Gartner Highlights Importance of Sales Enablement Platforms in New Market Guide
Editor’s Note: This year’s Market Guide is now available. Learn more here: 2021 Gartner Market Guide for Sales Enablement Platforms.
The field of sales enablement—and the tools and tactics that organizations use to deliver this key capability—is in the spotlight. Gartner estimates that revenue in the sales enablement market was $1.247 billion in 2019, an increase of more than 20% over the prior year.
New challenges are forcing organizations to rethink tactics that have worked in the past—including how they train, coach, and enable their sellers. As we head into Q4, planning for 2021 will look very different from any other year end. Companies must ensure that they support sellers with an up-to-date approach to the content, tools, and knowledge to help their sales teams succeed.
The new Gartner Market Guide for Sales Enablement Platforms reports on the evolving role of this key function and shares its view of transformational technologies and approaches to meet the future needs of end users in a seller role.
Gartner defines sales enablement platforms as “tools that unite sales enablement functions with customer-facing sales execution. They predominantly support native content, sales training delivery and reinforcement, and sales coaching.”
Gartner also notes that these platforms have become critical, saying, “COVID-19 initially caused an overall increase in purchase and adoption of sales enablement technology. This increased demand will persist, with sales enablement technology becoming a core tech stack purchase for organizations with both direct and partner channels.”
Pivoting to a Modern Approach
Given its powerful impact on the bottom line, sales enablement is no longer optional. It’s a crucial element for survival and growth—now and when the pandemic has run its course. With so much business uncertainty, the companies that will succeed in today’s new normal are relying on modern approaches that offer agility and a wide range of functionality.
But knowing how to pivot to a modern approach isn’t obvious. In Market Guide for Sales Enablement Platforms, Gartner explains the key capabilities of these critical platforms and how to evaluate a vendor’s approach, technology, and partnerships. The Guide describes the three major functionalities of content, training and coaching required for sales enablement platforms, saying, “These three work together to form a holistic enablement program.”
Gartner’s Key Recommendations
The Gartner Guide, with a deep-dive into top use cases and an evaluation of fifteen vendors including Allego, is a helpful resource for anyone who needs to learn more about modern solutions.
The Guide offers five key recommendations for leaders supporting sales enablement technology initiatives:
- Use this Market Guide to evaluate sales engagement platform vendors’ ability to support your use cases and organizational size.
- Seek vendors with a holistic approach — native or through integration — to sales enablement to support your entire sales enablement initiative, including content, training and coaching.
- Prioritize vendor integration or native capabilities with microsites that include capabilities such as buyer/seller collaboration, video conferencing, and engagement, conversational and emotional intelligence analytics to support DSRs.
- Assess vendors’ capabilities or partnerships for AR/VR to support product demonstrations.
- Evaluate the strength of each vendor’s partner ecosystem to support additional capabilities for your organization.
The Guide concludes, “Sales enablement platforms provide essential functionality to support sales organizations, especially in a post-pandemic recovery. Application leaders supporting CRM sales technology should use this Market Guide to improve their understanding of the key capabilities offered.”
Learn More
To learn more about how to evaluate sales enablement platforms, download your complimentary copy of Gartner Market Guide for Sales Enablement Platforms.