Gartner for Sales
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem
How to audit your way to the ultimate revenue tech stack
Introduction
A robust tech stack is essential to running a modern and efficient revenue-generating organization. Only
29 %
However, prioritizing technologies to investigate is hard.
We are in a period of “sales tech mayhem” where the vendor market is moving from a wide set of
categories to a narrow list of vendors with wide portfolios of capabilities. of CSOs are satisfied with their current
sales tech stack.
Why mayhem? Because we’re seeing an unprecedented amount of venture capital funding and merger and
acquisition (M&A) activity in sales technology, leading to rapidly evolving products, markets and categories.
To tame the mayhem, sales leaders must learn how to effectively identify vendor partners whose products,
technology and vision can help address the vexing challenges the business faces.
Identifying great partners boils down to two key activities: auditing your current stack, then developing a
sales tech roadmap. This guide will help kickstart your audit in the following two ways:
Source: 2021 Gartner CSO Priorities Pulse Survey
• Introduce you to the technologies you’ll need to build a foundation for predictable, efficient growth.
• O
utline a tool that Gartner uses to help sales leaders understand existing technology investments, and
accelerate the journey toward the ultimate modern sales tech stack, built to automate the revenue
process end to end.
Dan Gottlieb Craig Rosenberg
Director Analyst Distinguished VP Analyst
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 2
Auditing Your Revenue
Technology Stack
Engagement
Application
To properly audit the value of your revenue tech stack (shown at right), you’ll need
to gather specific information and feedback from the users and owners of the
The revenue tech
technologies that already exist.
Enablement
stack comprises
Gather input from sales tech users, sales leaders and subject matter experts six core groups
(see page 10). The results will enable you to: of technologies
• Identify gaps in your current revenue tech stack, such as technology that’s not
being used or isn’t driving value. Operations
• P
rioritize what’s needed based on strategic business objectives.
• Identify and engage technology vendors based on your assessment.
Infrastructure
Going forward, you’ll need to monitor the vendor landscape continually — especially
as mergers and acquisitions consolidate providers.
Third-Party
Data
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 3
Engagement
Digital sales and marketing technologies used to engage buyers and execute programs
Sample Technology Description
Execution
Chat Communicate with visitors to your website or web-based product
LinkedIn Communicate with prospects via LinkedIn Inmail or engaging with posts
Scheduling Enables customers to easily schedule meetings via a web-based calendar interface
Video Messaging Create and track effectiveness of video messages used in sales activities (e.g., prospecting email)
Digital People Automates customer interactions via AI
Direct Mail and E-Gift Manages, sends and tracks direct mail and gifts sent to prospects or customers
Videoconferencing Enables sales meetings online
Visual Collaboration Collaborate virtually in real time with multiple stakeholders using virtual whiteboards
Webinars and Virtual Events Run, manage and track virtual events
Event Technology Run, manage and track live events
Web Personalization Personalizes the website experience based on the characteristics or behavior of the audience
Digital Sales Rooms Engage asynchronously via dynamic microsites featuring custom content
Content Hubs Provides curated content personalized to the prospect via a web experience
Media/Advertising
Content Syndication Captures leads through the promotion of content to a publisher's audience
Programmatic Advertising Allows automated, real-time purchasing and tracking of digital advertising
Search and Social Advertising Allows automated, real-time purchasing and tracking of advertising on search and social sites
Account-Based Advertising Manages and measures advertising to specific target accounts
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 4
Application
Core application, workflow and management systems that enable the processing of information
and coordination of digital engagement in support of all revenue functions
Sample Technology Description
Marketing Automation Platform Automates email campaigns, nurturing and lead scoring
Account-Based Platform Houses target accounts and creates workflows off data (e.g., intent data) via targeted ads
and orchestration
Sales Engagement Platform Provides a single interface to efficiently plan, execute, track, measure and optimize interactions
between sales and customers across multiple touches and channels
Customer Success Management Monitors customer health and uncovers insights to drive action required for renewal and expansion
Partner Relationship Management Manages and tracks channel partner revenue programs such as co-marketing programs
By 2026, B2B organizations unifying commercial strategies and leveraging
multi-threaded commercial engagements will realize revenue growth that
outperforms their competition by 30%.
Source: Gartner Strategic Planning Assumption
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 5
Enablement
The core applications that streamline seller productivity with required content, training and coaching
Sample Technology Description
Sales Enablement Platform
Sales Content Management Facilitates the management and delivery of sales content
Sales Training Supports onboarding, training and ongoing practice with curriculum, tools, templates
and certifications
Conversation Intelligence Records and analyzes sales conversations
Digital Adoption Platform Provides content to guide sellers through workflows or processes in their sales tools
and applications
Real-Time Knowledge Automatically captures and organizes answers to sales questions; ultimately can deliver
real-time answers via the applications that sellers use daily (e.g., email, collaboration tools)
Rep Performance Management Enables goal and task management via tracking and gamification
By 2025, 70% of all B2B seller-buyer interactions will be recorded to extract
70 % competitive, deal and market insights using artificial intelligence (AI), machine
learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP).
