It’s A Data Driven Age

“Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past… T.S. Eliot

Is it possible to see the future?  Yes, if you take a look at the past.  Time has proven again and again that history repeats itself.  The repetition isn’t in a literal sense, it’s more conceptual.  Mark Twain refined it.  He said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”  When considering the past as a forecaster for business decisions look for patterns, similarities and end results as the best indicators of what you might expect to experience again.  With a firm hand on data collection there is the option to either repeat the past, or improve it.

Three years ago the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) did a study on “Data Driven Decision Making” (DDD). They reported, “Using detailed survey data on the business practices and information technology investments of 179 large publicly traded firms, we find that firms that adopt DDD have output and productivity that is 5-6% higher than what would be expected given their other investments and information technology usage.”

Since the MIT study, technology has continued its upward climb and today the tools at the fingertips of business are even more efficient. Today there is software available that will literally measure everything and anything, and without a doubt your competition is utilizing such to measure not only dollars and cents, but the performance of their workforce.

When home computers first became available there were many people who thought that the machine magically knew everything. It took a little stumbling around for people to understand that the machine only knew what it was taught. The bottom line is that you can’t get out what you don’t put in, and guesswork is costly in this highly competitive age.
Does your CRM track the actual data that you need to make informed decisions? Do you have the ability to make tracking adjustments that make the collection more relevant? Do you need to consider an add-on to enhance the process and make it more seamless?

Is documenting sales activity in your CRM a user-friendly process, or is it complex and distracting? Is it all in one place, or is it spread across different pages? Is it intuitive enough to help fill in such details as dates and times? Does it recommend your next step?

Is sales activity habitually documented or is it often skipped because reps find it too time consuming?  Are reps so busy having to scramble to make the desired number of calls that they see stopping to document their activity as a deterrent?

Incite2, an ultra efficient Salesforce add-on offered by ClearKen has taken the sting out of activity documentation.  Consider a demo to see for yourself how beautifully the documenting process has been simplified. Incite2 not only makes tracking your history effortless; it also dramatically increases the number of calls that can be made.

You can’t know where to go, unless you know where you’ve been.  Accurate data collection will open the door toward improving upon history.