What Does it Take to Be a Leader in Growth and Innovation?
While some businesses are in the market for profits; others are in the market to make a difference. And what better way to make a difference if not through innovation? SugarCRM has recently received the 2021 North American Customer Value Leadership Award, presented by industry analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, for growth opportunities in use of artificial intelligence (AI) within targeted verticals and expansion in current customer base, so we think that we know something about delivering on innovation that provides intrinsic value to customers.
For us, innovation nurtures growth, simplifies the lives of employees all over the world, and removes an extra boring task from their daily lift.
Aided by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence, innovation is just a creative and “opportunistic” team away. Although in sales force automation creativity doesn’t seem to have its place, combined with a better, automated version of their daily systems, routines, and workflows, it does make a difference.
Listening to the Market’s Needs
Catering to the needs of businesses in different verticals, companies in the sales force automation and CRM industry need to pay better attention to their pain points. We hear way too often that your CRM is only as valuable as the data you feed it. But, CRMs also lack other key-elements that make the hard things easier: flexibility, transparency, collaboration opportunities between departments. To learn what our segment’s most severe pain points are, we interviewed 1000 sales professionals and compiled the findings in our CRM and Sales Impact Report. We discovered that Forty-eight percent of them identify the lack of flexible CRM solutions as the cause of declining sales. Eighty percent of the interviewed professionals also think that CRM data that is consolidated across all departments will help them improve customer satisfaction.
In this case, simple, affordable software is the solution. Such tools can optimize customer value with cross-departmental features, ease of implementation and use. Although, traditionally, similar software comes with a hefty price, strategic technology, resource acquisitions, and careful implementation of AI-based capabilities become affordable.
Predictive Analytics: Making the Hard Things Easier
With the introduction of predictive analytics across all departments—think sales, service, and marketing—businesses increase their chances of success, growth, and competitiveness.
The data from your sales, marketing, and service departments is a valuable asset and predictive analytics will help you better understand and plan business decisions. AI-powered tools like SugarPredict tap into external resources and data, and fill in the gaps in your CRM. So, when used for sales forecasting, AI will help you assess the health of your pipeline, which leads are most likely to convert, and more. Your marketing department can also benefit and grow its capabilities by leveraging AI. This technology can aid in audience segmentation, developing more accurate lead scoring rules, and more.
To facilitate growth and democratize AI, technology also has to be affordable. Although, until recently, only enterprise companies with big budgets could benefit from such solutions, with the launch of products such as SugarPredict, we added value to our customers’ pipeline and expanded their growth opportunities.
Want to learn more about SugarPredict and how it can give your business a competitive edge? Get in touch with our team!
