Work in progress list of Sales Enablement vendors
Below is a list of Sales Enablement software vendors (Sales Enablement solution, marketing content management, sales knowledge management), as of February 8, 2012. CRM magazine did a good job singling out the relevant vendors in the article Sales Enablement Tools. When you shortlist vendors be sure to look into the following:
- Will the vendor integrate content from existing repositories or will they upload copies (of what you have in your repositories) into the cloud?
- Can the solution be installed behind the corporate firewall or not?
- Ask the vendor whether the code that defines how the search weights results is shared by all clients or each client could highly customize this.
- Do they offer a choice between the cloud and on-premise? Do they support the move from one to the other?
- SaaS vs. Licensing: What is cheaper in the long term, to buy the software as a service or perpetual user license?
- Exit strategy for your content and the meta information when you want to change vendors
- How does the solution support you to meet the challenges that come with doing business globally? (Which languages are supported for the content and for the user interface?)
- Flexibility for customization / your influence on the road map / number of developers at the vendor
- Can the vendor help to integrate the solution into existing IT infrastructure/processes?
- Does the solution help to manage how you show your complex portfolio of products, services, and solutions to your sales people and channel partners?
- Are there social web 2.0 like features that allow for feedback from sales to marketing (ratings/comments) and uploading/sharing of content?
- Is there an intelligent way to maintain the ‘single source’ of content that is being re-used a lot? Can documents be auto-generated in order to be highly customized for the specific sales situation yet look polished?
- What kind of content intelligence (Where in its life cycle is my content? What needs to be retired? What is not being used? What is missing?) is available?
Alinean alinean.com
Altus Corp. altuscorp.com
AMACUS amacus.net
Attensa attensa.com
Avitage avitage.com
Bantam live bantamlive.com
basis06 AG (website is German speaking only) basis06.ch
Big Bang Technology Inc. in Toronto, Canada (wants to get into this space but hasn’t announced a product yet)
BigMachines, Inc. bigmachines.com
BizSphere AG (Full disclosure: BizSphere AG is my employer) bizsphere.com
Bloomfire bloomfire.com/how-it-works/sales-training/
Brainshark brainshark.com
changeBEAT changebeat.com
Compendian compendian.com
Direxxis Marketing dmEDGE™ Distributed Marketing Portal direxxismarketing.com
Envisica envisica.com
iCentera (Callidus Software Inc. purchased iCentera) icentera.com
inkonit inkonit.com/sales-enablement/
InQuira (Oracle purchased InQuira) inquira.com
InsideView insideview.com
Jive jivesoftware.com/solutions/sales-enablement
Landslide Technologies landslide.com
Launch International (The Sales Enablement Content Company) launchinternational.com
LogicBay logicbay.com
LTP Sales (training video solutions for sales and marketing organizations) ltpsales.com
Macrosoft Inc (Sales Enablement Solutions) NavigateKnowledge.com
n-tara ntara.com
Perperitus Sales solution perperitus.com
Playboox Playmaker Solution playboox.com
Qvidian (Sant and Kadient merged) qvidian.com
RO|innovation (RO|enablement) roinnovation.com/roenablement/
Salesforce.com salesforce.com/content
SalesKB SalesKB.com
SAVO Group savogroup.com
Scepos scepos.com
Sendside sendside.com
SKURA SFX Sales Enablement solution skura.com (talent acquisition by Deloitte)
Solutions for Sales solutionsforsales.com
StreetSmarts streetsmarts.com
TribalKnowledge.tv TribalKnowledge.tv (Not a software product. Consulting/services only)
UpSync UpSync.com
Vivisimo Inc. vivisimo.com
Yammer yammer.com
2 comma sales 2commasales.com
In its February 2010 issue CRM magazine singled out the relevant Sales Enablement vendors in the article ‘Sales Enablement Tools’:
“[...] Scott Santucci, senior analyst at Forrester Research, says he’s seen an explosion of interest in this area over the past year. As with any technology, however, those rushing to buy the hot newness without first establishing a clear strategy are doomed to fail. It’s not that there’s a lack of information—far from it. Instead, it’s hard to wade through the sheer tonnage of information and determine what’s up-to-date, relevant, and in a form amenable to the particular sales conversation. “It’s a very simple, yet really complicated problem,” Santucci says.
[...] Santucci says each of the relevant vendors—including BizSphere, iCentera, Kadient, and Savo Group—cater to slightly different problems. [...]“
In case you have not seen ‘Is Sales Enablement just lipstick on a Knowledge Management pig?’ It is a must read! I will try to discuss some of the aspects here on this blog later.
Gerhard Gschwandtner (@gerhard20) writes:
“[...] let’s take a look how the sales enablement vendors are selling their solution to you, the sales leader.
Vendor Pitches or Marketing Glitches?
Savo promises, “Never sell alone!” Does that hit a hot button for you? I don’t know many lonely salespeople. On another part of the SAVO site I read, “Clone top performers.” Excuse me! Why not promise, “Clone your Swiss bank account”?
Kadient’s Website [Qvidian.com now] isn’t shy about pitching the exact same theme on their home page: “What if all of your salespeople could sell like your top performers?” The promise continues, “With Kadient’s on-demand sales enablement application, you arm your sales team with the knowledge, messages and strategies they need to win at every stage of the customer’s buying cycle.” If they found the key to winning at every stage, how come Kadient isn’t a hugely successful company?
iCentera bills itself as a sales enablement company. Their pitch is a model of modesty: “Sales Enablement maximizes your sales organization’s ability to communicate through a central messaging vehicle.” The key benefit: “Close more business through more knowledgeable sales people.”
