At year-end, there's no room for missing your number. Learn how intelligent revenue forecasting helps you call your number with confidence and get the information you need to exceed goals.
The year is almost over, and most companies are focused on closing out Q4 on a high note. Sales leaders are solidifying commits, analyzing pipelines, and scheduling quarterly business reviews (QBRs).
But 58 percent of companies are doing this manually, and the process is time-consuming.1 In fact, 92 percent of businesses struggle with some level of “significant problems” using spreadsheets, according to IBM.2
So why are so many organizations still stuck operating this way?
Manual Forecasting is Wasting Your Time
You download pipeline reports from your CRM. Then you manipulate them in spreadsheets and copy and paste them into a presentation. Yes, this helps you understand commits, hedges, best cases, pipeline health, and coverage. But it’s stagnant, point-in-time data. Once you’ve populated that slide deck, that data is outdated.
And after all that time collecting it, you haven’t even begun to look at what that data is really telling you. The problem with manual forecasting is that you’re only capturing that one point in time. You can’t predict what’s likely to happen. You can’t model out potential outcomes. Come quarter close, if a deal gets pushed, you’re left scratching your head, searching for a reason why.
Fortunately, there’s a better way.
There’s a Better Way with Xactly Intelligent Forecasting
What would happen if you tossed out your old manual forecasting process? From my experience, I’ll tell you it’s completely game-changing. When I began using Xactly Forecasting, it did five key things for me as a sales leader:
- Pulls and aggregates all of my data into one place
- Provides complete visibility into my pipeline growth and trends
- Details opportunities and sales stages that make up my commit
- Provides a predictive score for each forecast category
- Allows me to analyze all of my CRM data in real-time
It's also done two really important things for our organization. It's eliminated data silos and given my team access to the data they need to close more deals. And it’s all because of Xactly Forecasting.
At Xactly, we leverage our intelligent forecasting solution to run our business. I don't have to pull data from multiple sources and waste time working with it in spreadsheets. The tool integrates with our CRM to ensure data accuracy. It also provides intelligent insights to help me drive the right behaviors on my team. That way, I can better understand deal health. The data is always up to date, no matter when it's pulled. That allows us to present QBR metrics directly out of Xactly Forecasting.
It helps us determine how much pipeline is needed to cover our call to set quotas. We can also view conversion rate, opportunity health, and more. That gives us real-time visibility to make informed decisions no matter how markets are changing.
And you can too. Learn more about Xactly Forecasting and how you can get started today in this short guide, “The 10 Data Sources Every Accurate Sales Forecast Needs.
Sources
