Omniture - Chris Harrington
Company: Omniture, Orem, Utah
Company Description: Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives. Omniture's customers include eBay, AOL, Wal-Mart, Gannett, Microsoft, Oracle, General Motors and HP.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Sales Executive
Nomination Title: Christopher C. Harrington, President Global Sales & Services
1. Tell the story about what this nominee achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
Describe the nominee's top 3 accomplishments during the eligibility period (up
to 100 words):
• 2005 – 2006 was a time of tremendous growth for Omniture with
Harrington’s sales team driving 186% year-over-year revenue growth, culminating
in an IPO in June, 2006.
• Expanded into international markets, requiring a restructuring of the
sales organization, hiring significant additions to the sales leadership team,
including:
- GM EMEA
- Senior Director of Sales, Nordilux
- Senior Director of Sales, Rest of Europe / Middle East
- VP Global Channel Sales
- VP North America Sales
- VP North America East
- VP North America West
- Director of Sales, Japan
- Director of Sales, APAC
• Increased focus on international sales, creating an International focus
which drove 17% of total sales (an increase of 6% over the previous year).
List the nominee's top 3 lessons learned during the eligibility period (up to
100 words):
• Hire leadership early. This has significant impacts on the company, the
sales team and, personally, the sales leader. Also, diversify your hiring; when
you just hire from your own industry, it limits options and innovation. Hiring
from other industries allows greater expansion of knowledge.
• Trust your gut. If something doesn’t feel right, it most likely isn’t.
100% of the time gut has proved correct.
• Never under-estimate your competitors. Competitive loss situations were
entirely due to neglecting to understand the depths to which competitors would
go to secure the sale.
• Harrington’s focus goes beyond the deal to take in the bigger picture.
He looks at the impact of the deal on the overall business. Some salespeople
tend not to think beyond their own W-2, but Harrington drives a team that
considers the value of equity to the company; doing the right deal for the
company.
• Harrington is closely engaged with individual customers and often
personally involved in closing activities.
• Harrington trains his team to ‘own the responsibility of maintaining
relationships.’ With a recurring revenue model, he understands the importance
of constantly maintaining customer relationships—facilitating recurring sales.
2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Omniture: A Radar Screen for E-biz
Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032074.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology
Building a Business That Counts
Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/dec2006/ca20061218_363829.htm
The 50 Fastest Growing Software Companies: Pedals to the Metal
Baseline Magazine
http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,2022073,00.asp
Company Press Release: Omniture reports Q4 and Fiscal 2006 Year End Results
Company Delivers 86% Organic Revenue Growth and Doubles Customer Base
http://www.omniture.com/press/321
3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the nominee:
Christopher Harrington joined Omniture’s executive team in 2003 as vice
president of sales. With more than fourteen years of experience in direct sales
and sales leadership, Harrington is responsible for managing all Omniture
direct sales efforts worldwide.
Preceding his role at Omniture, Harrington was vice president of sales for Domain Systems, where he developed the company’s sales and revenue development strategies. Prior to Domain Systems, Harrington held the position of vice president of sales for RichFX, a visual merchandising and e-learning solutions provider; and Viewpoint, a Computer Associates company.