N-tara.com created a special sales enablement site with this teaser copy: “Ever feel like your salespeople don’t get it?” Here is the pitch: “N-tara’s sales enablement solutions equip your sales force with engaging, customer-ready content that is timely, relevant and in context to your customer’s needs.”
The best part of their site is a “Guide to Enlightened Conversations”. It is engaging, interactive and it makes a lot of sense.
BizSphere AG is a European sales enablement vendor located in [...] Germany, with offices in Toronto. The pitch: “Do you want your sellers to minimize preparation time and maximize quality time with your clients?” The key benefits: close more deals, increase average deal size, shorten your sales cycle. It is a clear and concise pitch.
Another vendor in the space is Salesforce.com/content which offers a competing solution to their AppExchange partners Kadient and SAVO.
Other vendors include Avitage.com (marketing automation and sales enablement) Streetsmarts.com (channel sales), Groupswim.com (team collaboration) and Salesforce.com/content. [...]“
Here’s a couple more:
Salesforce.com/content http://www.salesforce.com/content
Landslide Technologies http://www.landslide.com/
Thanks Jeanne
I have added them above.
Have a great day.
Paul
nice list – thanks
Graeme
http://www.twitter.com/graemethickins
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[...] @Chad Levitt from newsaleseconomy.com wrote a great Sales 2.0 resource guide (see below). I would like to add some additional Sales Enablement vendors here. [...]
[...] 2.0: Such sales-process tools as Kadient and Brainshark [also see 'work in progress list of sales enablement vendors'] create a repository of effective messages and materials while encouraging content creators to [...]
[...] relevant vendors Posted in Uncategorized by salesenablement on February 3, 2010 I keep a work in progress list of Sales Enablement vendors. In its February 2010 issue CRM magazine does a great job at singling out the relevant of the [...]
[...] Tags: conversation enablement, information overload, information workers I keep a work in progress list of Sales Enablement vendors. In its February 2010 issue CRM magazine does a great job at singling out the relevant [...]
[...] sure that pretty much everyone in the B2B environment can relate to the them. No matter which Sales Enablement vendor you decide to work with, what needs to be done is the [...]
[...] is obviously very exciting for us in this field, who for years now have been saying that Sales Enablement is going to be huge one day. Let’s [...]
John Rourke (@JohnRourke on Twitter) said: “Please consider http://www.BantamLive.com (Social CRM, Sales Collaboration) for that list. Thx.”
[...] As of today I am counting 21 different Sales Enablement vendors Posted in Uncategorized by salesenablement on July 6, 2010 I keep a work in progress list of Sales Enablement (Marketing Asset Management, Sales Knowledge Management, etc) vendors I’m aware of. Two vendors merged recently and new ones keep on popping up. Please find the list updated as of July 6, 2010 here. [...]
Excellent list! Please consider checking out 2 Comma Sales, Inc., a direct competitor to Kadient-Sant. We’ve deployed sales enablement “dynamic web-enabled playbooks” to telecom, banking, information services and other large enterprises.
Thanks… JOHN
Hi John, Thanks for reaching out. I have added your company to the list. Best, Paul
[...] Microsoft SharePoint” or “Kadient versus SAVO Group”. As you can see in my work in progress list of Sales Enablement vendors there are a lot of players. destinationcrm.com wrote an article on that as well. Their shortlist is [...]
Thanks – very good listing especially also the one in Europe, which I find very promising
Thanks. Peter
Is there a list of all Sales Enablement companies that offer solutions to enable a b2b sales force?…
To answer my own question here is a work in progress list of vendors which I started in 2009 and still update: http://salesenablement.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/work-in-progress-list-of-sales-enablement-vendors/…
Good list!
You are missing RO|Innovation. They make a sales enablement solution called RO|Enablement. It’s simple, easy to use, powerful, and low cost. A variety of enterprises use it. Here’s the website: http://www.roinnovation.com/roenablement
Dear Nichole, Thanks for your comment. I will look into this company. Best, Paul
There’s also a company in stealth right now that we are trialing, SalesKB (www.saleskb.com) – their site is still in stealth, but their overview video is on youtube (updated: here’s the link for the video: http://youtu.be/mKtyIIOtaCg) . They are taking the approach of hyper-targeted sales tools, based on your target’s persona, where you are in the process, etc.
Thanks Cindy. They have been on this list ever since I first noticed the YouTube video.
Indeed great list and thanks for sharing, Paul. I have found one more company being Scepos: http://www.scepos.com (similar features but with supporting back office), based in the Netherlands and active in Western Europe. Regards, Alexander
[...] I keep a work in progress list of Sales Enablement vendors (Marketing Asset Management, Sales Knowledge Management, Sales Content Management, Enterprise 2.0 players with a focus on improving the intranet of b2b enterprises for all employees touching accounts, etc). So far two vendors merged into one and new ones keep on popping up. The current count is 41 vendors. Please find the constantly updated list here. [...]
Awesome work. Keep it up. Thank You!!!
[...] companies I am currently still consulting BizSphere AG and its clients. Having said that, with my List of Sales Enablement vendors I am actually trying to provide an impartial and complete picture of all players in the [...]