Arming sales teams for better profitability

2017 was another year of outstanding growth for sales management tools.

It's mostly only in movies that salespeople are seen as swashbuckling, charming or aggressive heroes and heroines who make or break the fortunes of their companies. The truth about sales is that it is really a lot of grunt work, far away from the limelight. Planning, pipeline management, meetings, negotiations, documentation, reporting, teamwork, invoicing and payment collection are key to success. Which is why salespeople and sales managers truly value any support that drives efficiencies and accuracy.
2017 was another year of outstanding growth for sales management tools. Commonly referred to as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, this industry saw global volumes cross $35 billion and is well on its way to the $40 billion mark in 2018 - based on an analysis by Gartner. Another interesting statistic is about the secular shift towards mobile applications that manage sales teams and targets. Research by Innoppl Technologies showed that 65 per cent of sales reps who have adopted mobile CRM have achieved their sales quotas. While only 22 per cent of reps using non-mobile CRM have reached the same targets.
There is a flip side. Ask most salespeople and they will usually be supercritical about whichever CRM tool that they use. One school of argument is that salespeople are just too lazy at using tools. The other is that CRM systems are badly designed, not user friendly. Quite often they are devised to provide reportage to finance, operations and senior management as their primary function rather than managing the sales effort itself.
SalesARM is a UAE-based startup. It has built and delivered a sales management tool to banks and other institutions which promises to deliver a more user friendly way of tackling the problem that most organisations face; the blind spot when it comes to teams in the field - What clients were called or met? What was discussed? What's the next step?
Typically such information is available in large companies based on Enterprise level CRM software. More often than not, even though such systems are comprehensive and well-organised, their user interface leaves much to be desired.
SalesARM (www.sales-arm.com) aims to achieve better adoption and results by taking the route of being a mobile personal digital assistant for salespeople. It digitizes sales and relationship management, guiding them on optimal actions they need to do (clients that are forgotten, deals that are maturing, tasks that are assigned), encouraging them to take action through gamification, automatically noting calls, messages and emails sent through the application, and making all of this information available to the user.
Mirhan Mandour is the founder and CEO of SalesARM. She says, "Our key proposition is user engagement. We believe that our solution does a superior job of engaging with salespeople and their customers as well as collaborating with internal stakeholders. We do not necessarily compete with enterprise level systems. In fact, we connect to them if required. Our focus is primarily on driving client interactions and making it easy to update the outcome with a few simple taps. Basically we're much easier to use, quick to deploy and a lot more cost-effective."
The company earns revenues through subscription-based plans per user. A sliding scale pricing models gives customers the flexibility to pay according to the size of their business and the depth of capabilities required. The app is available on both the iOS and Android stores.
Mandour spearheaded the setup of one of the largest retail banks in Egypt. She has also been a senior consultant for local and multinational banks in the Middle East, helping them improve their methodology in wealth management and retail banking sales. She is armed with an MBA and a BA in Economics from the American University in Cairo.
Having worked in banks and for banks as a consultant for over 20 years, she identified a highly compelling problem: sales teams and relationship managers struggle to update their client interactions, whether in spreadsheets or on their enterprise level CRM systems. As many active salespeople will tell you, more often than not, inputting information and extracting it from enterprise level CRM solutions tends to be a burden. Leveraging mobile technology would typically allow them to capture interactions as they happen. This was the genesis of the idea for a purpose-built solution that focuses on usability for salespeople and relationship managers.
Historically, according to Mandour, the SalesARM solution was built for banks. However, it has found applicability in other sectors also and the app has evolved. Mandour would like it to work just as well regardless of the industry or geography it is used for - as long as there are sales or relationship management teams, SalesARM intends to be suitable for any organisation of any size in any industry, anywhere in the world. For large enterprise deployments, SalesARM started with the UAE and is expanding to the Gulf and Middle East. The Asian market is also a next generation prospect.
The startup has received support from in5 and is being used by large banks in the UAE. The support has translated to UAE level recognition in the Fintech industry. The recognition has encouraged the company to participate in international events.
Looking forward to following the fortunes of SalesARM over the coming years.
Mandour's recommended reading is by James E. Loehr and Tony Schwartz. According to her, it talks about managing your energy rather than just focusing on time management to achieve a more fulfilling life.
The writer is founding partner at BridgeDFS, a bespoke digital financial services advisory firm (www.bridgeto.us). Views expressed are his own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy. He can be contacted at sanjiv@bridgeto.us.