Sales analytics software reports on CRM data to reveal sales insights and forecast future performance. Sales teams and managers use sales analytics to gain visibility into sales activities; locate high or under-performing salespeople, products, or communications; and forecast future sales numbers. Sales analytic insights can be used to improve sales strategies and implement a more predictable sales model. Sales analytics systems are usually implemented on top of sales force automation and other CRM systems and use existing data to reveal insights, though some serve as both the CRM system of record as well as the analytics tool.
Sales analytics products access data solely from sales tools, and their core functionality is to analyze sales information. Some companies opt to use business intelligence platforms and self-service business intelligence software instead, which can also provide companies insights into their data from a variety of other sources in addition to sales data.
To qualify for inclusion in the Sales Analytics category, a product must:
Automate and visualize sales pipelines with customizable stages, risk factors, and scoring methods
Report on the performance of salespeople, products, methods, and other available data
Forecast sales numbers based on pipeline factors
