning & Targets
• Sales Coverage & Capacity
Planning
• Compensation Planning
• Account Planning
• Quota Setting
• Account Re-assignment
Sales Planning
• Sales Crediting
• Compensation Calculations
• Dispute Management
• Compensation Accruals
Sales Incentives
• Sales Forecasting
• Finance Forecasting
• Forecast Modeling
• Pricing Management
• Sales Analytics
Sales Insights
• Sales Forecasting
• Finance Forecasting
• Forecast Modeling
• Pricing Management
• Sales Analytics
Planning
Execution
Operations
DataData People
Plans
Anaplan for Sales
• Territory Planning & Targets
• Sales Coverage & Capacity
Planning
• Compensation Planning
• Account Planning
• Quota Setting
• Account Re-assignment
• Sales Crediting
• Compensation Calculations
• Dispute Management
• Compensation Accruals
Scored and cleaned over 1.4M accounts in under 4 months
Automated role & HR data
management
Reduced commission specific requests from over 1000 per quarter to less than 50
“It’s easy to reassemble data and push it back—all that goes from weeks to
seconds.”
Improved quota setting cycle time
by 40%
7-8 month planning process now takes 3
months
Live roll-ups and drill downs for
dozens of teams
Resources informed of high probability
opportunities
Sales Insights
Sales Incentives
Sales Planning
Q A