Surveys Show the Growing Commitment to Sales Enablement

SiriusDecisions recently published the results of its 2017 Sales Enablement Study. The 2017 research was based on a survey of 250 B2B sales enablement professionals representing 45 industries. This study was somewhat skewed toward larger B2B enterprises, with 43% of the survey respondents coming from organizations  with more than $750 million in annual revenue

Sales Enablement is Widespread

Overall, 66% of survey respondents reported having a dedicated sales enablement function, up from 61% in the 2012 edition of the survey. But the use of sales enablement is significantly greater in larger enterprises. Eighty-three percent of respondents from organizations with revenue of $750 million or more said they have deployed or plan to deploy a dedicated sales enablement team.

It's interesting to compare the results of the SiriusDecisions research with a recent survey conducted by CSO Insights. In its 2016 Sales Enablement Optimization Study, CSO Insights found that 37.7% of companies have a dedicated sales enablement function. This lower percentage is likely due to the demographics of the CSO Insights study. Only about 27% of the respondents in the CSO Insights study were with organizations having more than $250 million in annual revenue.

Sales Enablement is Clearly a Sales-Led Function

Both the SiriusDecisions study and the CSO Insights study show that sales enablement is now firmly established as a sales-led function. In the SiriusDecisions survey, 40% of respondents said that sales enablement reports directly to sales leadership, 25% said it reports to the CEO, and 13% said it reports to sales operations. Only 10% of respondents indicated that sales enablement reports to marketing leadership.

In the CSO Insights study, 60.8% of survey respondents said their sales enablement function reports to executive sales management, and another 20.9% said that it reports to sales operations. Only 7.6% of the respondents said that sales enablement reports to marketing.

Commitment to Sales Enablement is Growing

The SiriusDecisions research also found that the commitment to sales enablement is large and growing. Twenty-eight percent of the survey respondents said they have seven or more full-time employees working in sales enablement, but this increases to 43% for high-performing companies. (Note:  The study defines high-performing organizations as those reporting that 80% or more of their full-time sales reps achieved quota in the most recent fiscal year.)

Even more significant, nearly three-fourths (74%) of the respondents said they plan to increase spending on sales enablement during the next 12 months.

No Major Surprises

The findings of these two studies are not particularly surprising. After all, improving sales effectiveness has been a top priority for company leaders for the past several years, according to the annual sales performance optimization studies by CSO Insights.

It's also not surprising that sales enablement is a sales-led function in most companies. View properly, sales enablement is a multi-faceted function that encompasses several types of activities and processes, including sales process improvement, sales training, sales technology, and sales content development and management. So, it seems appropriate to manage the sales enablement function withing the sales organization.

Image courtesy of Daniel Oines via Flickr CC.