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Leading organisations across the ASEAN region look to Sales Operations (Sales Ops) to support and enable their sales teams.
According to our State of Sales report, 95% of ASEAN sales professionals agree that Sales Ops is becoming increasingly strategic. Moreover, 96% of ASEAN sales professionals also agree that Sales Ops is playing a key role in business continuity and growing the business.
In a recent webinar about why Sales Ops are the new sales heroes, Tiffani Bova, Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, said:
“Sales Ops used to be relegated to back office tasks. But as Sales Ops takes ownership of sales strategy planning, business leaders must look at how they can work better with Sales Ops.”
Here are four ways Sales Ops is taking on new significance in high-performing sales organisations:
According to our State of Sales report, 53% of high-performing organisations in ASEAN said Sales Ops exclusively owns sales strategy planning. This is compared to 32% at moderate-performing companies, and just 24% at under-performing organisations.
That suggests high-performing organisations are turning to Sales Ops for strategic insights as they pivot to meet new business challenges.
Benjamin Krowitz, Senior Manager, Sales Strategy at Salesforce, said:
“Sales Ops is helping the business understand how we need to capitalise on new channels to market when traditional channels might not be performing as they need to be. From a strategy perspective, Sales Ops is identifying all the levers we need to lean on across our organisation to drive difference.”
Leading organisations are using Sales Ops to help maintain seamless customer experiences across all touchpoints. Our State of Sales report reveals that 78% of global consumers expect consistent interactions across departments. Yet, 59% feel they are communicating with separate departments, rather than with a single company.
High-performing organisations in ASEAN are using Sales Ops to help fill this gap. According to our State of Sales report, 74% said that Sales Ops teams are more involved in cross-functional workstream management than in 2019. That’s compared to 51% of moderate performers, and 37% of under-performing organisations.
Stuart Thornton, CEO & Co-Founder of hoolah said his company uses Sales Ops to coordinate operational flows across the organisation:
“We’ve introduced Sales Ops to be the connector point between different functions and help to avoid drops in communication. The ultimate aim is to make sure our sales function is laser focused on bringing in new partnerships. If the sales team is involved in the administrative aspects of the operation flow, we’d be potentially moving backwards in our business.”
According to our State of Sales report, 73% of ASEAN organisations said Sales Ops is more involved in sales technology management compared to 2019.
The report also revealed that 87% of Sales Ops professionals said sales technology needs have significantly changed since 2019. Moreover, 92% of Sales Ops professionals believe digital transformation has accelerated since 2019. Eighty-eight percent said they now implement changes faster.
But technology won’t get the job done alone. Sales Ops must be working to optimise these new tools.
According to Thornton, effective sales technology management has been a critical driver of growth through the pandemic. He said:
“hoolah is an alternative solution for merchants to scale and grow. That meant we’ve had an influx of interest and demand during the pandemic. Sales Ops is making sure we are getting the most out of tools like Sales Cloud. This involvement has been vital to helping us grow and scale at speed.”
According to our State of Sales report, 57% of ASEAN organisations said Sales Ops is more involved in sales strategy training management compared to 2019.
At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly important tool for sales reps. AI was named the most valuable sales tool in ASEAN since 2019 in our State of Sales report. High performers are 3 ½ times more likely to adopt AI.
Krowitz pointed out that Sales Ops must help sales reps understand how to turn AI-based insights into real-world actions. He said:
“From a Sales Ops perspective, we can push hard to automate insights, but we must also drive toward action. For example, we need to help our sales teams understand what it means when they see a propensity to buy score, or what the next best action actually translates to in their day or week.”
Sales Ops can do so much more than provide basic operational support to sales teams. Leading companies across ASEAN are now looking to Sales Ops for strategic insights that will drive organisational growth.
Sales Ops is also coordinating sales strategy and connecting functions across the organisation to support seamless customer experiences. Digital transformation is critical to achieve this goal. But Sales Ops needs to optimise new sales tools and help sales reps turn technology and AI insights into daily actions.
To learn more about how sales teams in ASEAN are staying on top of their game, read the Salesforce Trends in ASEAN Sales report.
