Productivity initiatives distracting sales teams, stifling performance

Organisations have invested billions in sales productivity solutions to enhance performance by giving sellers more time to sell - but the investment strategy is not paying off. According to new research from Accenture and CSO Insights, 59 per cent of global sales executives say they have access to too many sales tools and are bombarded by too much disaggregated customer data to be effective.

"Sales distraction" is hindering business performance, causing 56 per cent of global organisations to miss annual sales forecasts. The Accenture Strategy report, "Selling in the Age of Distraction", examined the challenges to sales performance of global organisations with revenues of more than $1 billion, featured in CSO Insights' 2016 Sales Performance Optimisation Benchmark Study.

Organisations that want to boost sales performance can shift to "outcome selling" by connecting customer insights and actions that matter the most, and giving sales executives the best opportunity to deliver more tailored solutions.