What is Big Data and Big Data for Sales?

According to IDC, we are creating more data in a single day than existed in the year 2000.  Simply put, this massive amount of data is referred to as Big Data.  It is characterized by its volume, velocity, variety and value. 

The continuous exponential growth in the amount of internal, external and social media data on your customers and prospects also relates to Big Data. Unfortunately, less than 0.01% of this information is useful for discovering buyer’s intent. For a given company, it is possible to find over 1,000 attributes of your customers and prospects across all the data sources that are available. If you pass all this information to a sales rep, it is entirely overwhelming and completely useless, since the rep would not know what to focus on.

Big Data is all about how effective you are at drawing insight from this immense amount of data. If you are not generating or receiving insight, you are missing an immense opportunity for growth.

Big Data for Sales enables inside and field sales people to fine-tune their day-to-day actions, answering a major question – how do I find and engage the customers who are most receptive to my product or service at the right time?

Guided by analytical insights about their customers, sales reps make superior decisions on which accounts to target and how to engage with decision-makers. The ‘secret sauce’ is the application of predictive analytics (advanced mathematical algorithms) to transform this abundance of data into deep, real-time insight about customer needs and behavior.

Learn More

Why Big Data for Sales? What are the Benefits?

• See a 360-degree view of your customers and prospects: Traditional CRM is not enough -- its data is mostly limited to what sales reps have already entered—and data providers merely offer high-level external data and reams of unfiltered social data. Big Data for Sales is unique because it integrates and processes data comprehensively from internal data systems, external sources and social media to generate customer insight. Your team will see the bigger picture with Big Data for Sales.

• Act on customer insight, not more raw data: Leveraging Big Data sales analytics does not mean flooding reps with even more raw data. The key is to extract meaningful, actionable insights and recommendations on when and how to engage with each account. With big data for sales, reps maximize their return on selling time.

• Have a 'sixth sense' when it comes to identifying opportunities: Things change – companies open new offices, win new government contracts or increase hiring. Some of these changes may be internal – a new financial management system, changes in the network or the opening of a new data-center. Every one of these changes is an opportunity to engage. Big Data for Sales is highly effective at identifying these engagement opportunities for your reps.

• Coach every rep on what to say - in real-time: Most customers are eager to be educated but they need help bridging the gap between their problem (felt or unfelt) and the solutions you offer. Yet, sales reps simply don’t have time to research all aspects of a customer to learn how to be effective in every single account. Big Data for Sales automates this process by providing immediate ‘reasons to call’ and tailored talking points for each individual account right when they need it most.

•  ‘Social Selling’ and ‘Sales 2.0’ become reality: Most traditional CRM providers have created hype around the use of social media in B2B sales, but the operational usefulness for sales people rarely exceeds a slightly better way of accessing LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networks. Big Data sales technology taps into the rep’s social networks and the networks of their peers to help with account targeting, access to decision-makers and social referencing.

• Measure, learn and define true success: What is the ROI of your CRM efforts? You shouldn’t have to scratch your head to answer this question.  Understanding how each rep is doing against different types of engagement opportunities is key to improving their performance. Big Data for Sales customers can easily report the ROI of their CRM efforts because they have established targeting and engagement motions that are measured down to the activity level. Measuring both the soft metrics of engagement (e.g., did the rep act on an engagement opportunity) as well as the hard metrics of performance and productivity (e.g., what was the conversion rate?)– and adjusting the approach based on results – is key to a successful sales system.

See how Big Data can lead to big sales for your organization. 

Learn More