Post-pandemic, the sales departments of major corporations are coping with an enforced shift to a hybrid model of sales. This includes sales conversations that are partly online (through video-conferencing, emailing, WhatsApp etc) and partly offline (physical meetings and leaving behind physical collateral). In general, most organizations have been caught unprepared by the scale and speed of the migration. These organizations are now looking seriously at sales enablement platforms to smoothen this transition for both managers and field staff. This blog explains how your organization will benefit, and how you can successfully persuade decision-makers to adopt a suitable platform.

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Which companies will benefit the most from sales enablement?

For large enterprises with distributed sales teams, the change to new selling paradigms requires a lot of training (on new technology) as well as personal hand-holding. An organization should consider adopting a sales enablement platform if:

1. It has a distributed sales team. This is true for most pan-India companies, where salespeople are spread over several towns and cities. Everytime there is a new product launch, or new technology upgrade, or even new sales communication, it becomes difficult for the staff to travel to the regional offices for meetings and training. They will benefit from a multi-purpose platform that delivers personalized coaching at scale, and integrates seamlessly with internal systems for CRM, lead management, reporting and external communication. For example, agents of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC India) - the largest player in the insurance segment - use a sales enablement solution called SuperAgent. This ensures that all of them are on the same page with respect to products and their benefits. Similarly, automotive component maker Spark Minda uses sales enablement to help its distributed force keep track of all new products dynamically.
2. It has multiple products. A large organization with multiple products and frequent product updates can find it difficult to keep the distributed sales team up to date in real time. This is especially true of the pharmaceutical, insurance, automotive components, telecom industries and CPG industries. This can lead to confusion as different individuals have different levels of awareness, leading to the risk of them pitching outdated products or product communication. A sales enablement platform will help them be automatically updated and trained about new products and product upgrades. For example, Torrent Pharma uses an app called TorQuiz to help its field force learn new products through interactive quizzes. It also helps managers assess how well their team is learning through AI-assisted role plays. 
3. It has dynamic products. This is true of the BFSI industry, which not only has multiple products but also customizes each product for individuals based on their age, gender, health, risk appetite etc. Here, it is not only important to deliver updated collateral, but also empower the salesperson to customize it according to unique customer needs. And they must be able to do this within minutes, as they move from one sales call to another. Some of the biggest private insurance players in the country, like Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance and Kotak Life Insurance have been successfully using mobile first sales enablement solutions - elevating their sales team’s game. Their sales team is able to create and deliver customized presentations to clients during their conversations. Other industries that will benefit from such solutions are the IT, FinTech and EduTech industries.
4. It requires constant and consistent communication - Each business segment has a different sales cycle, and requires a different customer communication frequency. Selling an insurance policy (B2C) might take less than two weeks per customer with just one or two meetings. However, pharmaceutical, medical devices, or IT solutions (B2B) might take months across several meetings. Sales enablement can help organizations sharing information on a real time basis and deliver self-paced training for the field sales team.

Who owns sales enablement in large and complex enterprises?

Traditionally, sales training has been a function of the sales department, while coaching and development of L&D teams. However, the rising complexity of sales has led to the increasingly blurred lines between the two. 

Over the last few years, and even more so since the pandemic, sales readiness and enablement has become a collaborative effort of product, sales, IT, L&D, and marketing teams. 

At sharpsell, experience has shown that a collaborative approach between multiple departments works best for sales enablement, with distinct roles for each:

1. Product R&D for updates and collateral. Salespersons depend on the product team for product briefings as well as updated collateral, such as technical specifications, legal requirements, calculations etc.
2. Sales leaders for mentorship. Sales managers can help individuals deal with specific cases, through one to one interactions. AI-based role-plays also help them monitor individual salesperson’s behaviour with different kinds of clients (skeptical, questioning, difficult or easy).
3. Digital team for platform integration. Online training and mentorship also requires integration with existing apps like CRM, LMS, internal and external communications etc.
4. L&D team for training. L&D teams can create multiple training content modules, which can be accessed by the sales team as per their needs or convenient times, for self-paced learning.
5. Marketing team for sales pitch. The marketing department usually decides how a product is to be pitched to the public, by stating benefits and solutions to pain points. Using these as pointers, the salesperson then customizes the talking points for each prospect.

The sales enablement industry is growing at a fast clip globally (projected to grow to USD 7.3 billion by 2028). Indian organizations are not far behind in adopting the paradigms of sales enablement, in part or in full, according to their needs.