Nearly two thirds of organizations are making organized efforts to collect, analyze and distribute business intelligence according to a recent study by CIO Insights. The study captured six key findings.

Finding #1: The use of business intelligence technologies is high, and growing.
Finding #2: Less than half of companies surveyed make organized efforts to collect competitive intelligence.
Finding #3: Overall satisfaction with customer intelligence is lowest among the three business intelligence categories. (The three categories are: competitive intelligence, customer intelligence, and internal performance.
Finding #4: Organized tracking and reporting on internal performance scores highest among the three BI categories
Finding 5#: A key to the dissatisfaction with business intelligence lies in the difficulty of distributing the results.
Finding #6: The “real-time enterprise” is on the minds of most CIO’s.

Click here to view the full report:
http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/download/0/2056/RESEARCH_0503.pdf

This summer Wal-Mart dropped the equivalent of an atomic bomb on the retail industry when they announced their top 100 suppliers would be required to implement RFID tags on all pallets and cases they ship to its distribution centers and stores by 2005.

For the past 2.5 years Wal-Mart has been working with the Auto-ID Center, a nonprofit research organization based at MIT, to develop and test RFID technology that will allow companies to track goods using a universal Electronic Product Code (EPC). If you are not familiar with RFID technology the long-term vision is that store shelves could become “smart,” reporting their inventory levels in real-time so when chicken noodle soup is running low an order is automatically sent to the warehouse. The warehouse would automatically inventory the pallets and cases and be capable of reporting inventory levels on demand in real-time. The potential costs savings are staggering. According to an estimate by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., a New York investment research company, Wal-Mart could save $8.35 billion annually which is higher than the total revenue of more than 50% of the companies comprising the Fortune 500.

Where do these massive costs savings come from?
· Eliminating the labor necessary to scan bar codes on pallets and cases
· Reduced out-of-stocks
· Reduced administrative error, employee theft, and vendor fraud
· Better tracking of pallets
· Precise visibility of inventory levels in Wal-Mart’s warehouse and the warehouses of their suppliers.

Despite the huge potential cost savings in the short-term RFID does have some limitations:

· Database integration. RFID tags only report a serial number so a database is required to tie that serial number to your specific products in a meaningful way.
· The cost of the RFID tag. At current price levels most experts suggest using RFID is only costs effective when tracking individual items that cost $15 or more.
· The cost of implementing “smart-shelves.” Smart-shelves are required to realize 100% of the benefits of RFID for retailers but they remain prohibitively expensive in most environments.
· Privacy concerns. Many of the organizations that have tested RFID tags so far have received negative feedback from privacy groups. For example clothing retailers Gap, Inc. and Benetton have run into issues.

Despite these limitations RFID is something your business should be investigating. You can be certain when Wal-Mart puts their weight behind a technology and begins driving it down their supply chain, your business is likely to be impacted at some point in the future.

Lessons from Jack: Straight From The Gut :

· It’s all about the people
· You can’t sell your vision if you can’t fit it onto a cocktail napkin.
· Everyone needs a good coach
· Look at the world as it is, not as it was or should be.

It’s all about the people. One of Jack’s greatest strengths was his early realization that being successful was all about surrounding yourself with the best people possible. According to Jack “great people build great companies.” Over and over in the book you see Jack fix a troubled GE business not by tinkering with the business model but by promoting the great people into decision making roles, eliminating the “turkeys,” and getting out of the way. This strategy worked nearly every time.

You can’t sell your vision if you can’t fit it onto a cocktail napkin and explain it to someone with no experience in your industry. When Jack became CEO of GE he captured his vision on a cocktail napkin at dinner with this wife. That simply strategy was repeated over and over until every GE employee and investor got it. It was not a complex, 20-page report with industry jargon and complex research studies. It was a simple 3-circle drawing that communicated in complete simplicity Jack’s vision for GE.

