Work in progress list of Sales Enablement vendors

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Find below a list of Sales Enablement software vendors (Sales Enablement solution, marketing content management, sales knowledge management) and agencies / consulting firms, as of March 25, 2013.

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 they integrate content from existing repositories or upload copies (of what you have in your repositories) into the cloud?
• Can the solution be installed behind the corporate firewall or not? Single-Sign-On?
• Ask the vendor whether the code, that defines how the search weights results, is shared by all customer companies or whether each customer can highly customize it.
• 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 they 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? How quickly can it be updated for org changes? Is it the vendor making the changes or is there an editor?
• 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 is available? (Where in its life cycle is my content? What gets bad ratings? What needs to be retired? What is not being used? What is missing?)

Alinean alinean.com

Altus Corp. altus365.com

AMACUS amacus.net

Attensa attensa.com

AvayaLive Engage (web.alive) web conferencing in virtual 3D environment for meetings, training, sales & support

Avitage avitage.com

Bantam live (acquired by Constant Contact in 2011)

basis06 AG basis06.ch (Switzerland)

BigMachines Inc. bigmachines.com

BizSphere AG bizsphere.com (Full disclosure: I’ve worked here) Suite of Sales Enablement Software Solutions for global businesses with a complex portfolio [of products, services, & solutions] and big sales force / channel partners

Bloomfire bloomfire.com

Brainshark brainshark.com

Callidus (Callidus Software Inc. purchased iCentera) http://calliduscloud.com/products/enablement/

Canidium canidium.com/services/sales-enablement/

changeBEAT changebeat.com

Combionic GmbH combionic.com Germany/Switzerland based. Combionic collaboration software connects people, processes, and information in context and across applications. Enabling sales people and partner organizations with a cloud based slide library. (Full disclosure: I work with them)

Compendian compendian.com small US based vendor with a solution named CollaboRate

d!NK dink.eu Sales library on tablets enables customer facing staff to adapt interactions with customers/prospects to what interests them. Makes sales more effective; better qualification, condensed sales process. Belgium based

Direxxis Marketing dmEDGE™ Distributed Marketing Portal direxxismarketing.com

FatStax fatstax.com (Catalog app that helps sales reps embrace the iPad)

fision fisiononline.com (Marketing Automation & Sales Enablement Cloud Platform)

Game Plan gameplanhq.com (iPad app; connects to Box.com, DropBox, SharePoint 2010, Amazon S3)

immer-uptodate (German. “immer” means always) immer-uptodate.net Enterprise Social Network Software. Create closed groups for [sales] people to exchange knowledge & documents. Has iPhone App. Allows free trial.

inkonit inkonit.com/sales-enablement/

InQuira (Oracle purchased InQuira) inquira.com

InsideView insideview.com

Jive jivesoftware.com/solutions/sales-enablement

Landslide Technologies landslide.com (The Resource Library for easy sharing, retrieval and managing)

Launch International launchinternational.com The Sales Enablement Content Company

LIA LiberatedIntelligence.com Digital Asset Manager that stores in the cloud, routes/syncs to individual devices, and allows access via desktop and mobile web apps. Claims to be enterprise-class.

LogicBay logicbay.com

LTP Sales ltpsales.com training video solutions for sales & marketing organizations

MarcomCentral marcomcentral.com an online, on demand marketing assets management (MAM) solution

Mediafly SalesKit mediafly.com/product/saleskit ensures sales teams, partners, and customers have immediate and secure access to the latest sales & marketing materials, whether online or offline.

MING Labs GmbH minglabs.com Boston, Portland, Berlin, Munich, and Shanghai based User Experience (UX) design company, mobile responsive websites and app development (iOS, Android, Windows8, BlackBerry, etc) as well as Portfolio & Marketing Consulting. (Full disclosure: I work here.)

mutualmobile mutualmobile.com/resources/sales-enablement/ Based in Austin, Texas. Create rich user experiences that re-invent how businesses engage the world through mobile. Custom software solutions. Increase the demonstrable value of mobile.

n-tara ntara.com also SalesEnlightenment.com

Perperitus Sales solution perperitus.com

Playboox Playmaker Solution playboox.com

PocketWorks Mobile Ltd, UK pocketworks.co.uk Enterprise iPad and smartphones solutions in Leeds, UK

Qvidian (Sant and Kadient merged) qvidian.com

RO|innovation (RO|enablement) roinnovation.com/roenablement/

Salesforce.com salesforce.com/content

SalesKB SalesKB.com

Salient6 salient6.com In Bellevue, WA, USA. Designers/builders of portals/applications that drive business results and a prototype Sales Enablement tool to “increase the productivity of your sales force”.

SAVO Group savogroup.com

Scepos scepos.com

Sendside sendside.com

Showpad showpad.com Combination of iPad app & online platform; turns each iPad into a sales enablement tool

SKURA SFX Sales Enablement solution skura.com (talent acquisition by Deloitte)

Solutions for Sales solutionsforsales.com Sales enablement consultancy that helps clients to develop value-based propositions, sales playbooks and sales enablement platforms. Based in Europe&USA

Squirro Squirro.com Harvest content that matters: Revolutionize the way you gather/store/use content that matters

StreetSmarts StreetSmarts(R) Inc. and ELA Consulting Group announced the building of a joint, dedicated Sales Effectiveness Practice

UpSync UpSync.com Sales Process Empowerment & Presentation Tool for web, iPhone, and iPad

Vivisimo Inc (acquired by IBM) Now, Vivisimo Velocity Platform is IBM InfoSphere Data Explorer

VONICAL vonical.com Ottawa, Canada, based full-service agency: Web application development, user experience and interaction design, sales enablement tools and training, gamification and reward platforms, etc…

Woople woople.com Hosted video-based sales enablement platform. Target content to staff & measure its adoption. Woople was developed by the Canadian company Big Bang Technology.

xfi xfi.com/technology/

Yammer yammer.com

zoomstra (zoomstra workbooks) zoomstra.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 [Callidus now] 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‘s 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) [...]“