IDC: Sales Executives Respond to Rapidly Changing IT Industry

Having prospered in a demand-rich industry, IT sales executives now face the dual challenge of increasing productivity and driving revenue growth while re-tooling their organizations to be truly effective at solutions selling. In its recent research IDC (www.idc.com) unveils the top challenges before the sales executives in the present changing environment.

"Today's top sales executives face an environment where the management systems and philosophies by which they have traditionally practiced their trade are no longer relevant," said Donald MacDonald, vice president of Sales Management and Operations research at IDC.

In this study, The Sales Executive Challenge: Sales Productivity and Solution Selling at Odds (IDC #31987) http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jhtml?containerId=31987 , IDC presents the findings of its survey of 26 senior sales executives in tier one IT vendor companies.

In a survey of senior sales executives from across the IT spectrum , IDC's newest research service found that few companies are effectively rising to meet these challenges in the "new", slower-growth IT economy.

"To succeed in this new environment, sales executives have to move beyond the traditional mindset of growing sales simply by hiring and fielding more reps. They must make solution selling the company's mission if they are to be successful and profitable," says MacDonald.

According to the research, selling solutions and maintaining sales productivity are competing priorities that pit top line growth against bottom line performance.

In the IDC's study are identified several key management initiatives that IT sales executives must address to survive. Among the recommendations are working on internal and external alignment factors, helping accelerate the complex and normally protracted nature of solutions selling, improving the performance of their sales force and expanding the role of sales operations.

To monitor and measure progress, IDC recommends that sales executives embrace the REPS framework, consisting of four categories of performance metrics: Revenue, Expenses, Productivity, and Stakeholders.

The survey addresses the challenges and actions that sales leadership must take in reaction to management mandates that call for productivity increases in the rapidly changing IT industry.