This Aberdeen research brief explores how the performance of the most successful sales organizations--and a subset of D&B users--map to best practices of sales effectiveness that yield better knowledge of the customer.

1. This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and represent
the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not
be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
May, 2013
Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices
Adopted by D&B Customers
"Know thy Customer" is a universally acknowledged best practice in the
business-to-business (B2B) space, yet many enterprises and small companies
alike fail to consistently maintain an accurate database of, and strategic insight
into, the prospects and customers they need to satisfy in order to survive.
Aberdeen research conducted among 215 organizations for Sales Intelligence:
What B2B Sellers Need To Know Before the Call (June 2012) included 55 survey
respondents who indicated that they used Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) products
— D&B 360 or Hoover’s — as key components of their sales intelligence
deployments, typically integrated into their Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) platform. This Research Brief will explore how the
performance of the most successful sales organizations, and of this subset of
D&B users, map to best practices in sales effectiveness that yield better
knowledge of the customer.
The Sales Intelligence research process included determining what top-
performing companies adopted, in terms of sales technologies and processes,
which were less frequently deployed by under-performers. The definition of
these high-achieving organizations was determined through Aberdeen’s
traditional Best-in-Class process, which for this study used customer
retention rates and year-over-year changes in team / individual quota
attainment and average deal size as the most valuable yardsticks in evaluating
the results of sales teams. In the same spirit, we see in Table 1 that D&B
product users out-perform all other companies around a number of real-time
sales metrics.
Table 1: D&B Customers Out-Perform All Others in Multiple Sales
Effectiveness Metrics
Sales Effectiveness
Metric
D&B / Hoover’s
Customers
All
Others
Customer retention rate 63% 60%
Average sales cycle 3.9 months 4.6 months
Average time sales reps spend per
day searching for relevant company,
contact, or industry information
0.78 hours 0.89 hours
Average sales deal or contract value
size
$316,050 $239,720
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
Research Brief
Aberdeen’s Research Briefs
provide a detailed exploration of
key findings from a primary
research study, including key
performance indicators, Best-in-
Class insight, and vendor insight.

2. Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices Adopted by D&B Customers
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© 2013 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200
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Whether the measurement is associated with better customer relationships,
faster sales cycles, larger deal sizes, or minimizing non-selling time for front-
line sales reps — 76% of companies indicate that their reps spend more than
10% of their time researching, rather than selling — these individual metrics
combine to paint an effective picture of efficient and profitable sales
operations. Now, let's look at the best practices that D&B customers — and
the Best-in-Class — adopt in order to achieve such results.
Sales Intelligence: Best-in-Class Deployment Necessities
“It’s like drinking from a fire hose!” “I’m busier than a one-armed paper-
hanger!” “How do I cut through all the noise?” … these phrases, and more
like them, are increasingly being associated with the challenges that
contemporary sales professionals face in trying to filter out all the data
available to them about their prospects, customers, and markets. And yet,
more than one-third (39%) of survey respondents indicate to Aberdeen that
“we do not have enough information available about the people, companies,
and markets to whom we sell.” As wonderful as web-based research has
become as a sales prospecting tool, the core competencies of B2B salespeople
— communicating, convincing, and closing — are not only enhanced by
information, but also threatened by it. Hence, deploying a set of technologies
and enabling processes that streamline how sales people digest and act on
sales intelligence is crucial. In Figure 1, we see highlighted five of the most
popular best practices that Best-in-Class companies adopt more often than
other survey respondents; these capabilities provide the focus for this
Research Brief, and will be presented in more detail below.
Figure 1: Best-in-Class Sales Intelligence Capabilities
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
The majority of all companies deploy some kind of sales-oriented repository
of critical customer and opportunity data, although the Best-in-Class lead
All Others with a strong 75% adoption rate. These successful performers both
75%
65%
61%
57%
52%
72%
54%
45% 46%
47%
58%
44%
42%
33% 33%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Sales-focused,
centralized
repository of
account/con-
tact/opportunity
data
Senior
management
fully supports use
of
third-party data
sources
Sales intelligence
available to other
company
functions
Clear
understanding
of industry
segments/
verticals in our
target market
Defined sales
milestones/
stages include
criteria on
use/analysis of
sales
intelligence data
PercentofRespondents
n = 215
Best-in-Class Industry Average Laggard
Sales Intelligence Defined
For the purposes of this research,
the phrase “sales intelligence”
refers to any information used to
educate and enable the sales force
and enrich the sales pipeline. This
includes news on industry trends,
consumer generated / social
content, list / database providers,
analyst reports, prospecting tools,
competitive/market intelligence,
and lead augmentation solutions.

3. Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices Adopted by D&B Customers
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© 2013 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200
www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897
capture intelligence on their prospects, customers, and markets, and also
appreciate the value of storing all of this data in an accessible fashion supporting
inside, outside, and even channel selling partners. This in turn allows all the pieces
of the sales puzzle — contact details, company hierarchies, open opportunities,
and current events — to be accessed in a unified and logical fashion. The CRM
typically is the default technology platform for all of this data, but it is only
effective when not only static data about companies — demographics about
people and addresses, and firmographics regarding financials and organizational
charts — are captured and regularly updated, but the dynamic information such as
social media and news events is also streamed into the interface used by
marketing, sales, and other customer-facing job roles. Indeed, Best-in-Class
companies are 53% more likely than All Others (46% vs. 30%) to automate the
integration of third-party content into their CRM platform. To this point, 81% of
D&B customers predictably report the use of this sales data-repository enabler, a
higher rate than even the Best-in-Class. Finally, when survey respondents are
divided into adopters and non-users of this best practice, we see in Figure 2 that
increased current-year performance results accrue to its use. In addition to these
real-time metrics, users also averaged a year-to-year revenue growth of 7.1%,
compared with 2.7% among non-adopters.
Figure 2: Centralized, Sales-Focused Data Repository Drives Results
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
Next, Best-in-Class firms are 30% more likely than All Others (65% vs. 50%)
to obtain formal executive support for third-party sales intelligence
utilization, and D&B customers are 49% more likely than other companies
(67% vs. 45%) to concur. Experienced line managers know that the farther up
the corporate food chain we see confidence that the sales team will benefit
from an initiative, the better the chance that a formal Return-on-Investment
(ROI) analysis will yield superior before-and-after results from the kind of
sales metrics seen in this study. Successful sales operations leaders know that
"you get what you pay for" and “you can't manage what you don't measure”
71%
64%
62%
50%
42%
55%
25%
35%
45%
55%
65%
75%
Total team
attainment of
annual quota
Sales
forecast
accuracy
Sales reps
achieving
annual quota
PercentageofAttainment
n = 215
Centralized sales data repository All Others
Fast Facts
√ Best-in-Class companies
report an average current
team sales quota attainment
of 77%, compared to 75%
among Industry Average
companies and 34% for
Laggard firms
√ Sales forecast accuracy
averages 77% for the Best-in-
Class, 69% among the
Industry Average, and 31%
among Laggards
√ Fifty-six percent (56%) of
sales reps in Best-in-Class
companies achieve quota,
versus 49% for Industry
Average and 26% of Laggard
firms,

4. Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices Adopted by D&B Customers
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© 2013 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200
www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897
are legitimate aphorisms, and that without C-level agreement that data quality
matters, the inevitable budget wars or office politics may consign them to
poor sales results if top-down organizational support is not firmly in place.
Comparing the sales-and business-oriented results of companies adopting this
approach with non-users, we see in Table 2 validation of actively seeking out
and obtaining senior management support for third-party data acquisition.
After all, what CEO would prefer to grow their top line by less than 4% if at
least an indirect association with sales intelligence investments could yield a
7.54% revenue increase?
Table 2: Benefits of C-Suite Support of External Sales Intelligence
Sources
Sales Effectiveness
Metric
Senior
Management
Support of 3rd
Party Sales
Intelligence
All
Others
Customer retention rate 66% 56%
Average accuracy of internal sales
forecasts
63% 51%
Average annual change in total
corporate revenue
7.54% 3.96%
Average sales deal or contract value
size
$377,130 $109,430
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
Expanding the Scope of Effective Sales Intelligence
By a 39% margin (61% vs. 44%), Best-in-Class enterprises ensure that sales
intelligence acquired from external sources is made available to
other functions within the organization. Contemporary providers of goods
and services are well aware of the need to provide their customers with a
seamless experience or "single voice" in order to maximize the customer's
satisfaction and likelihood to re-order. In order to accomplish this, it is crucial
that every line of business that touches the external customer — marketing,
sales, help desk, contact center — have equal access to at least basic
information about the people and company they serve. Enhanced data about
the behavior of customers, including user-generated social media content, can
also benefit non-sales employees who proactively interact with the buyer,
allowing them to be up-to-date regarding not just who the customer is but
what they need. Best-in-Class companies more fully realize that staffers in
these other departments may also provide better protection for their own
firm, if up-to-date knowledge of important financial, legal, business, or
personnel issues allow them to make better decisions regarding their own
department’s customer-centric mission.
Looking at the performance of companies that adopt this approach, compared
with those who do not, it is worth noting that the crucial metrics around sales
rep quota attainment are most notable. Adopters report that 50% of their full-
Aberdeen’s PACE Methodology
Aberdeen applies a methodology
to benchmark research that
evaluates the business Pressures,
Actions, Capabilities, and
Enablers (PACE) that indicate
corporate behavior in specific
business processes:
√ Pressures — external forces
that impact an organization’s
market position,
competitiveness, or business
operations.
√ Actions — the strategic
approaches that an
organization takes in response
to industry pressures.
√ Capabilities — the business
process competencies
(process, organization,
performance and knowledge
management) required to
execute corporate strategy.
√ Enablers — the key
functionality of technology
solutions required to support
the organization’s enabling
business practices.

5. Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices Adopted by D&B Customers
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© 2013 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200
www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897
time sales reps achieved annual quota, while the rate among nonusers is 22%
lower, with only 39% of reps hitting their number. Moreover, companies
embracing this approach increased the percentage of reps achieving quota by
1.7% on the year-over-year basis, while non-adopters saw the same
percentage decrease by an annualized 2.1%. Certainly, the former metric is
worth pursuing through a higher degree of intra-company collaboration
around job-role-specific access to sales intelligence data. Fifty-six percent
(56%) of D&B customers, finally, deploy this capability; this rate is lower than
Best-in-Class adoption but stronger than Industry Average and Laggard rates.
Next, let's explore why 57% of Best-in-Class companies benefit from
understanding industry segments and verticals more aggressively than
the 41% of All Other firms. In Figure 3, the year-over-year revenue and quota
metrics crucial to sales leaders reflect the advantages of consuming and
evaluating sales intelligence with an eye toward the various types of businesses
and markets to which enterprises try to sell. Adopters also report better
customer retention rates: 68% compared with 54% among non-users.
Figure 3: Properly Segmented Sales Intelligence Yields Annualized
Quota and Revenue Improvements
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
Too many products and services are designed by well-meaning executives in a
laboratory-like setting, where the temptation of “This is a great product!
They’re gonna love it!” is over-emphasized in lieu of actually understanding
whether specific industry verticals, geographic markets, or other segmented
subsets of a potential target audience are truly in need of a solution. Savvy
subscribers to, and consumers of, sales intelligence services that offer
segmentation— the ability to acquire and analyze prospect or customer data
by narrowly defined niches — are better able to focus their efforts during all
phases of the marketing and sales cycle. Whether they discover the need to
create vertical-specific products, segmented marketing messaging, or
geographically sensitive sales pitches, the organizations that take this kind of
6.2%
2.0%
1.2%
4.8%
-0.4%
-1.6%
-2.5%
-0.5%
1.5%
3.5%
5.5%
7.5%
Annual
revenue
Team
attainment
of quota
Reps
achieving
quota
Year-over-yearchange
n = 215
Segmented sales intelligence All Others
Fast Facts
√ Best-in-Class firms report
more widespread use of
sales intelligence, with an
average of 6.52% of all
employees engaged with
such data. This is 25% higher
than the 5.22% among all
other companies
√ The Best-in-Class are 25%
more likely than other firms
to deploy formal win-loss
analyses around either
aggregated or deal-specific
opportunity evaluations;
Industry Average and
Laggard companies are 50%
more likely than the Best-in-
Class to have no win-loss
activity whatsoever

6. Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices Adopted by D&B Customers
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objective view of their target market perform better as a result. In the case of
D&B customers, they are advised to more aggressively adopt this approach, as
only 38% currently do so.
Using the Right Data at the Right Time
Finally, it is important for companies to deploy their sales intelligence in a
manner consistent with any sales processes that have been established as best
practices within each enterprise. Much as Best-in-Class companies are 36%
more likely than All Others (38% vs. 28%) to deploying sales playbooks —
technology-enabled tools and processes that provide "guided selling"
assistance to various selling job roles such as inside, field, and/or channel
partners — they are more frequently connecting selling milestones or
stages with sales intelligence utilization. The idea here is all about the
velocity of sales activity: Best-in-Class companies are more adept at staying in
control of their sales cycle — reporting an average annual shrinking of the
cycle of 2.5%, while All Others saw a 2.8% increase — and taking action when
deals remain in defined sales stages for too long. One of the mistakes that
top-performing companies make less often is that of allowing sales reps, or
even managers, to be overly optimistic in their assessment of how likely
certain opportunities are to close, in what period of time, and for how much
revenue. Aberdeen's research in Better Sales Forecasting Through Process and
Technology: No Crystal Ball Required (July 2012) showcases how the most
successful sales organizations replace emotion with logic — and predictive
analytics — when building accurate and actionable sales forecasts; the
current Sales Intelligence data ratifies this by enforcing the use of intelligence as
a prerequisite for sales stage advancement – Figure 4.
Figure 4: Sales Velocity Improves with Sales Intelligence Integration
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
In other words, consider this dialogue: REP: “good news, boss, I’m moving the
Acme Widget deal up to a 75% likelihood to close!" MANAGER: “Actually, it
70%
67% 66%
48%
60%
48%
57%
38%
25%
35%
45%
55%
65%
75%
Team
attainment
of quota
Sales
forecast
accuracy
Customer
retention
rate
Reps
achieving
quota
PercentageofAttainment
n = 215
Sales intelligence integrated with stage velocity All Others
What Kind of Sales Intelligence?
Best-in-Class companies report
that they use a variety of types
of sales intelligence:
√ 93% Executives / individual
information (75% All
Others)
√ 83% Targeted company
information (75% All
Others)
√ 72% User-generated content
(58% All Others)
√ 62% Contextually relevant
news (53% All Others)
√ 55% Analyst reports on
industries, trends, or
technologies (48% All
Others)

7. Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices Adopted by D&B Customers
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© 2013 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200
www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897
needs to stay at 25%. You haven't provided any BANT criteria in the CRM, or
hardly any details about the people or needs of the company." This scenario is
not merely a punitive conversation; rather, it represents appropriate sales
coaching that requires a rep to perform appropriate due diligence, which in
turn will yield a more fully vetted deal with a better likelihood to close.
Insight: Sales Intelligence Complemented by Additional
Technology Enablers
In addition to multiple references in this Research Brief to the coordinated
deployment of CRM technology platforms and sales intelligence initiatives, we
also know from pending Aberdeen research on Grab the Low-Hanging Fruit:
How Best-in-Class Companies Leverage a 360-Degree Customer View that a
number of enterprise technology enablers can additionally support overall
sales effectiveness. Best-in-Class companies in this data set (those with the
highest customer retention rates and annualized improvements in team quota
attainment and sales cycle reduction) far more strongly adopt the technologies
represented in Figure 5 than under-performing firms.
Figure 5: High Value in Data Quality and Management Protocols
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2012
Technology solutions such as data integration and master data management
(MDM) help companies organize the sales intelligence regarding prospects and
customers that resides in a variety of corporate data silos, into an accurate
and single "version of the truth" that sellers can use to more effectively deliver
an optimized customer experience. Similarly, keeping account data accurate
through manual or automated processes is another crucial key to making sales
intelligence investments worthwhile. After all, do we want our front-line staff
correcting records or closing deals?
50% 50%
31%32%
23%
15%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Data quality/
integration
solution
Process to monitor/
scrub prospect/
customer data
quality
Master Data
Management
PercentageofRespondents
n = 160
Best-in-Class All Others

8. Sales Intelligence 2013: Best-in-Class Practices Adopted by D&B Customers
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Conclusion: Using CRM-Integrated Sales Intelligence to
Drive Better Sales Results
While it is easy to joke about Sales Intelligence as a contradiction in terms,
today's high-achieving professional sellers are actually intelligent enough to
know what they don't know. Their employers have traditionally been willing
to invest in static data subscriptions that provide reasonable demographic and
firmographic content, but only the Best-in-Class recognized the optimal value
in adding behavioral and news-worthy trigger events to the stream of
information arriving in their sales team's hands, and collected in the CRM. By
deploying the best practices delineated in this Research Brief these top
performers — and, for the most part, D&B’s customers — achieve better
sales effectiveness results, grow customer relationships, and accelerate deal
velocity by optimizing their sales intelligence initiatives.
For more information on this or other research topics, please
visit www.aberdeen.com.
Related Research
Breaking the Laws of Physics:
Shortening the Last Sales Mile Through
Workflow Automation; April, 2013
CRM 2013: Generating Business Value
throughout the Enterprise; April 2013
Motivate, Incent, Compensate, Enable:
Sales Performance Management Best
Practices; January 2013
CRM 2013: Manufacturing Success
through Mobilized, Integrated, and Flexible
Deployments; January 2013
Collaborate, Listen, Contribute: How Best-
in-Class Sales Teams Leverage Social
Selling; November 2012
Train, Coach, Reinforce: Best Practices in
Maximizing Sales Productivity; October
2012
Better Sales Forecasting Through Process
and Technology: No Crystal Ball Required;
July 2012
Sales Intelligence: What B2B Sellers Need
To Know Before the Call; June 2012
Partner Relationship Management:
Channeling Better Sales Results; March
2012
Sales Mobility: How Best-in-Class Remote
Sellers Are Replacing “See” with “Do”;
March 2012
Author: Peter Ostrow, Vice President and Research Group Director; Customer
Management, Sales Effectiveness
(peter.ostrow@aberdeen.com) LinkedIn Twitter
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This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group's methodologies
provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless
otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be
reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen
Group, Inc. (2013a)
Fast Facts
√ 40% of all survey
respondents report that
their average sales rep
spends more than 20% of
their time looking for sales
intelligence, rather than
selling. Seven percent (7%)
of companies report an
average of over 50% of their
reps’ time spent on this.
√ In descending order, the
most popular types of sales
intelligence used are:
executive / individual
information, targeted
company data, user-
generated content, and
contextually relevant news.