The Future of Sales is Artificial Intelligence. Here's Why...

Excerpt from an article from Acuvate blogs. Read the full post here.

Needless to say, artificial intelligence is currently leading the conversation in the tech industry.

From changing functionalities of a basic Google search to boosting adoption rates of a corporate intranet, AI technologies have been transforming every aspect of both our professional and personal lives.

And most predictions are positive too. Here are a few...

AI will be a top five investment priority for more than 30 percent of CIOs –  Gartner

The AI market is expected to be worth USD 16.06 Billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 62.9% from 2016 to 2022 –  Markets and Markets

62% of enterprises will use AI technologies by 2018 –  Narrative Science

With the latest breakthroughs in the areas of Natural Learning Processing, Machine Learning etc. companies have realized the need to use AI technologies to gain a competitive edge.

AI is bound to benefit various teams across an organization but we predict that AI led transformation will be particularly key for the sales department.

More than any other department, the efficiency of sales is highly dependent on automating labor-intensive tasks and obtaining the right data at the right time. And AI might just be the perfect answer for these problems.

Here are four ways AI is transforming the sales department:

Increased CRM adoption

Sales teams in many organizations suffer from low CRM adoption rates. Research has shown that CRM adoption is less than 50% and 74% of sales teams using CRM systems have poor adoption rates.

Most CRM systems today are often filled with tons of high-volume data making it difficult for sales reps to get the required information quickly.

AI technologies like chatbots ingest data from not just CRMs but also other LOB systems like ERP or Data warehouses to generate and analyze key information. By integrating a chatbot into your CRM systems, Sales reps can just ask a natural language question and the bot will present the accurate information within seconds.

Sales Forecasting With Predictive Analytics

Whether its to identify new product/market segments, achieve higher OTIF delivery rate or drive better MSL(Must Stock List) compliance or estimate demand, sales forecasting is a must.

However sales forecasting has become a rather tedious task for organizations and there is also an uncertainty in the accuracy of estimations. In fact 54% of deals forecasted by sales reps never close.

Another significant branch of AI is Predictive Analytics. Powered with the combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistical modelling and data mining,this technology increases the accuracy of important estimations in sales forecasting. For industries where there is a constant struggle for sales teams to run the right promotions – say FMCG, predictive analytics can even recommend the correct promotions which yield the maximum ROI.

Hassle free data management

The efficiency of a sales team is highly dependent on one aspect – right information at the right time.

In a typical work day, a sales rep has to go through tons of reports, spreadsheets and data before making a decision. In addition, this data may not always be structured in the way he/she wants.

Again, AI chatbots save all the hassle here.

If integrated with organizational messaging platforms like Skype For Business, Slack, Skype, Yammer etc. the bot can act as a virtual assistant and sales representatives don't have to keep switching applications for accessing data. Chatbots can present the data in multiple formats – simple text, rich media or mixed making it simple and intuitive for the sales team to quickly grasp the key data points.

Sales Intelligence with Prescriptive Insights

Prescriptive Analytics is relatively a new field of predictive analytics. With prescriptive analytics sales teams can not only get insights on what is going to happen in the future but also on why it’s going to happen.

With prescriptive analytics, sales reps can easily spot the key factors which are affecting sales performances and can also get powerful insights on why these factors are crucial.

Conclusion

Traditionally the sales job was a tiresome one. With artificial intelligence, a sales rep can automate mundane and time-consuming tasks and focus only on the ones which require human involvement. Considering current predictions, market trends and uses cases of AI, it is evident that the faster a sales department adopts AI, the greater its competitive edge will be.

Excerpt from an article from Acuvate blogs. Read the full post here.