Everyone needs a good coach. Jack was blessed with coaches and mentors at every stage of his life. Starting with his mother who he credits with a tremendous influence on this competitiveness and early development, to GE executives at each level of his career. Jack consistently had people in his life that challenged, counseled, encouraged, and mentored him to success. I suspect there was allot more involved than luck in Jack being exposed to these coaches and mentors. Consciously or unconsciously Jack must have sought out or attracted these people.

Look at the world as it is, and not as it was or should be. Be realistic about your situation including your competition, cost structures, product positioning, etc. Being realistic does not excuse short-sited behavior or a lack of innovation and vision, but it does mean you make decisions based on the reality of your situation and the data you have available to you.

In this tough economy many companies are struggling to maintain the revenue growth they sustained a few short quarters ago. The days of sales reps sitting in the office taking orders is gone and not likely to return anytime soon which is causing many organizations to focus intensely on identifying ways to increase sales. Many sales managers are turning to sales force automation (SFA) solutions in an effort to automate their sales process and make their sales reps more effective. However, numerous studies have shown that nearly 3 out of 5 SFA implementations fail to achieve their stated objectives.

This article explores the keys to a successful SFA project. The seven keys are:

1. Build a quantifiable business case
2. Commit an executive sponsor
3. Define and refine your sales process
4. Provide incentives to use the system
5. Provide integration to key applications
6. Conduct the project in small manageable phases
7. Invest heavily in documentation and training

Build the business case first
Stephen Covey is famous for popularizing the phrase "begin with the end in mind," and it could not be more relevant in SFA projects. If you do not take the time to build a comprehensive, well-reasoned business case before you start the project you significantly increase your chances of failure. It stands to reason if you do not define where you want to go you will have a hard time getting there. Make sure your business case at minimum addresses the following points. First, define the vision and goals of the project in measurable terms. For example, one goal might be to increase sales by 15% within 120 days of implementing the system. Other common SFA project goals include increasing sales revenue per sales representative, increasing average order size, and increasing order accuracy. Second, calculate a rough return on investment (ROI) for the project. A rudimentary ROI equation is simply the present value of the total cost, divided by the present value of the total expected benefit. This may seem deceptively simple but it can be difficult to calculate because many of the benefits will be intangible and difficult to quantitatively measure. However, the exercise itself will be valuable in thinking through all the nuisances and impacts the project will have on the organization. The last two items to include in the business plan include project risks and critical success factors. In other words what might go wrong as we conduct this project, and what things must happened in order for this project to be successful. Armed with this simple business plan you will have defined the desired "end state" and will be able to communication your vision and success criteria.

Commit an executive sponsor
If you want to avoid becoming a statistic of a failed SFA initiative it is absolutely critical that you get a senior executive committed to sponsor the project. The commitment must be substantial enough so that a majority of their time is focused on making the SFA project successful.

This provides focused leadership that can proactively communicate the benefits of the finished project, combined with someone you can make tough decisions and own the budget. But most importantly it demonstrates the importance of the project to the sales reps, which combined with an incentive compensation plan, reinforces the urgency to accept and use the system.

After building a business case and getting executive support for your sales automation project, it is important that your organization develops a good understanding of its sales process.

Define and refine the sales process
Every organization has a sales process. It may be well structured and follow a standard sales methodology like Solution Selling, or it might be an informal process that has just developed over time. But at the end of the month executive management is going to have some type of reporting expectations from sales reps that will measure activity and sales pipeline by some type of meaningful phase. Many organizations implement an SFA solution without taking the time to clearly define their sales process and address any changes that may be necessary. If the system does not reflect the accepted sales process then users will be forced to do their work "off-line" and then translate that into the system, which duplicates users workload and reinforces the impression that the system is not important. Technology is a great tool for automating processes and making them faster and easier to complete. But automating a bad process just produces bad results faster.

Provide incentives to use the system
If you want to get a sales reps attention do one of three things; change their quota, compensation plan, or both. The opposite also holds true; if you do not provide some type of incentive to use the SFA system your chances of gaining end user buy-in and acceptance are greatly reduced. Let's face it, when a majority of your compensation is based on performance you are most likely to focus on those things that allow you to feed your family.