Source: Gartner Strategic Planning Assumption
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 6
Operations
Solutions that facilitate core workflows, such as data management, integrations across the stack, financial,
metrics tracking and revenue program analytics
Sample Technology Description
Revenue Operations
Lead-to-Account Matching and Routing Matches new leads to the correct account record in the CRM; enables organizations to
automate complex routing rules, manage changes (e.g., attrition in the sales force) and
optimize routing decisions
Pipeline and Forecast Management Provides visibility and analytics around the expected sales performance
Workflow Automation Enables preprogrammed processes across enterprise systems
Activity and Contact Data Capture Automatically enters data into the CRM without human intervention (e.g., takes contacts from
meeting invites and enters into CRM)
Third-Party Reporting and Intelligence Extracts data from tools and applications and creates reports and insights
Sales Operations
Sales Performance Management Provides accurate, timely crediting and compensation
Account Planning Manages engagement with large, complex and multifaceted strategic accounts
Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) Manages the proposal and quotation process including creation, approvals and signature
E-Sign Enables legal digital signatures on electronic docs or forms
By 2026, 65% of B2B sales organizations will transition from intuition-based to data-driven
decision making using technology that unites workflow, and data and analytics.
Taming
Source: the Sales
Gartner Tech
Strategic Mayhem
Planning Assumption
7
Infrastructure
The foundation of the tech stack, which contains the contact database and usually serves as the central
repository of data records for the go-to-market organization
Sample Technology Description
CRM (SFA) Provides primary system of record for sales and marketing
Data Integration Connects disparate data sources to normalize and centralize data
Data Lake/Data Warehouse Creates a repository for transactional data to support the execution of various analytic workloads
Customer Data Platform (CDP) Unifies a company’s customer data to enable customer modeling and optimize the timing and
targeting of messages and offers
Data Validation Verifies and appends contact information (e.g., email addresses)
By 2023, 70% of independent CDP vendors will be acquired by larger marketing
70% technology vendors or will diversify through M&A on their own to enter adjacent
categories such as personalization, multichannel marketing, consent management
and/or master data management for customer data.
Source: Gartner Strategic Planning Assumption
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 8
Third-Party Data
Also called revenue data solutions, vendors that offer external sources for buyer intent, account and contact
details and additional intelligence, which provide, update and enrich existing records in other systems
Sample Technology Description
Account Data Provides demographic company information such as revenue and number of employees
Contact Data Provides contact information such as name, title, phone and email
Intent Data Alerts sales of recent, relevant internet activity from target accounts
Technographic Data Gives information on technology installed at accounts
Market Intelligence Provides target company news feeds, blog posts, company/contact and market insights
By 2026, 50% of B2B commercial teams will employ three or more solutions from
revenue data vendors to inform their data-driven selling strategies.
Source: Gartner Strategic Planning Assumption
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 9
When and How to Audit Your
Revenue Tech Stack
Engagement
Application
When auditing your existing tech stack, you’re looking to validate:
• How is my technology spend distributed?
• What technologies are actually being used? Enablement
• What technologies are not only being used, but widely adopted?
• What technologies have significant user satisfaction?
Operations
• What technologies deliver impact and/or ROI?
The Gartner framework (see next page) highlights the information you need to gather
from technology owners and users to answer those questions effectively. Infrastructure
Third-Party
Data
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 10
Evaluate the Contribution of Existing Technologies
Illustrative Example
Technology type: Sales content management
To be completed by subject matter expert or user
1. Vendor name 2. Technology 3. State of 4. Adoption level 5. Monthly 6. Number 7. Impact on the 8. Satisfaction:
in use (in/ deployment (number of reps/ subscription cost of users organization How satisfied
outsourced) licenses) are you?
Vendor X,Y,Z Y Deployed Low (20% – 50%) $10,000 1,000 High Very
Strategic objective supported Comments
Improves win rates. Win rates are up by 5% in reps who have adopted.
To be completed by sales leadership
Strategic objective supported Comments
Increase sales velocity. Marginal impact in affecting sales cycles, especially for some traditionally more difficult-to-engage
lead sources. Through training we can still improve how we use for targeting. We expect that to help
improve deal sizes, which will help increase sales velocity. Hope to lift win rates by another 5% to 7%.
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 11
Save/Print This Template
Use This Template to Map Your Technologies
Technology type:
To be completed by subject matter expert or user
1. Vendor name 2. Technology 3. State of 4. Adoption level 5. Monthly 6. Number 7. Impact on the 8. Satisfaction:
in use (in/ deployment (number of reps/ subscription cost of users organization How satisfied
outsourced) licenses) are you?
Strategic objective supported Comments
To be completed by sales leadership
Strategic objective supported Comments
Taming the Sales Tech Mayhem 12
Actionable, objective insight
Explore these additional complimentary resources and tools
for sales leaders:
Webinar Infographic Sales Blog Research
Sales Tech Mayhem: The 6 Core B2B Sales AI Use Case Prism Sales Tech Mayhem: 39 The Chief Sales Officer
Elements of the Ultimate Stack Learn how to use AI to improve B2B sales Observations From a Scorching Stay ahead of emerging issues and trends
Discover the components of a world-class revenue and optimize costs. Hot Tech Market impacting sales leaders.
sales tech stack. Follow the latest sales tech mayhem trends.
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