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September 10, 2015

Survey: Data Dearth For Sales Teams

Like most of their enterprise colleagues, the sales department wants faster access to data. But a new survey of how sales teams increasingly rely on data finds that more than half are unable to access it in real time.

The survey of sales operations released Thursday (Sept. 10) by Domo, the business management platform vendor, found that two-thirds of those sales executives polled said they lack real-time access to data. Roughly the same percentage said they it takes too long to generate sales leads and other analytical insights from their data.

Despite the growing number of database tools and in-memory platforms available to speed enterprise analytics, the majority of respondents to the Domo survey said they continue to struggle with slow data analysis. Of these, about one-third said data preparation takes hours, or in some cases, days.

The survey also confirms what a senior Intel Corp. executive recently referred to as big data’s “dirty little secret:” nearly 40 percent of those surveyed acknowledged they do not know what to do with their data once they finally get their hands on it.

Data quality is also an emerging issue as sales and other departments seek to integrated analytics into their daily operations. More than half of sales leader polled by Domo said they are concerned that data to which they do have access many not be accurate.

With frustration growing over the lack of real-time access to accurate data, they survey also found that a whopping 92 percent of respondents prefer to view data on a single dashboard. It just so happens that Domo offers one that combines metrics like sales data, expenses and forecasts.

Such dashboard solutions would likely get a work out, the survey found, with 66 percent of respondents to the Domo survey saying they would use more data and analytics if they could access it in real time. That percentage jumps to 73 percent if they could access data in one place, say, Domo’s dashboard.

Meantime, sales teams continue to rely heavily on spreadsheets as the primary format for accessing data (43 percent). Domo said its survey found that 24 percent of sales data is currently “consumed” (as opposed to “delivered”) by dashboards. Other sales tools include plain-old email and PowerPoint presentations.

Asked to assign a letter grade to their organization’s analytics skills when it comes to sales data, 83 percent graded the IT department at B-minus or lower; 38 percent assigned a barely passing grade of C-minus.

Domo said it polled more than 400 sales leaders for its sales data survey. Seventy-five percent of respondents were sales managers or higher.

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