The Hidden Costs of Sales Tech Stacks for Companies in Europe
Modern sales enablement technology has revolutionized the way businesses approach sales and marketing, making it easier for teams to collaborate, communicate, and sell products and services. State-of-the-art, sales enablement tools help sales teams streamline sales processes, improve productivity, and increase revenue.
But as the number of tools has proliferated, so have the challenges. I had the pleasure of talking about the benefits companies—especially those in Europe—can achieve by consolidating their sales enablement tech stacks with Rich Smith, vice president of sales EMEA at Allego, during a recent webinar.
Benefits and Challenges of Today’s Sales Enablement Tech Stack
From sales learning and content to sales coaching, sales enablement technology has a wide range of applications that can help businesses optimize their sales performance.
These technologies can help organizations automate and personalize their sales campaigns, track and analyze sales data, and provide sales teams with the content and tools they need to close deals effectively.
Sales enablement technology is particularly important for businesses operating in today’s fast-paced, data-driven marketplaces. With so much competition and an ever-changing business landscape, businesses need to leverage technology to stay ahead of the curve. Sales enablement technology can help businesses be agile, react quickly to market changes, and make data-driven decisions that can help them achieve their goals.
Companies must be careful, however, to not go overboard with the number of sales enablement tools. Because, as Allego’s sales enablement technology research revealed, using multiple tools increases costs, creates confusion, increases security concerns, and impacts sellers’ ability to hit quota. In fact, 76% of companies say poor adoption of sales tools is the top reason why teams miss their sales quotas.
“76% of companies say poor adoption of sales tools is the top reason why teams miss their sales quotas.” – Allego Sales Enablement Technology Report
In addition, companies that operate in Europe face their own unique sales enablement tech challenges and complexities:
1. European laws and regulations: The European Union has strict laws and regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that companies operating in those countries must comply with. Data privacy and security are particularly important, and companies that operate in those countries must ensure individuals’ personal data remains private and their systems are secure.
2. Language barriers: Companies operating in Europe must frequently produce sales enablement content and messaging in multiple languages. It’s imperative that companies ensure that their tech is able to accommodate this to effectively engage with customers in multiple regions.
3. Buyers in different locations: When buyers are in different locations and time zones, meeting with them in real time is difficult. Sellers need sales enablement technology that provides asynchronous communication, as well as allows them to give personalized presentations in a virtual setting.
Why You Should Consolidate Your Sales Enablement Tech Stack
Thanks to advances in sales enablement platforms, companies have been simplifying their sales technology stacks to optimize performance. By reducing the number of tools in use and consolidating multiple tools into a single platform, businesses can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance collaboration and communication within their sales teams.
Tier-one analyst firms, such as Forrester and Gartner, confirm learning, content, and coaching technologies are converging into a single sales enablement platform. Not only that, but they favor solutions that include all of them and say companies should seek a holistic approach to enablement.
That’s because enablement includes more than just sales. Marketing, customer success, and revenue teams contribute to sales. And they all need knowledge about the product, your value proposition, your customers, and more. Today, it isn’t just up to sales to close deals; it’s a team effort.
By consolidating your sales enablement tech stack, you will:
- Bring sales and marketing closer in alignment. By using the same technologies, you can break down the silos separating the two teams. Having a single sales enablement platform also allows marketing to deliver content with context, explaining when, where, and how sales reps can use the content.
- Improve sales rep adoption, efficiency, and productivity: Sales reps benefit greatly from having one source for learning, coaching, and content. For example, it removes confusion about which tool to use, eliminates the time spent hopping from one tool to another, helps sellers quickly and easily find content and messaging, and automates post-call content suggestions and notetaking.
- Enhance sales learning and coaching: With a comprehensive sales enablement platform, companies can increase learning engagement by sourcing content from real prospect interactions and increase coaching relevance and impact by connecting deal and learning metrics.
- Reduce costs: Tech stack consolidation can help companies reduce software and maintenance costs. In fact, we’ve uncovered that consolidating up to seven sales enablement tools into one platform can save companies 30%.
“Consolidating up to seven sales enablement tools into one platform can save companies 30%.”
3 Ways European Companies Benefit from Having a Single Sales Enablement Platform
Having a comprehensive sales enablement platform, rather than multiple tools, helps European companies address these issues and tackle their unique challenges.
EMEA Sales VP Rich Smith pointed out three areas where such a platform helps:
1. Compliance with European Laws: With a comprehensive sales enablement platform, companies can fortify their regulatory and legal compliance in Europe. You want to look for a platform that:
- Regularly updates its compliance for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- Has SOC 2 Type 2 certification with penetration and vulnerability testing
- Processes and stores customer data in the EU (EEA hosting and data processing)
- Has extensive controls for data visibility to comply with Works Council regulations
2. Improved Communication Among Multilingual Buyers and Sellers: A modern sales enablement platform supports multiple languages. You want a platform that:
- Lets administrators manage learning, sales content, and taxonomy in multiple languages
- Allows users to navigate, search, create, and consume content in their preferred language
- Transcribes sales calls and content into different languages
3. Support for Sellers and Buyers In Different Locations: Coming together for meetings is difficult when parties are in different countries. A comprehensive sales enablement platform can help with this by providing:
- Asynchronous team collaboration and sharing
- Virtual selling
- Local support services
“If you have a European presence and you are thinking about consolidating your tech stack, it’s very important that the sales enablement platform you select satisfies all of those conditions,” Rich said.
All Eyes On Sales Success
With your CFO paying even closer attention to expenses and revenue, you can’t afford to have unused sales enablement tools or unproductive sales and marketing teams.
The pressure is on to not just hit sales quotas, but expand growth–even into other countries–all the while reducing costs. Consolidating your sales enablement tech stack and having one platform for all to use will help you get there.
Learn More
Watch the webinar How and Why European Companies Are Simplifying Their Sales Enablement Tech Stack to learn about the power of consolidated sales enablement.
