2019 Sales Resolutions: Keep momentum and add some firsts

If January 1 is a good time for reflections and resolutions, late January-right now is even better. Think about it: it's the first moment of breath after the inevitable burst of post-New Year's activity. The high from your winter vacation's mostly faded, and you're primed to get back to work. You're also deep enough in the year to have forgiven yourself for having not gone to the gym five times a week, like you promised you'd do way back in December.

For those of us in the business world, now's the time to start implementing your real plans for the year: Not the large-scale goals you set in December, but the tactics that get you there-your strategic bets, your revised action plans, your new initiatives. It's time to keep the momentum you've built but introduce some firsts to it.

At Anaplan, we've been doing both. The momentum comes from our being named a Leader in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Performance Management (SPM)¹ for the third straight year. This is an accomplishment about which we are justifiably proud-although our competitors in the quadrant are primarily large companies built through acquisition, we are the only Leader whose platform was natively built to bring together not only a sales organization, but the entire enterprise. This recognition further validates-from a third-party-the strength of our product and our significance in the SPM market.

The first comes in the form of another recognition: Last week Anaplan was named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Sales Performance Management Solutions². The Forrester report states that the SPM solutions category is 'undergoing a renaissance as sales leaders look to gain an edge through new technologies.'

According to Forrester, 'Anaplan differentiates itself with its business planning functionality,' and 'its flexible solution allows sales operations and managers to apply complex attributes to model and define territories….' The report's detailed rankings gave Anaplan the highest score possible in the 'Corporate strategy' and 'Customer success' criteria and the second highest score in the 'Predictive/AI capabilities' criterion.

We believe that Forrester recognized Anaplan's ability to connect stakeholders throughout a sales organization so that the entire organization can optimize its go-to-market strategy. Again, in Forrester's words, 'Anaplan's strength in core business planning functionality and its ability to collaboratively engage multiple stakeholders make it a strong solution for organizations that want to empower both the field and management to engage in a data-driven planning process.'

For sales teams, 2019 is the perfect time to introduce new capacities that will make you even more competitive. The list is long. Aligned territories can keep a sales team more efficient. Rolling out the incentive plan on time gives sellers more time to sell and keeps them happier. Increasing the accuracy of your sales forecast empowers stakeholders throughout the company-not just in sales, but in finance, marketing, supply chain, HR, and other divisions-to better plan their parts of the business. Keeping an entire go-to-market strategy connected allows sales leaders to better assess the effects of their decisions, and the ability to model changes in advance can give decision-makers immediate feedback on potential changes. In addition to all of these, predictive analytics, AI, and automation can help the whole enterprise make better decisions.

As 2019 gets going in earnest, we're thankful for what we've accomplished, including these recognitions from Gartner and Forrester. We're thankful that sales organizations around the world have moved to Anaplan to help increase efficiency, plan the future, and raise the bottom line. At the same time, we look forward to increasing the strength of our platform and helping more companies charge into the year ahead.

As January draws to a close, we encourage you to start implementing the realistic business goals for the year-not the extreme resolutions you made in December, but the steady changes that will improve your business. And that whole 'go to the gym' thing? I guess there's always next December.