For sales operations leaders, one mission tops all others: drive sales productivity. But in this world of digitally-enabled, always-available, data-savvy customers, how can sales teams effectively manage the flow of information and still close deals? Read on to find out how sales operations leaders can grow their teams, accelerate productivity, and increase revenue.

Enable Teams with Best-in-Class Tools for Best-in-Class Performance

Too often salespeople lose critical selling time because they’re focused on administrative tasks. They spend too much time doing things like developing presentations, building customer profiles, and composing e-mails—all things that aren’t necessarily the best use of their time, according to the EMI Industry Intelligence Report.

A reliable set of centralized cloud-based sales tools can help sales teams increase both efficiency and productivity by putting critical templates and data at their fingertips. According to the report, “Without a best-in-class suite of sales tools, selling time is lost, interactions with prospects are sub-optimal, and competitive advantages are left unstated.”

Turn Data into Deals

Sophisticated sales analytics help teams makes sense of data and maximize revenue opportunities, according to the Aberdeen Group.

Predictive analytics tools allow sales teams to forecast which data will close the deal based on facts about products, geographies, pricing combos, buyer personas, and more. About 27% of top performing companies are early adopters of predictive sales analytics, compared to just 9% of average performers and laggards, reports Aberdeen.

Use Mobile Technology to Deliver the Right Information at the Right Time

According to Accenture, about 86% of chief sales officers doubt that they’ll achieve their 2015 revenue targets in this rapidly changing sales environment. Improving the sales productivity of average performers–who account for 80% of the typical sales team–could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue each year.

One way that companies limit performance is by underutilizing digital and mobile technologies to deliver information at the right time and place. Although sales representatives’ adoption of tablet devices increased 400% in 2014, use of the devices is often limited to checking e-mail and administrative tasks instead of fulfilling strategic business needs, reports Accenture.

Want to learn more about how sales operations leaders can improve efficiencies and drive sales productivity in their organizations? Read “7 Sales Operations Insights to Drive Growth and Productivity” from the AppExchange.