A trait common to successful salespeople is the ability to segment their time into "paid" vs. "non-paid activities." Non-paid activities are typically administrative duties like writing and editing proposals, updating sales activity reports, and writing and addressing greeting cards. These are necessary tasks but a highly effective sales rep recognizes that there are a limited number of hours in the day that can be spent in one-on-one dialogue with customers while administrative work can be accomplished outside those hours. This provides an insight into the basic psychology of a successful sales executive, they are typically highly motivated and goal oriented.

There are many ways to tie compliance and compensation together to reward good behavior as opposed to implementing punitive rules that adversely effect morale and increase turnover. For example, a sales rep that consistently keeps their sales funnel and contact records up-to-date would be eligible for a 0.5% increase in commission for the entire quarters sales. The incentive could be factored into the sales reps overall earning potential and would create buy-in, and a strong commitment to use the system. I can hear some executives saying, "I'm not going to pay my sales reps extra money to complete basic requirements of their job!" No I am sure you won't - and you won't have any reliable data in your system at the end of the year either.

Provide integration to key applications
The application must provide seamless access to the resources the sales rep requires to do their job without adding any layers of complexity. For example, a very common implementation mistake involves not providing automatic synchronization between the contact records in the users personal productivity package (Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, etc), the SFA tool, and the users electronic PDA (Palm Pilot, Visor, etc.).

This seemingly simple obstacle of entering the same data multiple times will be very likely to cause the sales rep not to enter their contact information. Remember a sales rep is highly motivated and goal oriented. They will focus strictly on the tasks that they perceive will assist them in achieving their goals, whether that be more income, quota achievement or peer recognition. Double, or triple entering business cards into their PC is not going to qualify on their list of "paid" activities and therefore will simply not get completed. Make a list of the key applications your sales reps use each day to do their job. The functions and data associated with these applications should be available in the SFA tool through either direct data integration, or at minimum a seamless link to access the functions.

In our fast paced, competitive environment very few organizations have the resources to undergo a long, drawn out sales automation implementation process.

Deploy a manageable project
Instead organizations are defining projects in small manageable phases that greatly reduce their "time to value." By prioritizing the implementation to attack the most immediate needs and highest ROI areas you can build critical user support and annuitize your investment over multiple business quarters. Separate the implementation into 3-4 meaningful phases that group similar tasks according to how your sales reps complete their jobs. Determine which group has the highest potential value impact and attack that phase first. This process will not only make the project more manageable but it will also increase end user acceptance as they see the practical benefits of using the system.

Invest heavily in documentation and training
If you are going to roll-out a new tool it seems like common sense that you are going to have to provide your end users with documentation and training. But in almost every project I have been part of at some point the budget for documentation and training gets scrutinized and typically reduced, if not eliminated. In any project the most difficult aspect of success is the change management involved in helping the users learn the tools and how to incorporate them into their daily jobs. Without very good documentation and training end user adoption simply cannot be achieved.

Analysts estimate that approximately 10% of your implementation budget should be targeted toward training. For example, using standard ratios if your organization purchases $50,000 in software licenses you should expect approximately $75,000-$100,000 in implementation services; $7,500 to $10,000 of which should be budgeted for training. These are only guidelines so your actual expenditures will depend heavily on the customizations required, amount of integration, timeline, and level of user sophistication. If your project is budgeting significantly less that 10% you should reevaluate your strategy.

Final thoughts
Although many SFA projects fail there are also many success stories. Some organizations report increases in sales of 8-10% as a result of their SFA implementations. Sales reps are a highly adaptive and goal oriented group of people.

Making the SFA project successful will require understanding the basic psychology that makes them tick, and adapting the project to address those specific needs. Ultimately the system has to provide value to the sales rep in completing their day-to-day job and achieving their goals. Unfortunately, many SFA implementations are undertaken with the only goal being to have better visibility into the sales pipeline. While this is a valuable benefit of the system it does not by itself provide much value to the sales rep.

If you provide real value and communicate the benefits proactively, and consistently your organization can win by implementing sales force automation.