Posted by: Matt Shanahan Just finished up at OnDemand Conference 2009. Scout Analytics was asked to present our view on how to create a nimble sales organization. There was a lot of interest in the potential impact of analytics on sales productivity. My presentation focused on how uncertainty about customer demand negatively impacts sales performance. In particular, the presentation focused on why knowing the demand profile of customers is critical to identifying and qualifying revenue opportunities. Two interesting themes emerged from the audience during the Q&A. The first is that while some companies evaluate usage to understand potential churn, very few have looked at how usage to determine up-sells and cross-sells. The second is that most organization do not have a means to measure and track […]

Posted by: Matt Shanahan Everything is a service more and more. And no surprise, this new “everything as a service” approach (XaaS) allows organizations to effectively add value to commoditized products where the costs of goods approach zero. The service “wrapper” becomes the new differentiating factor; the demise of the “discrete” product gives rise to the subscription-based business model. This fundamental transition from products to services fuels another change as well—the way we measure demand. Not long ago understanding demand was as simple as tracking orders. A single product was offered, customers acted as a single market, and demand was understood solely through the analysis of purchase data. The product world worked like the sleepy magazine company who upon customer order […]

Posted by: Mark Upson I’m just getting over jet lag from my recent trip to Ireland where I had the opportunity to speak at Outsell’s Signature Event that draws 100s of the top executives in the information provider industry. At the conference, there was a lot of discussion about the economy and its effect on new customer acquisition and existing customer churn. There was a greatly increased interest in making sure existing customers were getting value for their dollar. This economic climate and the increased need to better understand customer demand (or lack of it…) is providing a great opportunity for us here at Scout Analytics. Wednesday we announced completion of our third consecutive quarter of record revenue growth since […]