Constellation ShortList™ Sales Force Automation

About This Constellation ShortList™

Sales force automation (SFA) solutions focus on documenting and addressing the entirety of the sales process - automating, and recording the specific stages, actions and outcomes of the process as a means to improve productivity of the sales force. Modern SFA tools are extending core SFA competencies like lead, contact, account, and opportunity tracking to also include tools that impact usability and adoption including data enrichment and platform extensibility.

Sales automations solutions have historically been fraught with low adoption rates, as sellers have not seen these tools as providing value; but rather as “productivity drains” due to the tedious, data-entry focused legacy user experience. Over the past several years, that paradigm has shifted, as AI-powered “copilots” (or virtual assistants), sleeker user interfaces, and data enrichment features have improved the value proposition for adoption of sales automation solutions. Today, a well deployed, data-rich sales automation solution can provide insights to seller that they could not surface themselves - optimizing both their daily sales actions as well as highlighting paths to quota with the least amount of effort, identifying deals most likely to close using AI/ML analytics.

Shortlist vendors are also closing the gap when it comes to configuration and integration with other critical front-office systems. Leveraging more “low code” customization and cloud connectors to more seamlessly integrate and manage data flows between systems and third-party data sources drives faster deployment times, and creates a data rich, more bespoke system more likely to be seen as valuable by sales users. Low-code environments are especially appealing for smaller businesses, who might lack the resources for third-party services but still require strong workflow automation and integration to other systems.

Threshold Criteria

Constellation considers the following criteria for these offerings:

• Ease of use, user interface
• Ability to track leads, prospects and customers through sales cycle
• Marketing integration for full prospect engagement visibility
• Customer support integration and visibility to effectively manage post-sale engagement
• Extensibility through ecosystem of third-party integration apps
• Productivity tools and extensions to increase usage and adoption
• Focus on mobility and collaboration 
• Advanced analytics and role-based reporting
• AI/ML powered virtual assistants
• Advanced forecasting leveraging AI/ML 
• Custom workflow creation with clicks, not code
• Product vision and roadmap
• Pricing packages
• Post-sale support and community

Constellation evaluates more than 70 solutions categorized in this market. This Constellation ShortList is determined by client inquiries, partner conversations, customer references, vendor selection projects, market share and internal research. Constellation also considered client company size and marketing resources to recommend solutions suitable for enterprises and small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs).

Enterprise Solutions

The enterprise category is defined as companies with a broad geographical reach, multiple lines of business and/or over 5,000 employees. These are the best-of-breed vendors that provide application and services without bundling into another platform:

• Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Oracle Fusion Sales
• Salesforce Sales Cloud
• SAP Sales Cloud

SMB Solutions

SMBs have limited resources and budgets, which are factored into the selection criteria. As SMBs grow, the solution needs the ability to scale accordingly. These are the best-of-breed vendors that provide applications and services without bundling into another platform:

• BSI CRM
• Creatio
• Copper
• Freshsales by Freshworks
• Hubspot Sales Hub
• Insightly
• Monday Sales CRM
• Sugar Sell
• Vtiger
• Workbooks CRM
• Zendesk Sell
• Zoho CRM Plus