IBM - Sales Action Quadrants

Company: IBM, Armonk, NY
Company Description: IBM is a values-based enterprise of individuals who create & apply technology to make the world work better. Today, more than 400,000 IBM employees around the world invent and integrate hardware, software and services to help forward-thinking enterprises, institutions and people succeed on a smarter planet.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Award for Innovation in Sales - Business Services Industries

Nomination Title: Sales Action Quadrants

Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, explaining the nominated achievement since July 1, 2018, OR a written essay of up to 650 words describing the same? (Choose one): An essay/case study of up to 650 words

Throughout IBM’s history, the company has continuously reinvented itself to keep up with ever changing technology, ensuring we remain relevant to our customers and to the world. At the core of the company’s success lies a highly dedicated sales function that relies on a broad team of experts in every business area from every corner of the globe. In order to continue this success, we were required to update our internal platforms and processes, infuse them with digital intelligence, and rely not only on people that evolve and perform, but also on systems that assist and learn.

Based on years of research, experience and foundations in cognitive psychology, the IBM Sales Management team started with an easy to interpret segmentation matrix; the Sales Action Quadrants (SAQs), essentially empowering our sales team and bridging the gap between successful salespeople and those who may be struggling to meet their quota.

There were two major business goals for creating SAQs; increase overall sales revenue for IBM and develop a method to clean our sales pipeline in the process. In designing an entirely new experience for our sales organization, we started with a simple question; “How can we make analytics simple to use and understand, while driving insights with the most sophisticated and accurate prescriptive models available?” SAQ’s recommendation engine uses years of historical IBM sales-pipeline data and provides actionable insights for opportunities that potentially may not close due to inadequate progression or sales resources being focused on other, less-likely to win, opportunities.

SAQs are a cutting-edge, cognitive recommendation system that can categorize sales opportunities into a 2X2 segmentation matrix. Designed to be a simple, yet insightful metric, SAQs guide in driving sales revenue by analyzing ‘seller confidence’ metrics projected on the y-axis and an ‘ensemble’ of predictive model scores on the x-axis.

The SAQ framework segments deals into upper and lower half views: See: https: //ibm.box.com/s/3tx0ovt7ugl6nsbm3k8ruumaghah7a0o

-Upper half quadrants: Contains deals in seller’s forecast or opportunities already in a conditional agreement. Includes the Close and Advance Quadrants

-Lower half quadrants Contains deals that are NOT in seller’s forecast or are in a conditional agreement. Includes the Advance and Refine Quadrants.

The 4 unique quadrants are described as follows:

-Close: Shows how much pipeline is ready to be closed, as cognitive analytics agree with seller confidence.
-Probe: Shows the hidden risks in deals already forecasted to close, as these are deals where you need to explore disconnects between cognitive analytics and sales progression.
-Advance: Shows how much pipeline could be progressed and included in seller’s forecast, as the cognitive analytics identify high potential to win.
-Refine: Shows the amount of poor-quality deals which need to be purged, since they are unlikely to win. These are deals too new to be closed or too old.

Since its creation, the adoption of SAQs is a testament to the analytic innovation and accuracy of its analysis. SAQ’s have become an integral part of Operating Team reviews and bi-monthly “Top Leadership in Sales” forums. The impact of applying SAQs generated approximately $2.67B in revenue over 4 quarters (Q2 2018 – Q1 2019).

The usage of Sales Action Quadrants has also helped our Sales Management Advisors to provide insights and recommended actions to our Sales Leaders in their regular management system, being able to reduce the amount of time spent in reviewing single opportunities and opening a window to using cognitive indicators to sharpen their analysis. Sales Leaders around the world have implemented the usage of SAQs as it is positively impacting their experience in making business.